Above, a Bloomberg interview with an international oil trade expert suggests that the estimates of Venezuela’s “vast oil reserves” are predicated on a price of $150/barrel, as opposed to today’s less than $60.
oops.
At issue is not whether capturing President Nicolás Maduro was the right move. Republicans have almost universally cheered Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuela and welcomed the military raid that removed Mr. Maduro and his wife and sent them to the United States to face criminal charges.
But many Republicans have tied themselves in knots over the past few days to avoid contradicting or seeming to criticize Mr. Trump while confronting major questions about who should govern Venezuela, whether Washington is pursuing regime change there and how deeply involved the United States should be — and for how long — in shaping the country’s future.
“We are not at war,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday. “We do not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country.”
He rejected the suggestion that the United States was engaging in nation-building there. “This is not a regime change,” he said. “This is a demand for a change of behavior by a regime.”
Mr. Trump, though, made no such distinction.
Hours after the raid, he said at a news conference on Saturday that the United States would “run the country” until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” of power could be arranged, raising the prospect of an open-ended military commitment. He did not say whether U.S. forces would occupy Venezuela, although he added that he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.”
The U.S. will sell blockaded Venezuelan oil “indefinitely,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday, a day after President Trump said Venezuela will give the U.S. between 30 million and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that he has directed Wright to carry out his plan for the oil to be taken by storage ships and transported to the U.S.
“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!,” said Trump.
Trump’s post offered the most detail to date about how he intends to make good on his promise to extract oil from the country.
A senior administration official said the sale of oil outlined by Trump would begin immediately. The U.S. is selectively rolling back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude and oil products to global markets, according to the official.
Wright said Wednesday that he was working with the Venezuelan government and that the U.S. would receive Venezuelan oil that is backed up in onshore facilities and floating tankers and then sell it. Many of those barrels were likely bound for China or Russia, say analysts, but have been blocked from the market by a U.S. blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.
Gods this is frightening!
And.
A 37 YO mother, US citizen, has been shot in the face and killed by ice.
Nightmare.
I consider this the ultimate test of the collaboration of mainstream media. Just how far will some of them go to excuse the Trump Administration and the ICE thugs.