The question is whether government/people should get $60/barrel revenue before expenses, maybe $40/barrel after expenses, or $10/barrel but pump 5-10x as much, bribed to be loyal to US. Long term, obviously no corruption and high revenue/profit per barrel has its advantages. It’s not as though Exxon/Chevron can’t get access to Venezuela oil with fair deals, it’s that pretending corrupt puppets are the legitimate leaders provides extortion oil costs.

When you understand the hoops the US government is willing to jump through to get cheap foreign oil, you should understand that similar policies are used to deprive Americans of their fair share of resource revenue.

So concerned that we bribed foreign terrorists to blow shit up in Xinjiang, forcing China to spend on education and job programs there.