Just when your Eyewitness was beginning to wonder whether Trump was losing the plot on Venezuela, up he comes to deliver a SLIDER – think baseball, dear reader, not cricket!! – to Mad Maduro!! He just cancelled the licence Sleepy Joe had given to Chevron to pump and ship Venezuelan oil!! Now, the cash from Chevron’s 250,000 barrels per day – a quarter of Venezuela’s production – was pretty must keeping Venezuela out of the economic ICU!! And Mad Maduro was smirking all the way to the bank about his “booming” economy. This move’s gonna hit him right where he keeps the family jewels – in more ways than one!!
For a while there, some of Trump’s moves seemed to suggest he might’ve been softening up on Mad Maduro – what with having to get the madman’s okay to take back 600,000-plus “undocumented” Venezuelan workers in America!! He’d sent his special envoy to Miraflores Palace to meet the madman face-to-face; which pleased the latter greatly, since he insisted that meant he now had “relations” with the US and Trump!! He released some alleged mercenaries who’d been sent to take him out, and they were welcomed back in the States, while he accepted the first of the shipment of deportees.
But now we see that Trump was just using the old “carrot and stick” approach – and pulling the Chevron licence is just about the biggest stick around!! Sleepy Joe had also given permission to several European oil majors to pump and ship oil, plus for India’s Reliance to haul 2 million barrels per month. We’ll have to see whether these are gonna be pulled, in order to further tighten the noose around Mad Maduro’s neck. Finally, there’s the permission for TT to exploit Venezuela’s Dragon Gas Field – which also fattens their coffers – and it’s quite possible that this might be pulled also!! Too bad for the Trinis, though.
But what’s this all about?? Trump has, at long last, dropped the pretence of America intervening in other countries to save “democracy” or “the free world” or whatever, and has announced openly that it’s all about what’s good for America. So, just as Trump told Zelenskyy and the rest of Europe: that his interest in helping Ukraine’s all about getting his hands on Ukraine’s rare earths to the tune of US$500 billion!! – his interest in Venezuela is all about getting America’s hands on the 300 billion boe under Venezuelan soil!!
All the talk about Mad Maduro not keeping his word on free and fair elections last July is just that – talk!! Of course, when Mad Maduro’s removed, it’ll be good to have him replaced with folks like Maria Machado, who’ll play the game!!
And that’s how the (global) cookie crumbles, baby!!
…on infrastructural development
Some folks might be taken aback that the World Bank just gave us a US$156M loan for roads and transportation improvement — but on highly concessionary terms as a “low income country”. So how does this jive with us being the “fastest growing economy in the world”?? Well, what has one got to do with the other?? When Singapore was becoming a developed nation, it fought tooth and nail to retain the “low income” tag in order to keep on getting low-interest loans. What matters most in the development game is getting money as cheaply as possible! Let folks call you what they want – you’ll come out ahead in the end.
But the loan’s also an endorsement of Government’s development strategy. They pointed out the critical nature of roads in the development cycle – which ain’t no “chicken and egg” mystery. Folks ain’t gonna build, say factories, if there aren’t roads to transport raw materials to them, and to later ship out the finished goods!!
…on faith
We’ve just finished the Hindu observance of Shivratri, and are now in the Muslim month of Ramadan, with the Christian Ash Wednesday and Lent – which presages Easter – coming up, along with another Hindu festival of Ramadan.
We’s holy!!
