President Trump’s long-stated idea of “taking the oil” during overseas interventions now has a test case in Venezuela, and the conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is not impressed. In a Friday deal with Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez, Trump announced US rights to some 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s reserves. To the Journal, “it looks less like a normal commercial transaction than it does the famous scene of US businessmen meeting with the Cuban strongman in The Godfather Part II.” Trump boasted on Truth Social that the agreement would more than double US reserves, refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and push down gas prices.
But the Journal sees major red flags: The Pentagon, not a private firm, would be the US investor, taking a 35% stake in a company run by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, an ally of Rodriguez. That raises legal questions about whether the Defense Department can hold equity in a foreign venture—and strategic ones about why it’s playing oil trader at all. The editorial sees all of this as “an example of the Trump Administration extending its creeping crony statism beyond US shores.” And while the deal will likely boost Rodriguez in the short term, the editors add a warning: “ln the Godfather saga, the Cuban dictator got a golden telephone from his visitors but was soon out of power.” Read the full editorial.