2025 U.S. - Venezuela conflict

[HavokFour]

Trump is unhappy that the CEO of Exxon apparently called Venezuela “uninvestable” when he summoned oil execs to meet last week regarding the future of Venezuela’s oil industry. In consequence, he may exclude Exxon from this investment opportunity.

Trump says he might keep Exxon out of Venezuela after CEO called it 'uninvestable'

Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Trump that Venezuela would need to change its laws.

www.reuters.com

A sigh of relief from Exxon?

 

[brihard]

A sigh of relief from Exxon?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Stealing viruses from our labs.
Chinese Police stations.
Bounties on our politicians.
Helping to destroy our softwood lumber industry.
The two Michaels.
Flying surveillance balloons over our country.
Money laundering via BC real estate.
Shipping fentanyl precursors into Canada.

Any one of those is reason enough to keep them at arms length. Taken together, along with other untrustworthy acts, just shows what kind of business partner they would be. They respect no one. They are only 'friends of convenience'. They will put your head in a basket, if you have something they want. A pipeline is strategic, it is essential to our security. It should not be left to a country that is, potentially, our biggest threat in the world.

Besides, we should be looking at employing Canadian workers, not Chinese ones.

They are still Red China, even if convention has stopped calling them that.

 

[YZT580]

Nonsense. We gain the same thing with them as we do with any customer - the revenue of selling the good or service. Yea there are other potential customers- if we can offer a better price than their current suppliers. We would lose out by doing so; if China’s best customers on the market for particular goods and that doesn’t otherwise bring overriding national and economic security concerns, not selling simple things to them would be silly. On the other side of the trade balance, forcing a market distortion to buy elsewhere would mean Canadian consumers and businesses would be getting worse prices for the things they need to buy. It wouldn’t help our overall global trade balance.

Looking at bilateral trade balances as if they’re inherently meaningful is economically silly bordering on illiterate. Bilateral trade deficits with less developed countries is part and parcel of being a rich consumer society that wants the best available prices for goods and services. Because of our much higher incomes and standards of living, we simply cannot produce most of these things at a price point that will compete with lower cost overseas producers.

Canada’s overall trade balance tends to fluctuate between a net surplus and a net deficit, reflective of our situation as both a rich consumer economy but that also exports a lot of re materials, finished goods, and services. Current trade tensions with the U.S. are distorting this of course.

If all we did was trade then I could agree with most of what you have written. But when your trading partner deliberately sets it up to ensure that we cannot easily compete and then also tries to buy our resource sources after ensuring that our own industries can't compete then it is time to say no. There is a fine balance and we are witnessing what happens when you throw the balance off with the US tariff thing.

 

[brihard]

If all we did was trade then I could agree with most of what you have written. But when your trading partner deliberately sets it up to ensure that we cannot easily compete and then also tries to buy our resource sources after ensuring that our own industries can't compete then it is time to say no. There is a fine balance and we are witnessing what happens when you throw the balance off with the US tariff thing.

So basically all the other things I’ve been saying on this subject for quite some time.

 

[Czech_pivo]

A sigh of relief from Exxon?

As a shareholder in Exxon, I'm glad that the CEO called it as he sees it currently and at the moment is not off allocating any cash/resources in this folly.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Stealing viruses from our labs.
Chinese Police stations.
Bounties on our politicians.
Helping to destroy our softwood lumber industry.
The two Michaels.
Flying surveillance balloons over our country.
Money laundering via BC real estate.
Shipping fentanyl precursors into Canada.

Any one of those is reason enough to keep them at arms length. Taken together, along with other untrustworthy acts, just shows what kind of business partner they would be. They respect no one. They are only 'friends of convenience'. They will put your head in a basket, if you have something they want. A pipeline is strategic, it is essential to our security. It should not be left to a country that is, potentially, our biggest threat in the world.

Besides, we should be looking at employing Canadian workers, not Chinese ones.

They are still Red China, even if convention has stopped calling them that.

A fair amount of those things or similar used to occur from the late 1940's through to the late 1980's when the Cold War was in place and the name was the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and not China.

