Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Weekly Report.

Making imperialism great again.

It did not take long for President Trump to change the reason for sending the U.S. military

to arrest Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro and his wife.

The allegation that President Maduro ran a drug cartel was front

and center in the months leading up to President Maduro's arrests. Afterwards, President Trump

said the invasion was about Venezuela's oil and announced plans for the U.S. government to send American oil companies

into Venezuela. About a week after the invasion, President Trump had a meeting with executives

from American oil companies to discuss plans for Venezuela.

Some of the company's executives at the meeting were less than enthusiastic about developing Venezuelan oil.

One reason for this is that since the Venezuelan government nationalized oil activities 20 years ago,

fracking has made the U.S. the world's leading producer of oil

and natural gas. Rebuilding the oil industry in Venezuela could cost as much as a billion dollars

for an uncertain payoff. Among the complications,

Venezuelan oil does not easily flow through pipelines

unless it cuts with solvents,

making it more expensive to transport.

In his first press conference,

after the Venezuelan first couple was received.

Okay, sorry, back in here, in his first press conference after the Venezuelan first couple was seized, President Trump said,

we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and

judicious transition. He later stated that Maduro's successor, Vice President Delci

...