Commentary: Trump's Venezuelan oil adventure is coming apart at the seams

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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 Nicolás 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.

‘If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestible, and so significant changes have to be made.’— Darren Woods, ExxonMobil chairman 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.”Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.Leaving aside that Trump’s authority to make those judgments is questionable in the extreme, so is the oil industry’s interest in...