We’re a few days into the new year, and a striking phenomenon so far is that we’ve heard hardly a mention of either AI or silver, both of which dominated hive mind chatter in the last few weeks of 2025. Knocking those two off the top pedestals is a new (for the time being) champ from South America.
Everything changed this past weekend when the US surgically removed Nicolas Maduro as leader of Venezuela. The hive mind went ape. New experts appeared by the truckload. It was sight to behold; dentists from Florida and tech engineers from San Fran all speaking authoritatively on the qualities of Venezuelan crude oil. Millions of people became Venezuelan oil experts after undergoing a gruelling ten minutes of doom scrolling and Wikipedia sleuthing.
Seven of the globe’s eight billion people has now have an opinion on Venezuelan oil, according to my social media feed. The opinions span a spectrum far bigger than I knew could exist. The whole strike on Maduro is under analysis, but oil is the focal point of all sorts of madcap proclamations. Current Venezuelan oil output levels will remain pathetically low indefinitely, scoffed some; don’t you know they’ve trashed the entire place and there are no workers and everyone is still corrupt. Others including one research institution estimated that Venezuelan production could be 10 million b/d within 5-7 years, a fairly wild assessment considering Venezuelan production maxed out at under 4 million b/d a few decades ago. Hive mind cost estimates to rebuild Venezuelan production, from the dentists and software engineers to true oil experts and everyone in between, ranged from $10 billion to $1 trillion. I kid you not. (The $1 trillion number may have been a bit facetious, was aimed at people claiming that Venezuela would “replace Canada” and calculating that absurdity. But nevertheless…there it is.) And nowhere to be found was a catalogue of actually what is left of that country’s vast oil industry, not in terms of a project-by-project build up or even a pictorial chronicling of actually what is there. Some apocalyptic images appeared, but no one will have a good catalog for some time. In a world of critical equipment shortages, such as power transformers with multi-year wait times, much work is required to even have a roadmap.
It was a bizarre couple of days. The entire feed was filled with VZ news about oil, instantly-formed highly-professional protests against the US’ actions, global chatter about repercussions (one Russian citizen lamented that the US would flood the world with oil indefinitely and Russia would go broke), various pockets of outrage and applause, comparisons to the Iraqi invasion early this century (with few making the obvious connection: if your country is run by a tall swarthy man with a substantial moustache, look out) and limitless speculation about what it all meant.
Nevertheless, the hive mind served a purpose and was useful, if you could withstand the onslaught. Or at least it did for me anyway. I’d been fairly wrong in an assessment of the Venezuelan situation back in an early November post. I say ‘fairly wrong’ not as a copout but because part of my error was looking at the wrong subset of facts.
The Trump administration had been supporting the case against Venezuela with comments about drugs, crime and oil. Drugs and crime were highlighted as inexcusable problems emanating from Venezuela, but did not seem to be a reason to fly right over Mexico and Colombia (powerhouses in those two fields) and attack more distant Venezuela. Oil seemed the more likely target, what with the world’s largest reserves and a source of competition for Canadian oil to help with CUSMA discussions coming up shortly. (A new coastal Canadian pipeline, if one ever gets built, will take as long as it would take to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry. Both will probably cost a trillion dollars.)
The hive mind brought in a lot of other significant factors though that gave the right context, I think, to the US’ actions. Y’all can decide on your own whether Madura’s removal was a horrible thing or a great thing, the goal of the exercise here is to understand it.
I now think that oil is not the overarching goal here, because the other reasons provided make a lot more sense. In order to see any sense at all though, one must put aside any Trump-rage for the time being, if you have some, or you will be wasting your time.
The US government, since Maduro’s removal, has started talking less about oil and drugs and more about how the Iran-China-Russia axis was using Venezuela as a ‘base of operations’, as Marco Rubio put it.
In a surprising (to me) twist, one of the best observations/commentaries on this fight against the Iran-China-Russia-Venezuela axis came from none other than Jason Kenney. It is easy to only remember the latter stages of Kenney’s political career as Alberta’s premier, but he was also involved in some very interesting stuff at the federal level some years before that.
Kenney in an X post outlines some of what he saw way back in 2008 when he was federal Immigration Minister: “One of the most fascinating briefings I received as a federal Immigration Minister was from a foreign intelligence agency about the connections between Venezuela and the Iranian terror proxy Hizbollah. And they showed me the receipts…All evidence suggests the cooperation between these two abhorrent regimes has only grown since then, with Iran providing Venezuela with arms, helping to sustain its dwindling oil industry, and to market its sanctioned crude. In return, Venezuela has acted as a kind of giant base of operations for Iran in the Western Hemisphere, including the IGRC and Hizbollah’s ongoing involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering.”
