Posted originally on CTH on January 27, 2026 | Sundance
The headline is the reality of the thing.
In order to make themselves feel better, the European Union is now banning the EU countries from purchasing discounted Russian oil and gas directly. Instead, the EU will force their assembly to purchase Russian oil and gas from India at a premium. The EU is still buying Russian oil and gas; however, paying more, they believe, will work out better for them in the long-term. Go figure.
The actual target of this oil and gas ban is the nation of Hungary, who as a landlocked nation is dependent on the gas from Russia. The EU ban expressly hurts the position of Hungary because Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has refused to kneel to the dictates of Brussels.
Prime Minister Orban has vowed to sue the European Parliament over the ban. The lawsuit will likely be supported by other EU countries who understand the stupidity of paying India for what amounts to a brokerage fee to deliver the same oil and gas.
🇺🇸🇪🇺🇷🇺🇮🇳 "We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? Europeans signed a trade deal with India. Russian oil goes into India, the refined products come out, and Europeans buy the refined products."
Posted originally on CTH on January 27, 2026 | Sundance
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever held a joint press conference at the North Sea Summit in Hamburg. During the pontificating EU session much anxiety was expressed about the Kingdom of Denmark’s ownership of Greenland and their position to use NATO leverage to remain sovereign to their interests.
During question-and-answer session about EU energy, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen then said this about the position of overall European energy dependence. WATCH:
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Prime Minister Fredericksen couldn’t quite bring herself to say Trump was right; however, the reality of her statement proved that President Donald Trump was right. Imagine that.
Posted originally on Jan 27, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
The EU has now given its final approval to a legally binding ban on Russian gas imports, pretending this is some grand moral victory. Reuters is reporting that the EU will stop importing Russian LNG by the end of 2026 and ban pipeline gas by September 30, 2027, with some flexibility to extend under certain conditions.
The press constantly frames this as “standing up to Russia,” but in reality, this has been nothing more than a shift from one supplier to another while pretending it is independence. Russia was once supplying over 40% of EU gas. By 2025, they managed to reduce it to around 13%. Yet some countries are still buying Russian energy because you cannot run an industrial economy on ideology. Of course, Hungary and Slovakia opposed this, and Bulgaria abstained. Hungary says it plans to challenge this legally. Centralized power strips individual member states of all autonomy, and all nations must abide by Brussels even if it will lead to financial ruin or war.
The EU’s entire problem is that it is run by politicians who do not understand economics, capital flows, or even basic history. They have no comprehension that the energy cost is the cost of production. When you deliberately raise the cost of energy, you raise the cost of EVERYTHING. That is not “Putin’s inflation.” That is EU inflation, caused by EU policy.
I warned that sanctions would trigger disruptions and excuses for supply cuts, and that Europe would be the one paying the price. The EU is heading into a depression because of its own deliberate policy decisions. Net Zero, sanctions, eliminating nuclear energy, attacking farmers, destroying industry, regulating everything to death, and now pretending you can just ban the energy inputs that built modern Europe.
Europe is banning Russian gas not because it makes economic sense, but because the EU has turned policy into religion and demands ideological conformity.
Posted originally on CTH on January 21, 2026 | Sundance
Yes, at the introduction to President Trump the business assembly of WEF leadership they actually thanked Trump and said President Trump has forced the assembly to stop pretending. It must be the art of the deal, folks.
Following the introduction President Trump told the assembly of business leaders there was no need to repeat his prepared remarks and instead spoke off-the-cuff, giving thanks and praise to the audience specific to his intents and purposes. During his impromptu remarks President Trump highlighted leadership in the audience and drew attention to their organizations and business interests. WATCH:
Posted originally on CTH on January 18, 2026 | Sundance
Last week President Donald Trump officially announced the members of the Gaza Board of Peace; an organization headed by President Trump and tasked to oversee the second phase of his plan to end the Israeli conflict in Gaza, specifically the reconstruction and disarmament of Gaza and Hamas respectively. [SEE HERE]
The members of the “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump himself, includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Emissary Steve Witkoff; Jared Kushner; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; an American-Jewish billionaire named Mark Rowan; World Bank President Ajay Banga; and Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States, Robert Gabriel. President/Chairman Donald Trump has also appointed Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisors to the Board of Peace.
