Letter of the Day | Whose oil is it – Venezuela’s or US’s?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

‘Trump’s ‘oily’ reasoning is not entirely unreasonable, as it is ExxonMobil that added their technology to the raw material to create Venezuela’s wealth from oil in the finding and processing of the resource. Now America is saying the Venezuelans are thieves “we want back our investment the oil is ours”.

If you were Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, what would you do?

USA still buys some oil from Venezuela, but Jamaica can’t do it.

I wonder if we had (former prime ministers) P.J. Patterson, Bruce Golding, Edward Seaga or Michael Manley today, would they have acceded to US demands?

If US has its way, ExxonMobil – now in Guyana – will have a significant oil jackpot.

They also have significant chunks of Trinidad oil, so that gives you an idea why Trinidad and Tobago seems closer to the US’s position, as they want a piece of the action.

US, ranked ninth in oil deposits, is No. 1 in global production.

Saudi Arabia is ranked second in reserves and production.

Venezuela is ranked No. 1 in reserves but hardly anywhere in production.

Russia, about seventh in reserves, are ranked third in production.

The Venezuelan people are suffering from all kinds of socioeconomic and political maladies brought on by trade sanctions and oil embargoes.

Buy from Venezuela and “yuh corner dark”; vessel banned from US ports, accounts frozen, and visa opportunities taken away.

Venezuela, if they succeed, will be the poster child on how to beat US sanctions.

Now, in concert with Russia and China, their experts are even developing an alternative to the US dollar-pegged SWIFT payment system.

MICHAEL SPENCE