Geopolitical Analyst Velina Tchakarova wrote an excellent article about the battle that she refers to as Cold War 2.0. She documents China’s involvement in Venezuela, another bit of information I was clueless about: “Venezuela absorbed more than 100 billion dollars in Chinese loans, accounting for over 40 percent of China’s total lending to Latin America.” Given how Venezuelan oil production has plummeted, and the country’s industrial base is in such a weak state, it can readily be surmised that Chinese loans were made for a clear purpose that did not necessarily mean simply a nominal rate of return.
Tchakarova lays out the global significance very clearly: “The bloc that prevails will define the rules, norms and enforcement mechanisms of the next international order.” China has quietly amassed near-complete control over critical metal and mineral supply chains, the building blocks for most high-tech machinery and weapons systems. China has formed relationships with countries like Russia that control massive natural resources.
That axis wants to see the US dethroned as the global superpower, the one that won the last Cold War. The US, after a period of mental dormancy similar to Canada’s, now recognizes the bind it is in, whereby major US military weapons can have production controlled or curtailed depending on the actions of China. Now that situational awareness is back in vogue, the US is looking to rectify such shortcomings. Never corner a badger.
The important point, especially for Canadians to consider, is this: the global order is clearly shifting. China and Russia are working together to extend a sphere of influence and support each other’s aims. The US is acknowledging this, and trying to build its own fortress as a means to continue the further existence of the US’ essential architecture of democracy. Europe has chosen to hit the self-destruct button and is marginalized in the battle.
Canada seems in a state of confusion, which is understandable given what we’ve endured the past decade. But we are in some senses no better off now, with a WEF-diehard leader (he is heading to Davos this very month for the annual Festival of Coordinating What’s Best for Bumpkins) that thus far shows no strategic thinking ability to survive in this new world.
The idea of Canada lessening ties with the US is in some sense absurd. We are an integrated energy network, with both oil and natural gas flowing back and forth across the border in absolutely crucial ways. Canada, with a small population for its size, is a Costco of raw materials, energy, metals, and minerals for the US, and despite rhetoric, everyone knows that. The US is our logical trading partner, and underneath the headline rhetoric, we still act that way.
Here is proof of that statement that is about as firm as it gets. The US Department of War issued a news release on Dec 13, 2024: “The Department of Defense (DoD) announced today a $15.8 million award to Canadian company Fireweed Metals Corp. via the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy’s Defense Production Act Purchases (DPAP) office. The objective of this award is to accelerate the development of a tungsten mine at the Mactung site in the Yukon, Canada, which is one of the world’s largest undeveloped high-grade deposits of tungsten.” And then further on in the release, an emphatic statement on Canada/US relations, emphasis added: “…the U.S.-Canadian Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals advances both countries’ common interest in strengthening North American critical mineral production needed for defense, aerospace, clean energy, communication, and other key industries. The plan outlines bilateral commitments to collaborate on industrial base investments, public-private partnerships, and other projects to onshore and expand these capabilities…This is the latest of two awards made by the DPAP office, totaling $22.4 million since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025. Using authorities under the Defense Production Act (DPA) that consider Canada a domestic source, this is also the latest of six awards made to Canadian companies using DPA funds to execute projects based in Canada.”
Consider also just how much Canada falls under the US security umbrella, with or without NATO implications. The longest undefended border in the world is a big deal. Canada and the US are natural trading partners and allies, and that ‘undefended border’ status is a huge asset to both countries that should be encouraged.
The US is going to control the western hemisphere, one way or another. That is the key takeaway from the surgical strike on Venezuela. Maduro’s removal is an indication of just how serious the US is about this. It took a while for that light to go on in my head. I hope Canada’s leaders are much quicker on the uptake. The more we play footsie with China and that side of the global bifurcation, the more we can expect a response from the US of one sort or another. Not of the Venezuelan kind, that is crazy talk, but with major trade negotiations on the horizon…it is imperative that Canada plays its cards wisely.
OK, so you missed the present-giving season. Go shopping anyway. At the peak of the energy wars, The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity challenged the narrative, facing into the storm. And now everyone is coming around to this realization as well. Read the energy story for those that don’t live in the energy world, but want to find out. And laugh. Available at Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca, or Amazon.com.
Email Terry here. (His personal energy site, Public Energy Number One, is on hiatus until there are more hours in the day.)