Tag: Venezuela

Rename it Trumpland

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Trump had a press conference about opening up Venezuela to American Oil Companies.  Of course it was full of “Trump speak;” the greatest this, the greatest that, etc.  But what it came down to is Trump is telling the Venezuelans that American oil companies will be returning to Venezuela and will be under the protection of the American military.  That’s pretty damn good.

These companies had all of their oil extraction and processing equipment seized when Communist Hugo Chávez became the leader in Venezuela.  He nationalized the industry and it proceeded to fall apart.  Instead of engineers the industry was handed over to political hacks.  They brought in the Cubans to help them and they proved that they could make a fabulously oil rich country into a basket case in just a decade or so.

Of course, Trump didn’t provide a lot of the details on how these things will be arranged.  But based on how things worked before Chávez botched it up, the oil companies and Venezuela will both make lots of money.  And all of that extracted oil will lower the price of American gasoline and oil by quite a bit once it’s going strong.

As I said, “Trump speak” is maddening.  It’s like listening to one of Muhammed Ali’s jibber-jabber brag sessions before his fights.  Everything is over the top and outrageous but the results are there.  Ali was the greatest fighter of his generation and Trump is the only President in forty years to actually produce the results he promised.  So, I’ll let him have his bragging session and then I’ll look for a translation into English and the bottom line.  He’s pretty smart.  Increasing oil production (enormously) will have a major positive effect on consumer costs in the United States.  And the revenues that these oil companies will gain will also improve our GDP.  And capturing Maduro let’s Latin America know that Trump doesn’t play games with tin-pot dictators shipping fentanyl to this country.  I expect to see positive results in Mexico and maybe even China because of this.

Okay so where does that leave us with Iran and Ukraine and Greenland?  Well, I may have underestimated the people of Iran.  The actions there have grown from protests to open rebellion.  They’re burning down police stations and IRGC barracks and so far, the military doesn’t seem to be able to stop it.  The size of the crowds is staggering.  There are literally millions of people in the streets of dozens of large cities.  I think the Ayatollah is going to take a plane ride to Moscow and join Assad in the section of Moscow reserved for former Middle Eastern dictators in retirement.  It looks that active.

Ukraine is hopeless.  The Russians and Ukrainians will fight to the last man.  God help them all.

Now what the hell are we going to do with Greenland?  Military bases, oil and mineral extraction?  Ice for drinks?  Trump says he wants to buy it.  I mean, who figures out a fair price for Greenland?  But as I’ve said, after you get finished with the bluster get a translation into English and chances are you’ll discover that Trump is right about Greenland too.  But what do you bet he wants to rename it Trumpland?

Be Careful, Donald

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Well, Trump is definitely disrupting things.  The question is can he keep the whole machine from shaking itself apart.  Venezuela doesn’t bother me.  That’s not even a real country.  It’s a mafia neighborhood with a money-printing machine in the basement.

Iran on the other hand is a much bigger and more dangerous neighborhood.  Their economy is in tatters and the middle-class is so starved that they dared to face off in the streets against the thugs that Khamenei employs to silence all protestors, with a crow bar.  Trump threw in a threat against the mullahs if they start murdering the protestors in the street.  And that is his place as leader of the “free world” I guess.  But is it just an idle threat?  And will these protests really go anywhere?

The last time protests accomplished anything in Iran was 1979 when the Islamists overthrew the Shah of Iran and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini out of exile to begin the Islamic Republic.  And that kicked off the Islamic Revolution by holding Americans hostage for over a year.  Is it possible that enough Iranians are angry enough to risk torture and death to kick the mullahs out of power and turn Iran back into a modern country?  I guess it’s possible but why now?

I read that inflation in Iran is currently at 43%.  That is definitely getting close to some kind of breaking point.  But standing up to men with machine guns and torture cells takes a lot of guts.  I’m far from convinced that anything will come of the Iranian protests.  Now maybe it will soften up the regime into cutting a deal with the West.  Maybe they’ll agree to end their funding of terrorist groups and in that way begin to have economic sanctions lifted against their oil exports other commercial enterprises.

Now, all of this going on at the same time that Ukraine and Russia are battling to the death may not be a coincidence.  Both Venezuela and Iran are Russian allies and trading partners.  These situations may be an attempt to destabilize the Russian economy.  Sanctions against Russia have been skirted in part by using oil tankers that trade outside of the western countries and this is the same strategy that Iran and Venezuela have used.  Perhaps Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on all of these “shadow fleets” to destabilize the economies of all three of these countries.

And maybe it will work.  Iran is badly hurting and Russia is beginning to suffer from the combination of sanctions and war fatigue.  And Venezuela was a sitting duck for US military and covert attacks.  Maybe Trump will get a trifecta of victories.  He might even get his Nobel Peace Prize.

But I’ll have to say it’s an exceedingly dangerous game he’s playing.  There must be dozens of Iranian sleeper cells that snuck in during Biden’s open border policy.  What if the mullahs grow desperate and decide to spread some chaos in the land of the “Great Satan” before they lose control of their own country?  I get so tired of these places on the map that are nothing but misery for their own people and anyone that gets involved with them.  Donald, be careful.