At the same time, President Trump announced another executive body that would operate under the Peace Council to assist with the facilitation of a new Palestinian government, the “Gaza Executive Board.” This structure is intended to manage day to day events on the ground instead of a Hamas loyalist govt. The appointees to the executive board have upset the Netanyahu government of Israel.
According to the White House announcement, the Gaza Executive Board will include: Witkoff; Kushner; Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; senior Qatari official Ali al-Thawadi; Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad; Tony Blair; billionaire Mark Rowan; UAE Minister Reem Al Hashimi; former Bulgarian Foreign and Defense Minister Nickolay Mladenov, who also served as the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process; U.N Representative Sigrid Kagg, and Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabbay, who specializes in real estate, technology and international investments.
Additionally, to establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment, Major General Jasper Jeffers has been appointed Commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), where he will lead security operations, support comprehensive demilitarization, and enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials. [link]
According to Israeli media Netanyahu is not happy, and planning to protest the Turkish, Qatari and UAE appointments to Marco Rubio (not Trump):
“A very unusual statement by the prime minister against the US president, following the publication of the members of the “Executive Committee for Gaza” – which includes, among other things, the Turkish foreign minister and a senior Qatari official. “The announcement of the panel was not coordinated with Israel and is contrary to its policy,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
“The announcement of the composition of Gaza’s Executive Committee, which is subordinate to the peace conference, was not coordinated with Israel and is contrary to its policy,” the Prime Minister’s Office said, adding that “the prime minister has instructed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to contact US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on this matter.” (more)
Within the appointments for the executive board, the use of Turkey, Qatar and UAE officials for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza explains the recent parsing of the Muslim Brotherhood chapters as terrorist enablers. When Secretary Rubio made the terrorist designation announcement, the Turkish and Qatari Muslim Brotherhood chapters were notably absent. With the Gaza initiative ongoing, now we see coordinated pragmatism at work.
Rubio chose to focus on Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to target the Muslim Brotherhood. As we noted, “The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were chased out of the country by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over a decade ago. The Jordanian chapter is similarly aligned and was previously targeted by King Abdullah. The Lebanese faction is not as well known, but their support for Hamas is well understood.” {Go Deep}
A few things are obvious.
First, President Trump and Secretary Rubio knew in advance they were going to need the strong influences of Qatar and Turkey if they were going to stabilize the interim Gaza reconstruction governing system. Secondly, both Trump and Rubio knew Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t like that; however, pragmatically Trump and Rubio are doing what is in the best interest of the region as a whole, not being narrowly focused on Israel. Additionally, these appointments have upset the Israel-first influencer group in the U.S.
President Trump is restructuring mid-east stability without the need for direct U.S. intervention. Instead, under President Trump’s approach conflict resolution is the responsibility of the regional stakeholders with strong support from President Trump. It is a similar outlook conveyed to Europe about needing to be responsible for their own defense and security solutions while the USA role is supportive in nature.
In this approach the sharp tendrils of U.S. influence start to be untangled, and the national security focus returns to the USA domestically. Mutually beneficial national sovereignty replaces toxic and unending globalist intervention. This is a similar worldview that President Trump also takes toward trade agreements.
Multilateral trade agreements like the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP) or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), or even the NAFTA/USMCA trade agreement are rejected in favor of direct bilateral free trade agreements with individual nations.
In Trump’s trade policy the multilateral deals are dissolved, while the bilateral deals are affirmed. The same outlook holds true for massive institutional agreements that end up with large entanglements often carrying disproportionate costs and disparate benefits. Like NATO, the USA usually ends up with the largest price tag and least benefit from the agreement.
Is NATO/Europe going to fight China over Taiwan? Of course not. If they were, Canada wouldn’t be making deals with Beijing, and Europe would not be allowing China to purchase stakeholder interests in the European car market. The same pragmatic and reasonable outlook applies right now toward how the EU has responded to the Russia/Ukraine conflict; only “willing” if the USA puts our blood and treasure on the line.
