On Friday, President Trump hosted representatives of some of the world's largest oil companies at the White House. The president's only complaint seemed to be that the new ballroom wasn't yet complete, because, as he claimed, they could have filled it.
President Trump announced the meeting on Truth Social.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 9, 2026
The president wrote:
The largest Oil Companies in the World are coming to the White House at 2:30 P.M. Everybody wants to be there. It’s too bad that the Ballroom hasn’t completed because, if it were, it would be PACKED. We apologize to those Oil Companies that we cannot take today, but Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, will see them over the next week. Everyone is in daily contact. Today’s meeting will almost exclusively be a discussion on Venezuelan Oil, and our longterm relationship with Venezuela, its Security, and People. A very big factor in this involvement will be the reduction of Oil Prices for the American People. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly of all, will be the stoppage of Drugs and Criminals coming into the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
A reduction in oil prices would be good - up to a point, of course; if prices drop too far, it can make production in some areas not economically viable. That is, though, often a problem that fixes itself in time.
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It's the response from the US Oil & Gas Association, though, that's really interesting.
Here is our afternoon take on this WH meeting.
— US Oil & Gas Association (@US_OGA) January 9, 2026
There are 2 "Must haves" for producers to go back into Venezuela.
1 - We need know our crews are not going to get kidnapped.
2- We need to know investment and capital expenditures are going to be safe from seizure by a foreign… https://t.co/cN38evkfFf
It's a long post, but here are a few highlights.
Here is our afternoon take on this WH meeting.
There are 2 "Must haves" for producers to go back into Venezuela.
1 - We need know our crews are not going to get kidnapped.
2- We need to know investment and capital expenditures are going to be safe from seizure by a foreign government.
The overwhelming show of force from the US military on last Saturday morning – well, that solves the first problem.
Indeed, it does - as long as President Trump is in office. Anything past that depends on who wins the presidential election in 2028; if, in January, 2029, sees, say, a President JD Vance and Vice President Marco Rubio inaugurated (just to name a couple of possibilities) then that assurance will last. If a Democrat should win... Well, if that happened, were I an oil company executive, I'd probably be giving some serious thought to divesting of any assets in Venezuela, and getting my people out.
RE: #2 -- I expect that the Administration will put a very interesting set of financing options on the table for US producers that will link Venezuelan investment not to a company’s CapEx budgets – but to the US government’s international project financing mechanisms such as the ExIm bank or other entities designed to reduce exposure to US interests and investments overseas.
Its’s one thing to have a foreign government seize a company’s asset – but seizing an asset that is financed and back by the US government?
Try it and you gonna get another visit in the middle of the night by representatives of the US military.
The same thing as above applies. Not only the midterms but the 2028 elections. We have to keep control, or all this comes flying apart. We have to win these elections, or all this is for naught. Republicans, strangely, have a bad habit of underperforming on midterms; that has to stop. We have to turn out, we have to win, or all this stops. It sounds tiresome, sometimes, to keep proclaiming every upcoming election as "OMG most important election ever," but we are at a critical juncture. We have to keep this momentum up, and the nation can't afford four years of a President Gavin Newsom - or Kamala Harris.
Back to the US Oil & Gas Association, they make one great, final point:
This is the Art of the Deal and there’s no one better than the guy who wrote the book.
That right there, that is a natural-born fact. We just need to make sure that deal stays in place.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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