Darren Woods is known mostly as the chairman of ExxonMobil,
the largest U.S. oil company.
On Friday, however, he made noise in a different sphere by placing an obscure financial term into the political lexicon:
"#Uninvestible."
That's how Woods described Venezuela
—more specifically, Venezuela's oil industry.
His remark came during a meeting of some two dozen oil executives convened at the White House by President Trump,
whose goal was to collect their praise for his capture and arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro to face U.S. drug trafficking charges.
Trump opened the session with a lengthy spiel suggesting that the spigots of Venezuelan oil would soon be open,
flooding the market with cheap petroleum for the benefit of American taxpayers, Venezuelan citizens
and big oil companies.
He spoke with the confidence of a self-appointed Venezuelan Shogun
—indeed, over the weekend he amended his biography on his TruthSocial online platform to give himself the title of
"Acting President of Venezuela."
Trump told the gathered executives that the U.S. would somehow control which oil companies would be permitted to invest in Venezuela
—"We're going to be making the decision as to which oil companies are going to go in—that are we're going to allow to go in....
You're dealing with us directly, you're not dealing with Venezuela at all, we don't want you to deal with Venezuela."
Leaving aside that Trump's authority to make those judgments is questionable in the extreme,
so is the oil industry's interest in piling into Venezuela.
At current world oil prices hovering around $60 per barrel or less,
large investments in the Venezuelan oil fields would be marginally profitable at best.
The addition of a large new supply from Venezuela, which is thought to have the largest untapped reserves in the world, would only drive the price lower.
At Friday's roundtable, Woods was the most outspokenly pessimistic about reinvesting in Venezuela,
but his remarks corresponded to a new atmosphere in Trump's relationships with American institutions:
#resistance.
Most recently, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome #Powell responded forcefully to the disclosure that Trump's hand-picked U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, served subpoenas pointing to a criminal investigation of Powell and the the Fed
—ostensibly over the cost of renovations of the Fed's Washington headquarters.
On Sunday, Powell issued a written and video statement pushing back:
"This new threat is not about my testimony last June
or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings," he said.
"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public,
rather than following the preferences of the President."
Remarkably, Powell received support from Sen. Thom #Tillis
(R-N.C.)
who sits on both the Senate Banking and Judiciary committees, which oversee the Fed and the Dept. of Justice, respectively.
"If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve,
there should now be none,”
said Tillis, who is not running for reelection.
“It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”
He said he would oppose confirmation of any nominee to the Fed board
—including a looming nomination to succeed Powell
—"until this legal matter is fully resolved."
Powell's term as Fed chair ends in May, though his term as a Fed board member won't expire until 2028.
Tillis' concern was echoed Monday by another Republican senator,
Lisa #Murkowski of Alaska,
who labeled the Fed investigation Monday morning and called the administration's investigation
"nothing more than an attempt at coercion."
She said Tillis "is right in blocking any Federal Reserve nominees until this is resolved."
#Venezuela was one subject on which some Republican lawmakers have voted to thwart Trump:
♦️Five Republican senators joined Democrats to advance a measure that would require Trump to obtain congressional approval for any further military action in the country.
♦️And 17 GOP House members joined Democrats to pass a bill extending Affordable Care Act premium subsidies for three years,
despite Trump's explicit opposition to the extension.
♦️The fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis has drawn bipartisan criticism.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hiltzik-trumps-venezuelan-oil-adventure-202328739.html
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