This nationalistic outlook is honestly encapsulated in this recent soundbite from President Trump when asked about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney making a trade agreement with China. President Trump genuinely doesn’t care. WATCH:
Canada can make whatever deal they want with China; however, that doesn’t mean it will work out well for Canada when the USMCA is dissolved and a new bilateral trade deal between the USA and Canada is renegotiated. Factually, it means Canada will end up in a worse economic place, just look at the history of countries that hugged Big Panda. It is their own independent right to be blind to the risk.
Despite all the warnings from President Trump, Europe became dependent on Russia for low-cost energy; how’d that work out for them? Germany now seriously regrets their green energy approach, but there’s nothing President Trump can do to stop multinational assemblies from being collectively stupid; the only thing he can do is mitigate any collateral damage to the USA.
Instead of European leaders calling President Trump every time Turkish President Recep Erdogan does something against their interests, eventually the group will learn how to engage him individually. In a world of bilateral respect, the lessons from Trump could even have the downstream effect of training the EU to drop their obsession with Russia-bad everything.
The Ukraine conflict could end when Europe finally realizes it’s much easier to turn on a Nordstream gas valve than it is to rebuild 30 German nuclear power plants. President Trump’s refusal to commit U.S. troops to Zelenskyy’s security guarantee will hopefully hasten that conversation.
The same pragmatic realism applies to Greenland. Europe will never respond to any increase in strategic threat presented by China or Russia in the Arctic, and the U.S. will shoulder all the costs if that risk were to materialize. Strategic pragmatism combined with economic realism is why President Trump is focused on the security of the North American continent.
Lastly, there is a segment of MAGA that is angered by President Trump’s interim and necessary approach to removing our foreign policy entanglements in both the European and Mideast continents. Those who are short-sighted don’t see how President Trump is strategically and factually withdrawing U.S. policy from a world of enmeshed dependencies, because in reality charity –along with security– begins at home.
Thankfully, the former Lyndon LaRouche assembly from Promethean Action have begun to recalibrate their British-centric focus, and they’ve started to look at Trump policy beyond the ramifications to London and through the more accurate prism of Trump’s global pragmatism. President Donald Trump isn’t trying to unilaterally destroy British imperialism, not directly. Instead, that old, stuffy and elitist collapse is a consequence of reestablishing independent sovereignty.
Smile, live your very best life and watch it all unfold. After all, Davos is going to be a must-watch event next week.
Posted originally on CTH on January 16, 2026 | Sundance |
Germany has a severe electricity shortage and cost problem, and it’s getting worse.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently made the admission that shutting down the German nuclear power reactors was a “severe strategic mistake.”
“To have acceptable market prices for energy production again, we would have to permanently subsidize energy prices from the federal budget,” Merz said, adding: “We can’t do this in the long run.”
“So, we are now undertaking the most expensive energy transition in the entire world,” Merz said with pronounced frustration. “I know of no other country that makes things so expensive and difficult as Germany.”
Keep in mind, Germany represents the largest contributing economy in the European Union. The German industrial sector is the backbone of the European economic model.
All of these realities paint a very tenuous picture for the economic future in Europe, when combined with a new trade relationship with the USA, increasingly cheap goods dumped into the EU by China and the EU promising to continue spending on the war effort in Ukraine against Russia.
Posted originally on CTH on January 16, 2026 | Sundance |
My dear Canadian conservative friends, things look very troubling. You have my deepest sympathies for the events of the next few years that are about to unfold.
We have researched, tracked, measured and followed each detail.
Having travelled to regions of the world in discussions with people who factually determine economic outcomes, it is clear that every single policy shift undertaken by the Canadian government of Mark Carney is exactly the opposite of what is needed. In the next 24 months, the lifestyle of every Canadian will forever change.
Prime Minister Mark Carney bows to Big Panda. The most alarming words spoken during the formal welcome ceremony are prompted below. WATCH: “The New World Order”
Too many words; too small a man.
President Trump is reestablishing an entirely new economic, trade and finance system. The era of the Marshal Plan is over; it has been factually deconstructed in the past 12 months.
