Why Trump’s Oil Imperialism Might Be a Tough Sell for Actual Oil Companies

Over the weekend, the U.S. military entered Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife. Maduro will now face drug and gun charges in New York, and some members of the Trump administration have described the operation as a law enforcement mission.

President Donald Trump has taken a different tack. He has justified the operation by asserting that America is going to “take over” Venezuela’s oil reserves, even suggesting that oil companies might foot the bill for the broader occupation and rebuilding effort. Trump officials have told oil companies that the U.S. might not help them recover lost assets unless they fund the American effort now, according to Politico.

Such a move seems openly imperialistic, ill-advised, and unethical — to say the least. But is it even possible? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob talks to Rory Johnston, a Toronto-based oil markets analyst and the founder of Commodity Context. They discuss the current status of the Venezuelan oil industry, what a rebuilding effort would cost, and whether a reopened Venezuelan oil industry could change U.S. energy politics — or even, as some fear, bring about a new age of cheap fossil fuels.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.

Mentioned:

The 4 Things Standing Between the U.S. and Venezuela’s Oil

Trump admin sends tough private message to oil companies on Venezuela

Previously on Shift Key: The Trump Policy That Would Be Really Bad for Oil Companies

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Heatmap Pro brings all of our research, reporting, and insights down to the local level. The software platform tracks all local opposition to clean energy and data centers, forecasts community sentiment, and guides data-driven engagement campaigns. Book a demo today to see the premier intelligence platform for project permitting and community engagement.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(145)

Why This El Niño Looks Like a Monster

Every few years, the Pacific Ocean’s surface waters become especially warm near the equator, a climatic phenomenon known as El Niño.El Niño is a normal part of the climate system, but even in a normal...

12 Aug 47min

The Big — But Fixable! — Problems in America’s R&D Ecosystem

At this point, when you hear “venture capitalist,” you probably think of … software. Or artificial intelligence. Or cryptocurrency.The Engine Ventures, which spun out of MIT a few years ago, is differ...

6 Aug 57min

Permitting Reform, Data Centers, and More With Senator Heinrich and Secretary Granholm

The Democratic Party’s climate and energy policy is at a difficult moment. Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration has attacked solar and wind energy, started an inflationary war, and ...

3 Aug 33min

What a Permitting Reform Deal Could Look Like

There’s really one one good thing that could happen this year in Congress for clean energy: permitting reform. If lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal on the country’s permitting system, they could mak...

29 Jul 1h 18min

What Barbecue Sauce Has in Common With Carbon Removal

Charm Industrial is a climate tech company that takes biomass and converts it into a heavy, carbon-rich oil that can be injected underground, transmuting and storing the greenhouse gas far from the at...

24 Jul 1h 3min

The Company That’s Raised $60 Million to Geoengineer the Planet

For more than 30 years, a heterodox group of scientists have proposed injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight away from Earth, thereby cooling the atmosphere and reversing...

15 Jul 1h 1min

The New Paper Arguing Biden’s Power Sector Emissions Cuts Are Largely Intact — Even Under Trump

Wait, is the climate policy landscape … in better shape than it looks?Just over a year ago, President Trump passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It repealed many of the Biden administration’s most a...

6 Jul 49min

Why Meta’s Longtime CTO Is Investing in Climate Tech

It has been a hard few years for climate tech. But we recently got a bright spot: Earlier this month, Gigascale Capital announced it had raised $250 million to build the physical infrastructure drivin...

30 Jun 54min