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How New Venezuela President Will Save Us from Trump’s Crazy

The Radical Pragmatist versus Rubio’s Vulture

by Greg Palast. for Raw Story, Substack and Thom Hartmann, January 14, 2026

Trump aims to drop oil to $50 a barrel; Chavez offered that years ago.

The US press is confused. Nothing new there. They are confused about the Acting President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez.

The New York Times says Rodriguez “Went From Revolutionary to Trump’s Orbit”

Oh no, she didn’t.

Rodriguez still attacks Trump as an outlaw kidnapper and imperialist invader. But, at the same time, she says she’s seeking the restoration of diplomatic relations with the US and offers tens of millions of barrels of oil to Trump.

I’ve known Rodriguez for years. Is she a militant Leftist or a moderate pragmatist?

The answer is, “Yes.” I’d call Rodriguez a “radical pragmatist.”

Trump is wise to keep Rodriguez in the Presidential office. Did I just associate “Trump” and “wise”? Yes, but it seems Trump’s wisdom may be accidental. He is reported to be furious at the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado, for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize instead of leaving it to Trump. And the result is that he has vetoed installing her in power.

Notably, oil and finance interests want the “Leftist” Rodriguez to stay — even the CIA wants her to stay. But Sec. of State Marco Rubio and an outlaw US billionaire want her out. Who wins? I’ll handicap the race below.

Trump wants Venezuelan oil — that we already had

Rodriguez and 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.

Chavez’ $50/barrel offer

US voters have decided that price inflation is a real bummer. So, Trump has decided, correctly, that unleashing Venezuela’s oil is the way to go. Trump states bluntly that he wants to open Venezuela’s oil spigots to bring down the price of crude to $50 a barrel. Today, crude sells for just under $60/bbl.

But Venezuela already offered to cap the price of its oil at $50/bbl years ago. In one of my interviews with Chavez for BBC Television, he said he would agree to cap oil at $50 if the US would guarantee that oil would not slip below $30/bbl. Venezuela, unlike Saudi Arabia, could not afford another crash to $10 a barrel, as happened in 1998, which bankrupted South American OPEC members. So, Chavez enthusiastically endorsed this idea of a “band” — you give us a bottom and we’ll give you a top — which was first suggested, notably, by industry consultant Henry Kissinger.

Chavez told me he got along well with Kissinger and George Bush Sr., a fellow oil man. And, as Chavez noted, he was “a good chess player,” a pro at realpolitik, a skill he passed to his protégé Rodriguez.

In other words, Trump killed a hundred people in his coup (and thousands may yet die) to get something by force that he could have gotten by contract.

OPEC: “no brainer” or “no brains”?

The first strike against right-wing fave Machado is her avowed desire to sell off Venezuela’s state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA, pronounced, Pay-day-VAY-sah). What Machado, a neophyte to petroleum economics, does not understand is that full privatization is a direct threat to the oil majors and OPEC.

I’ve seen this movie before. Leading up to the invasion of Iraq, neo-cons within the Bush Administration wanted to privatize Iraq’s state oil companies, selling the fields to American and European majors who would then, the neo-con plan went, compete to maximize output, crash the price of crude and bring OPEC to its knees. Ari Cohen of the Heritage Foundation told me this scheme was a “no-brainer.”

But then I spoke with Philip Carrol, past President of Royal Dutch Shell USA who said, “Anyone who thinks pulling out of OPEC is a ‘no brainer’ has no brains.” Oil companies are not in the business of getting oil; they are in the business of making money. A crash in the price of crude could indeed end OPEC’s price-setting power and no US oil company wants to see their revenues collapse.

There’s also a legal issue. There is no way for Venezuela to stay in OPEC if its state oil company is sold to US interests because US law makes it a crime to participate in a price-fixing cartel. But our government has carved out a convenient exception for state-owned oil companies allowing Exxon and Chevron and their buds to surf on the high prices set by the OPEC monopoly.

Rodriguez is not only Acting President, she remains the Minister of Petroleum and Hydrocarbons. She has a detailed knowledge of the hard realities of oil production. But, she’s a patriot, too. She will not allow the theft or seizure of Venezuela’s oil, but she sure as hell wants to sell us oil again. Chevron, which has worked closely with
Rodriguez, couldn’t be happier. Oil companies don’t want to own oil fields. That’s not how the industry operates. They don’t want the real estate; they want profit. They work with OPEC nations through PSA’s, Profit Sharing Agreements. The issue is always the split of the revenues, not ownership; with the state’s share paid as a “royalty” for US tax purposes.

The last thing the oil companies need is Machado, a free-market fanatic, creating a civil war over ownership of fields that the majors want to drill, not own.

And there’s a practical problem. At $50/bbl, no one is going to drill in the Orinoco Basin, where most of the oil is, because it’s just not profitable to try and pull up the sulphurous gunk there. As petroleum engineer Beck would say, “It’s a loser, baby.” That’s why Trump was so frustrated with the oil big wigs who just met with him at the White House. He’s telling them to dump tens of billions into a money pit, rebuilding what Trump destroyed…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://www.gregpalast.com/how-new-venezuela-president-will-save-us-from-trumps-crazy/

January 18, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, SOUTH AMERICA