A major difference is that we were not acting seeking out, and able to get, large number of Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants during that time period. Those that we did get were well over 99% those wanting to get the hell out and forget Communism ever happened. That's not the case today - a very large (I don't know if it can be accurately defined) number of immigrants from China to Canada (I'm no including HK in this equation) are proud of China, of what its achieved, of where they come from and don't initially have any great love/connection for Canada. They have pretty much no restrictions to go back home to visit family/friends. This was never the case with our Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants from the 40's-80's. They simply couldn't go back, didn't want to go back and, in keeping with the times, travel back was more difficult to achieve.

I see Doug Ford has slightly changed his tune over the last 24-48hrs regarding Chinese auto companies and access to Canada. He's now saying that if China wants to sell EV's in Canada, then they can build a complete factory here and produce the vehicle in Canada. A fairly large change in his direction from before. This would be a stick in the eye to GM/Ford/Chrysler and wouldn't sit well with Trump.

 

[Altair]

A fair amount of those things or similar used to occur from the late 1940's through to the late 1980's when the Cold War was in place and the name was the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and not China.

A major difference is that we were not acting seeking out, and able to get, large number of Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants during that time period. Those that we did get were well over 99% those wanting to get the hell out and forget Communism ever happened. That's not the case today - a very large (I don't know if it can be accurately defined) number of immigrants from China to Canada (I'm no including HK in this equation) are proud of China, of what its achieved, of where they come from and don't initially have any great love/connection for Canada. They have pretty much no restrictions to go back home to visit family/friends. This was never the case with our Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants from the 40's-80's. They simply couldn't go back, didn't want to go back and, in keeping with the times, travel back was more difficult to achieve.

I see Doug Ford has slightly changed his tune over the last 24-48hrs regarding Chinese auto companies and access to Canada. He's now saying that if China wants to sell EV's in Canada, then they can build a complete factory here and produce the vehicle in Canada. A fairly large change in his direction from before. This would be a stick in the eye to GM/Ford/Chrysler and wouldn't sit well with Trump.

I feel like Nostradamus sometimes.

 

[Eaglelord17]

A fair amount of those things or similar used to occur from the late 1940's through to the late 1980's when the Cold War was in place and the name was the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and not China.

A major difference is that we were not acting seeking out, and able to get, large number of Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants during that time period. Those that we did get were well over 99% those wanting to get the hell out and forget Communism ever happened. That's not the case today - a very large (I don't know if it can be accurately defined) number of immigrants from China to Canada (I'm no including HK in this equation) are proud of China, of what its achieved, of where they come from and don't initially have any great love/connection for Canada. They have pretty much no restrictions to go back home to visit family/friends. This was never the case with our Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants from the 40's-80's. They simply couldn't go back, didn't want to go back and, in keeping with the times, travel back was more difficult to achieve.

I see Doug Ford has slightly changed his tune over the last 24-48hrs regarding Chinese auto companies and access to Canada. He's now saying that if China wants to sell EV's in Canada, then they can build a complete factory here and produce the vehicle in Canada. A fairly large change in his direction from before. This would be a stick in the eye to GM/Ford/Chrysler and wouldn't sit well with Trump.

I don’t like Communists but I can understand why many Chinese would feel pride over their accomplishments. They basically brought about the most stability and prosperity in over 200 years to China. Bringing it from chaos, civil wars, and massacres, to peace and prosperity.

Are the communists good? No. Are they the best government the Chinese have had? Pretty much.

When the people you’re compared to are terrible you only have to be ok to shine.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

A fair amount of those things or similar used to occur from the late 1940's through to the late 1980's when the Cold War was in place and the name was the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and not China.

A major difference is that we were not acting seeking out, and able to get, large number of Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants during that time period. Those that we did get were well over 99% those wanting to get the hell out and forget Communism ever happened. That's not the case today - a very large (I don't know if it can be accurately defined) number of immigrants from China to Canada (I'm no including HK in this equation) are proud of China, of what its achieved, of where they come from and don't initially have any great love/connection for Canada. They have pretty much no restrictions to go back home to visit family/friends. This was never the case with our Soviet/Warsaw Pact immigrants from the 40's-80's. They simply couldn't go back, didn't want to go back and, in keeping with the times, travel back was more difficult to achieve.

