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Trump to meet with oil execs after HISTORIC Venezuela deal · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's exciting stuff, and it caught me, everybody, by surprise.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: After announcing a major agreement to secure a majority of U.S.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: control over $ 65 billion of oil, proven oil reserves in Venezuela,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: President Trump is reportedly set to meet with American oil
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: refinery executives tomorrow.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So let's break down what this actually means.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: So this was announced late last week, and it looks
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: like we're going to get a shot at the greatest
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: oil reserves in the world. They're going to develop 17
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: strategic fields. A lot of people think there's even more
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: fields out there potentially, but they couldn't explore, let alone extract.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: because of the socialism, communism that took over there. Reduction
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: target of 1.5 million barrels a day. Keep in mind,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: we're putting out millions of barrels a day, but Venezuela
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: is now essentially going to be ours. But it's not
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: like the Venezuelan people aren't going to benefit. They do
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: not have the infrastructure to benefit from this. They're going
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to have the Americans being able to extract and hit
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: maximum capacity, and they're going.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: To get a stream of revenue as well.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Venezuela's benefit will retain ownership and sovereignty, but they're going
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  Speaker 2: to do it for... 25 years. So this deal is
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: going to be in place. What do the oil executives say? Well,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I got some security. I got some certainty. It's time
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: for me to invest.
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  Speaker 1: You would think.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: But let's bring in one of the experts. He's the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation chief economist, E.J. Antoni, to talk about the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: impact of this deal. E.J., this is a very impressive deal.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: But when were we going to actually feel it on
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the market? Great question, Brian.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Now, at the consumer level, it's going to take some time, right?
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: You're talking about a very infrastructure-heavy industry. And so for
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: the consumer, this isn't ultimately going to drop consumer prices
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: for months, if not years, into the future. But one
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: of the things it does do, as you just mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: it's investment, it's infrastructure. In other words, people now have
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: some sense of security where they can start making those
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: investment decisions today.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: They can get back into Venezuela.
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  Speaker 3: They can start the rebuilding process, start repairing stuff that's
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: been neglected under communism. And we can even start increasing
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: facilities on the Gulf, for example, in anticipation of handling
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: more Venezuelan imports in the future.
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  Speaker 2: And these oil and gas companies, you know better than anybody,
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  Speaker 2: they have board of directors and they have investors.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they have stockholders. So they said they want
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to go into Venezuela. No, no. Last time you went
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to Venezuela, we lost all our equipment.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Families were told to get out. They nationalized all the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: oil wells. What certainty do we have? I think this
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: is a strong case to make for the major oil
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and gas companies to say it is now a smart
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: investment to get involved. Not a favor, not a hunch,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: not potentially a good deal.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: This is certainty, isn't it? Well, Brian, that's exactly right.
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  Speaker 3: You know, what happened previously when the communists took over
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  Speaker 3: was essentially all these companies, I mean, their physical property
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: was confiscated, but then also their intellectual property was stolen, too.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: And as you said, they were all kicked out of
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: the country. And in the years that followed, that oil
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: infrastructure just slowly degraded, fell into disrepair because the communists
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: had no idea how to actually manage industry. Now, what
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  Speaker 3: we're looking at today, I think, is a complete reversal
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: where Previously, I think it was the ExxonMobil CEO said
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Venezuela was uninvestable because everyone was afraid that all of
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: that would simply happen again.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: History would repeat itself.
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  Speaker 3: And now you have a kind of government guarantee here,
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  Speaker 3: which I think is going to serve as that backstop
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  Speaker 3: to encourage people to actually get back in there and
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  Speaker 3: to invest. And that's so, so important because, again, this
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  Speaker 3: is such an investment-heavy industry. You can't make these multibillion-dollar
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  Speaker 3: decisions on a whim.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Right. And the best news is, China's not there. We
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: are there. Here's the president of the United States. By
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the way, the gasoline is going to go down. The
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: oil is going to go down like a rocket, going
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in the.
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  Speaker 2: Opposite direction as soon as we win that war, complete
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the war.
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  Speaker 1: Already, you know, we've got total control. I would say
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  Speaker 1: almost total. That could be a nuisance. But we have
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: control of the harmless trade.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So, we're saying with the Venezuela deal and the Iran— when
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the Iran war is over, we're really going to see
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the global— there' s going to be— the global demand will increase, but there'll.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Be a supply.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to basically replace the supply shock with
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the demand shock, Brian. So right now we've been depleting
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: our oil reserves at an astonishing rate, not just us
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: here in the United States, but globally, in order to
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: compensate for the lack of supply coming out of the
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Persian Gulf.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And so once that reopens.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Once the Strait of Hormuz is open again, the oil
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: is flowing, you're going to have this huge demand shock
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  Speaker 3: where everyone wants to refill their reserves. Now, that would
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: keep prices high if you don't also meet it with
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  Speaker 3: some increase in supply. And so that's one of the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: things that the president is hoping for out of this deal.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: And there are a lot of international implications here. You
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: already mentioned China. I think it's also worth mentioning Canada, though,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: because we import a lot of Canadian oil and much
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  Speaker 3: of the oil that comes out. of the Canadian tar
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: sands is actually chemically pretty similar to the stuff that
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: comes out of Venezuela. Not all crude is created equal.
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  Speaker 3: And so what this does here is, by increasing Venezuelan imports,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: it means we're less reliant on Canadian imports, and that
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  Speaker 3: reduces Canada's leverage in the trade talks that we're having
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: right now. So there are a lot, again, of international
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: implications here, some of which are close to home, some.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Of which are a lot further, like China.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that came up with the Ontario premier yesterday because
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: he sees that as a threat.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: E.J., thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Brian. You
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: got it. Great insight.