The Oil Arrived Before The Election

Donald Trump brought an oil tanker to a campaign argument. Most politicians settle for a chart. A ship has the advantage that nobody can ask it a follow-up question.

At Tuesday’s Texas rally, Trump pointed to a tanker he said carried a million barrels of Venezuelan oil and celebrated his agreement with the country’s interim government. According to the Guardian, he also floated the possibility of Venezuela becoming America’s 51st state. Apparently the purchase of petroleum now comes with an unsolicited real-estate consultation.

The promises were suitably enormous. Trump said the arrangement would cover billions of barrels, claimed the oil came at no cost to American taxpayers and predicted falling fuel prices. Those are the president’s claims, not an independently established accounting of the agreement. A tanker in the background is evidence of a tanker in the background. It is not an audited budget with a smokestack.

There is, however, something rather important missing from this victory display. The Guardian reports that Venezuela has not held elections since US forces captured Nicolás Maduro in January. The interim government making the oil deal is backed by the Trump administration. Critics say Washington has not pushed a transition to democracy.

So the barrels have a public arrival ceremony. Venezuelans are still waiting for an election. One product has excellent tracking information; the other remains somewhere in the fulfillment process.

That does not make Maduro’s government democratic, or turn his capture into the whole explanation of Venezuela’s future. It makes the unanswered question more urgent: when do Venezuelans get to choose the people signing agreements in their name? Neither removing one ruler nor obtaining another government’s cooperation answers it.

Trump’s statehood suggestion also deserves to be understood for what it was: a suggestion at a rally, not an accession agreement or a decision by Venezuelan voters. The president is exceptionally comfortable auditioning other countries for membership in his announcements. The people who live in them rarely get equal time at the podium.

The domestic sales pitch is cheaper fuel. The Guardian places the deal against the price shock following the Iran war and the closure of the strait of Hormuz. Trump’s administration is presenting the Venezuelan arrangement as relief from a crisis in which its own foreign policy is deeply involved. The repair counter has arranged a very large celebration for the repair counter.

Even if additional oil helps bring prices down, that would not settle the democratic question. Americans can want affordable fuel without accepting that access to another country’s resources is a sufficient substitute for its people choosing their government. The two things do not have to be traded against each other merely because one photographs better from the Texas coast.

There was no shortage of ambition at the rally. There was oil, prosperity, energy dominance and the possibility of a new state. Before adding Venezuela to the flag, perhaps let Venezuelans have a turn with the ballot.