Sunday in Trump's America

I know a lot is happening - but let’s keep our eyes on the ball. Venezuela's oil riches.

Watching Donald Trump try to sell a con in 2026 is like observing a three-card monte hustler who still believes the crowd can’t see his thumb. The Venezuela gambit—that sweaty, palm-greased narrative about Caracas as some narco-terrorist hellmouth threatening Peoria—has all the hallmarks of a Trump production: the bellowing, the flag-waving, the studied performance of righteous fury, and underneath it all, the unmistakable stink of crude.

Let us be clear about what Venezuela actually possesses that makes it so urgently, so desperately in need of American attention: the largest proven oil reserves on planet Earth. Larger than Saudi Arabia’s. Larger than Iran’s. A sea of black gold sitting beneath a government too weakened, too isolated, and too reviled by the international community to mount much resistance should someone—say, a real estate developer with autocratic yearnings—decide it needs liberating.

The drug trafficking talking point has been trotted out with all the subtlety of a Fo…