Canadians and Europeans are desperately trying to offset the ramifications, hold on to their economic benefits and find a new mechanism to afford the domestic indulgences now eliminated by President Trump and the absence of money.
Both the EU and Canada are looking to China and ASEAN partnerships as a financial offset. However, the ASEAN group has no domestic wealth and can only provide one-way benefits.
Despite the reality of things, denial is rampant. Here are three facts that will not change.
Fact #1: Asia is not a purchaser; they are producers. There are no customers in Southeast Asia, only workers. ASEAN nations are not customers. Any ASEAN trade agreement does not materially gain the EU or Canada any exports.
Fact #2: China is a closed economic system. China does what is in China’s best interests. When negotiating with China, Chairman Xi wears a panda mask to cover the dragon face. China now sees the EU/Canada refusal to adapt as an opportunity to exploit.
Fact #3: The EU and Canada have chased ‘climate change’ and ‘green energy’ schemes into a dead end of economic crisis. The direct and collateral damage is generational, and only just now beginning to surface. When combined with their intransigent resistance to adapt to President Trump’s global economic and trade reset, core issue “reciprocity”, this reality takes both economies down a path that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Choosing to embrace China in lieu of modifying bilateral trade agreements with the USA is a short-sighted fool’s errand. Unfortunately, with political calculations each entity, Canada and/or the EU collective, are pandering to their base out of an unwillingness to change trade behavior as demanded by Trump.
Yes, Canada may end up exporting more very specific goods to China; an offset for some of the USA losses, but at what cost long-term.
Think about the EU auto-sector as an example.
To avoid paying their own climate change fines, the EU automakers are purchasing carbon credits from Chinese EV automakers. In the short term, that trick may diminish the auto company fines to Brussels but think about the longer-term problem.
China takes the revenue from the EU companies and uses it to subsidize their EV exports making their EVs cost substantially less than EU electric vehicles in the EU.
Geely, BYD, etc. can lower the price of an EV in Europe because EU car companies are giving them money. The EU is paying China to destroy the EU auto industry. You cannot make this stuff up.
As a consequence, BYD is now building a factory in Hungary. Additionally, Geely owns 10% of Mercedes. You might have noticed that Mercedes recently announced they are shifting production of their Model-A to Hungary. 20,000 jobs shifted from Germany to Hungary. Victor Orban is good friends with Donald Trump. These are not coincidences.
In the Canadian model, Mark Carney may end up selling slightly more stuff to China but he’s going to end up selling less to the USA because Chinese components are subject to ever-enlarging USA trade tariffs. The USMCA is on the cusp of being cancelled, it will happen this year.
Canada is betting they can export more $$ to Beijing than they will lose in diminished export $$ to the USA. Fine, that’s the bet (a political calculation). However, the reality of the end result is increased dependency on China. That never ends well.
Beijing keeps the panda mask on while the dependency is created, see belt and road; however, as soon as it is in Beijing’s interest to drop the panda mask, Canada will see the dragon face behind it.
From Ottawa to London, to Paris, Berlin and Brussels the geopolitical landscape is changing permanently as President Donald Trump resets their global trade relationship to the United States.
NOTE: despite the claims of the Lyndon LaRouche group (Promethean Action), President Trump doesn’t sit around thinking about how to destroy British imperialism or the multinational financial system. That result comes as an outcome of his reset, a consequence; it is not however, the intent of it.
Instead, President Trump is leveraging the largest consumer market in the world to the benefit of the customer; that’s America. Trump’s direct and specific intent is transactional, to rebuild an industrial and self-sufficient nation that is the envy of the world.
For several generations, Canada and the EU have exploited their biggest customer and taken the U.S. for granted.
In the end, the customer always controls the success of the business.
Posted originally on CTH on January 11, 2026 | Sundance
Energy Secretary Chris Wright appears on Face the Nation to discuss the current and future plans for oil production in Venezuela, while explaining how the current mechanism to sell the oil is operating.
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: This morning, President Trump vowed that Venezuela now has the military protection of the US. This comes just one week after he said the US would run that country. Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is expected to travel to Washington to meet with President Trump this week. For his part, Mr. Trump and his team met with dozens of US oil executives late last week, urging them to commit $100 billion to boost oil production there. Joining us now to discuss it all is the United States Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, good to have you here in person.
