Comment by gtirloni
3 days ago
And the voters who elected Trump because he promised to stop with "nation building".
But with Venezuela's +300bn oil barrels at Trump's disposal now, I bet the gas prices will plummeted. I wonder how the MAGA fanbase will react (probably will be happy to let just this one "nation building" project to slip through their ethics).
I doubt they'll like it, but like most Americans, I think they mostly gloss over foreign policy.
Most Americans can't find Venezuela on a map. (Presumably most humans can't)
They'll overlook this (and similar moves) and pay attention to domestic policy, unless we're dragged into an extended war.
If you remember the aftermath of the Iraq2 invasion (which a lot of people claimed was about oil) gas prices did not plummet at all but the reverse. Gas doubled at the pump, maybe slightly more.
Because the US completely botched stabilizing the country despite 10s of thousands of troops on the ground for years. Meanwhile the indigenous insurgency and the previous to the invasion non-existent but subsequently massed foreign Al-Qaeda in Iraq both ensured no meaningful exports could be accomplished.
In Venezuela it's extremely unclear how suddenly creating a giant power vacuum will allow the US to obtain Venezuela's oil.
On one hand, this seems classic from the Trump Admin in that rash actions have been taken with no future plans in place (cf. DOGE), on the other hand this does appear in line with the promise of "no forever wars" (no sustained US ground presence) and if the US does actually end up with the oil, then it will be at a very low cost (in terms of US blood and treasure).
Gas prices would have plummeted in any case, we have an over supply of LNG that is scheduled to get exponentially worse in the next 5 years