Palast discusses his latest report on Venezuela with Thom Hartmann

The Acting President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez and Donald Trump desire the same thing: to send Venezuelan oil to the US. But Donald, we already had Venezuelan oil…until YOU embargoed imports of their crude.

Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez enjoyed taunting George W. Bush. I remember when Chavez spoke at the UN General Assembly right after Bush left the podium. Chavez began, “There is a distinct smell of sulphur here.” Bush went after Chavez. It was a bit less subtle than Chavez’ comment. Bush backed the kidnapping of Chavez in 2002. Unlike Trump, Bush’s scheme face-planted and Chavez was returned by his kidnappers, more popular than ever.

But despite the barbs and kidnapping, Bush, with Chavez’ encouragement, kept Venezuelan oil flowing to the US, more than a million barrels a day.

Trump is crowing that, “we’re going to be taking oil” from Venezuela. Mr. President, we were taking Venezuela’s oil until you stopped the flow with an embargo.

Now, it will be nearly impossible, and cost a prohibitive amount, to crank up Venezuela’s production to get back up to the flow quantities we had before Trump’s embargo. Because, when the extraction of super-heavy oil of Venezuela stopped, it congealed into tar and then into asphalt. Refineries and pipes are choked and destroyed, a destruction Trump engineered through blocking Venezuela from paying for equipment to maintain the lines. Now, Trump is trying to bully US oil companies to invest as much as $100 billion to restore the oil infrastructure that Trump himself destroyed.

Trump wants praise for (expensively) rebuilding what he demolished. He’s like an arsonist who wants praise for calling the fire department.

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Excerpt from my latest report, How New Venezuela President Will Save Us from Trump’s Crazy: https://gregpalastinvestigates.substack.com/p/how-new-venezuela-president-will

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Trump wants Venezuelan oil — that we already had!