SECRETARY CHRIS WRIGHT: Thanks for having me, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I ask you about Venezuela, very quickly, these protests in Iran, not this country reliant on oil to keep its government-controlled economy afloat. The President has been briefed on military options. What is the US willing to do to help?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Certainly the President has been very outspoken about wanting to have freedom and rule of law and capitalism and great relations with the United States return. So we’ll see. I think his moral support has been strong. Certainly, he’s taken a strong stance against the mullahs in Iran in disabling their nuclear program. I think the people in Iran are rising up because they feel there’s a strong America that has their back. I won’t go into the specifics there, but we wish them well, and we’d love to see a free and democratic Iran again.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Will there be more interdictions of vessels carrying Iranian oil? Any more activity on that front?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: I won’t reveal any change in position there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, let me ask you about Venezuela,
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: where you have been very focused and very central to the President’s policy. The President said that Venezuela now has the United States, the most powerful military in the world, to protect them. To protect them, we will. Is the United States military providing security guarantees for American companies?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: We’re not doing that right now, but what we, what he means, is we’re changing the game for what’s happening in the ground in Venezuela. Venezuela has purchased $20 billion of Russian weapons. They got Cuban mercenaries there. They supply oil to Cuba. They, they harbor the Hezbollah’s headquarters for the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela has been a very dangerous, very destabilized place going down the tubes. And with the United States influence now by controlling the sale of their oil and therefore the flow of funds into the country, we think we’re going to, we will see relatively rapid change, improvement on the ground in Venezuela. This is a process. We’re only eight days into the process, but it’s off to a strong start.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it’s off to a quick start. You had the oil executives at the White House just Friday. That the President, excuse me, the State Department yesterday had a security alert I want to ask you about because it specifically cited the risk to Americans in Venezuela, and it said armed militias are setting up roadblocks, searching vehicles for evidence of US citizenship or support for the US. The man who runs those militias is Diosdado Cabello, who is the Minister of the Interior. Is he ordering the hunting of Americans?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Not that we are aware of, but we should be cautious. Look, this is, as they say, eight days into a change into a change of leadership there. The interim authorities are trying to establish power. Collectivos have been running wild over, over Venezuela for, for over a decade. So, yeah, you’re not going to–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Well he controls them.
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: He does.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So is he safe in his position? Because right now the administration seems to be working with him.
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: We need to work with the people that have the guns today to ultimately move the country to a representative government and a better station. But what you’ve got to prevent in the mean term is a collapse of the nation. And I think the strong moves we’re making right now is to influence the people with the guns today, which is part of a process.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you’re not concerned he’s going to undermine the more business minded President Delcy Rodriguez?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Oh, of course we’re worried about things like that. We need to get stability among the leadership in Venezuela. So yes, of course we’re concerned about those things.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So tell me broadly, is the Trump administration’s goal here to acquire the state oil company, PDVSA, and to run it. Are you going to put Americans on the board? How is this going to work?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Well, again, it’s a process. The first thing to do is to reduce the damage to the United States, the inflow of guns and criminals and immigrants and drugs into the United States, the destabilizing of a key part of the Western Hemisphere. We need to stop that. That’s why we’ve entered into Venezuela. Certainly, part of the way to improve Venezuela and to improve the Western Hemisphere and improve the lives of Americans is to get their very corrupt 25 years in decline, oil industry back going again.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does that mean the United States government is going to run it? The president says we’re going to run the country. Are we running this as like as an American state owned oil company essentially?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: No. Today we are running the sale of their crudes. You know, we have a quarantine around their ability to ship oil outside of Venezuela. All of that goes through American crude marketers, and then that crude goes out into the market. We collect those funds and bring them back to Venezuela to better the lives of Americans and Venezuelans. But in the long run, what will happen with Venezuelan oil resources? Yeah, of course, quite likely you’ll see American companies’ expanded presence there. You’ll see growing production. Of course, you’re going to see more American involvement in there. But exactly how that’s going to work, that’s going to unfold over time.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So back in November, us, Judge backed a bid by an American hedge fund to purchase Citgo Petroleum. The Treasury still has to approve that deal. The hedge fund is actually run by a big Trump donor, Paul Singer. Do you want to preserve Venezuelan ownership of Citgo? Do you want to have America have a financial stake in it, like Trump bought a big portion of an intel company, do you want to own portions of oil companies?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Again, that’s going to be up to American businesses. That’s certainly a very real possibility. The Citgo sale is part of, is part of bringing redress to creditors of the United States for the Venezuelan Government. And of course, one, one of the capital providers in that transaction is a hedge fund provider you just mentioned. There’s lots of American investors and American refining entrepreneurs that are involved in that so to take Venezuelan owned refineries that are in the United States and legally through an auction process, transfer them to American owners and American entrepreneurs in the refining business. I think that’s fantastic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s concern about corruption here, though. Will there be Americans installed on these boards? And how do you respond to these allegations that some Trump donors are going to get preferential treatment?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: I can assure you that is absolutely not the case. Absolutely not the case. Think of what President Trump has done for the American oil and gas industry. He’s driven down the price of oil. He’s dramatically reduced–
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s an over supply of oil. And now you’re going to put more on the market.
