From March: Venezuela: The Trump Coup And Our Next Oil War
Aggressive Progressive Jimmy Dore interviews Palast
MARCH 6, 2019
Greg Palast
People dont know the Kochs have these giant refineries, some of the biggest in the world, on the Gulf Coast of Texas, in the middle of oilfields. They cant use Texas oil because its not heavy and filthy enough, so they have to take almost all their oil from Venezuela, one of the only places where you get this super heavy oil. Normally its discounted. But because they know the Kochs have to use their oil, Chavez, who was really bright man, was squeezing the Kochs by the cojones and charging them a premium for his oil. The Kochs have been going crazy they were losing money at their refinery because of the price.
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So they had two choices. Buy Tar Sands gunk from Canada, via the XL Pipeline, but its taking too long. First they had to get Trump to come in as president and overcome all of the environmental objections to get the XL Pipeline approved. But it still aint there. So what do you do? You better overthrow the government of Venezuela with some guy named Juan Guaido who said, and I quote, I will open up the Venezuela oil fields to American companies. You have to understand, Exxon was basically thrown out of Venezuela. Theyve had lawsuits going against Venezuela. Guaido says hell pay off Exxon and he will let Exxon take control again of the Venezuelan oil fields. Thats what this game is about, its about the oil.
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And who is this guy Juan Guaido that Trump has said hes recognized as president? Hes not someone who said, Oh, the election was stolen from me. He literally never ran for president. Hes just a 35-year old white guy and thats really at the heart of it. Thats something that Trump likes. He speaks good English, he hung out with the Right Wing think tanks in Washington, went to George Washington University. Hes a rich, white guy. Thats really, really important. And in a Mestizo nation, which is made up of about 70% Mestizos, that is people, as Chavez told me, who are a combination of Negro e Indio, as he said, black and indigenous, thats the majority of the people in Venezuela, but theyre finding a white guy to run it.
https://www.gregpalast.com/venezuela-the-trump-coup-and-our-next-oil-war/