What “Venezuela Oil Money”?

 What money is Trump imagining he’ll get his hands in? His executive order says it’s a matter of national security and foreign relations that he, alone, have access to the government account where the money from Venezuelan oil will go.

What money?

Does he expect to collect the royalty payments oil companies pay landowners for extracting oil from their property? Is that even a provision of Venezuelan law, a practice in the country? And how does the U.S. step in and control that? I don’t mean “legally,” I mean at all? Trump claims he now controls Venezuela, but his State Department is telling Americans to run for their lives. 

Trump thought he was going to come out with deals with the major oil companies for Venezuela’s oil, but Exxon told him VZ was “uninvestable,” and no one in the room disagreed.

And if an oil company did agree to invest in oil production there, is Trump going to nationalize that company and claim all the proceeds from VZ for the U.S.? Or is he just going to claim the “profits”? Maybe a percentage? “Just a taste”?

What the hell does he imagine this is going to happen? He’s going to dip the government’s hands in that revenue stream and divert some? Into an account only he controls? Yeah, I get the corruption angle (could it be more obvious?). I’m talking about the actual money stream Trump imagines. What oil company is going to make a contract with the U.S. government to share some level of proceeds? Especially since the U.S. government has no control over conditions in Venezuela, nor on the legal system in Venezuela, barely even (if at all), on the government of Venezuela. 

How does this magic money get into an account set up by Presidential fiat? Where does it come from? Anything beyond customary royalties is a non-starter. This ain’t Permian Basin sweet, light crude we’re talking about. The value of VZ oil is low. The cost of extraction is high. Where does the U.S. government get its “taste”? On what legal basis, because at least in America, this will be a matter of contract. And what company is going to make that contract without some Congressional authorization for the U.S. government to join it?* On Trump’s say-so? This would be a multi-year investment. Trump is gone in three. The next guy could cancel it before it even starts to pay off.  Or bandits in Venezuela (the same ones terrorizing American citizens) could make the whole matter impossible. Where does the money come from, then?

Does Trump imagine a new form of tariff, one that goes to his “special account” rather than the “tariff shelf”?

Which brings me back to my original questions: where the fuck does the money come from, and how does Trump get his grubby little hands on it?

*Not to mention what consideration the U.S. would give to be a party to the contract. Security guarantees? Military protection in the VZ oil fields? Protection from the well head to the port? How does the U.S. claim any interest in these proceeds? Even the mafia bosses in “The Godfather” do something for their “taste.”