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Exactly. That’s not- That’s not good for American oil and gas companies.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because it makes it less profitable for them to actually go and invest in drill, baby, drill.
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Exactly. Democrats and President Biden are fantastic for American oil and gas companies because they try to restrict the supply to something that’s essential to life, which only has one possible impact, which is to drive up prices and grow profitability. So President Trump is no, is no helper to the oil and gas industry. And certainly there’s no corruption, preferential placement of people. There’s none of that. I can assure you of that. I’m in the center of this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How are you going to decide the contracts? Is the Treasury going to approve the Citgo dominance there in that–
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: That went through a large auction to buy it.
MARGARET BRENNAN
Are you going to brief to Congress the decisions you’re making about which firms get access?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Absolutely. All that was an auction open to all American firms. There were many bidders, including the coalition of bidders you mentioned. We want those assets to get as much money as possible, to go back to the creditors of the Venezuelan Government. And we want American refinery assets owned by Americans that are going to increase the throughput, drive down the price of gasoline in America.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. So Secretary Rubio said there’s a three point plan, stabilize, rehabilitate, transition. This sounds indefinite, even when you heard some of those oil executives, Chevron’s leadership, they’re already in Venezuela, we should say, said it will take 18 to 24 months to even increase oil production by 50%. So how long is this American involvement? Because he’s saying there, it’s at least a year and a half, two years.
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: They’ve been there for 100 years, and likely, Chevron’s going to be there 50 years from now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the United States government, how long does that role continue?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: You heard the third part of Rubio’s question, which is transition. We want to bring a representative government to the people of Venezuela. I think then you’ll see the full sovereignty back to the government of Venezuela. We don’t have a legitimate government of Venezuela today. We’d like to move and get there, but America–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is there a timeline?
SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: 25 years, this country has gone in decline. President Trump out of the box, creative intervention has allowed us to change the game. But, yeah, I don’t know the timeline of that. It’s not weeks, it’s more months. Could be a year or two could be more.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Secretary Wright, thank you for your time today.
Posted originally on CTH on January 10, 2026 | Sundance
Energy Secretary Wright asked Chevron CEO Mike Wirth to give some information about the current status of the Venezuelan oil industry. Chevron has been on the ground in Venezuela for a long period of time and has significant infrastructure investment already in place.
Wirth notes that with current personnel (3,000) and equipment (4 locations) on site, Chevron could likely double capacity almost immediately, however, from there it would take approximately 18-months to gain more significant outputs.
President Trump asked if Chevron was in a position of advantage from already having their people and material already in operation, Wright noted generally yes, they do; however, the opportunities for industrial capacity gains are significant.
Posted originally on CTH on January 10, 2026 | Sundance
President Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio participate in a roundtable discussion with major oil and gas executives on the issue of energy investment in Venezuela.
The primary concern for oil executives is stability within Venezuela. The Maduro government previously seized the assets of U.S. oil companies, and the investment required to restart the industry at scale are significant.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America