I see Doug Ford has slightly changed his tune over the last 24-48hrs regarding Chinese auto companies and access to Canada. He's now saying that if China wants to sell EV's in Canada, then they can build a complete factory here and produce the vehicle in Canada. A fairly large change in his direction from before. This would be a stick in the eye to GM/Ford/Chrysler and wouldn't sit well with Trump.

Red China was never Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact. While goals, means and approach were somewhat sympatico, the closest they got to the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact was the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. It existed in various forms from 1937 until 2001 when a new pact, still in force, The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation was formalized in 2002.

▷ What is Red China? |

Introduction: | Learn more about What is Red China?

discoverchinaguide.com

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eastern-bloc

https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Warsaw+pact

2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[RangerRay]

Wait. I thought the reason we want a pipeline to the (checks map)…Pacific was so we could sell oil to (checks map again)…China?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Stealing viruses from our labs.
Chinese Police stations.
Bounties on our politicians.
Helping to destroy our softwood lumber industry.
The two Michaels.
Flying surveillance balloons over our country.
Money laundering via BC real estate.
Shipping fentanyl precursors into Canada.

Any one of those is reason enough to keep them at arms length. Taken together, along with other untrustworthy acts, just shows what kind of business partner they would be. They respect no one. They are only 'friends of convenience'. They will put your head in a basket, if you have something they want. A pipeline is strategic, it is essential to our security. It should not be left to a country that is, potentially, our biggest threat in the world.

Besides, we should be looking at employing Canadian workers, not Chinese ones.

They are still Red China, even if convention has stopped calling them that.

A pretty good list, but you forgot one

China’s Weaponization of Global Cyber Supply Chains

The Chinese Communist Party fuses military and civilian cyber capabilities with coercive influence over private firms to embed vulnerabilities, preposition access, and compromise foreign technological infrastructure.

As global interdependence deepens and digital technologies permeate society, the security of supply chains has emerged as a critical domain of strategic competition. The diffusion of globally sourced components into critical systems extends cyber conflict beyond post-deployment breaches; today, the battle begins before a device first powers on. China’s malign actors can embed vulnerabilities, conceal them through global assembly, and remotely activate them without warning. Visibility into these threats is central to national defense in the digital era.

This challenge is most acute in the intensifying technological rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leverages a uniquely far-reaching capacity to exploit global supply chains through a fusion of military doctrine, intelligence strategy, and party-state control over nominally private firms. Beijing can preposition access points, latent vulnerabilities, and disruptive capabilities within the technological infrastructure of its geopolitical competitors.

China’s Weaponization of Global Cyber Supply Chains | Strategic Technologies Blog | CSIS

China's military-civil fusion turns global supply chains into a battlefield. The CCP fuses state power and private enterprise to embed cyber vulnerabilities and preposition access worldwide, threatening U.S. networks long before conflict begins.

www.csis.org

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Wait. I thought the reason we want a pipeline to the (checks map)…Pacific was so we could sell oil to (checks map again)…China?

It is. But there's no need to give them any control over the commodity or production methods.

 

[QV]

Wait. I thought the reason we want a pipeline to the (checks map)…Pacific was so we could sell oil to (checks map again)…China?

Is China the only place it could be sold off the west coast?

 

[Kirkhill]

Is China the only place it could be sold off the west coast?

I thought there were about 4.8 Billion Asians in that direction and another 1.8 Billion Africans. The Chinese claim something like 1.4 Billion of those but that may be on the high side.

 

[Kirkhill]

FYI

 

[RangerRay]

Is China the only place it could be sold off the west coast?

My guess is if we weren’t selling to them, the pipeline wouldn’t be viable, but I could be wrong. Every valid argument I heard about pipelines was to get it to that high demand in China.

Obviously, as others said, they should not be allowed to invest in the infrastructure for theO&G industry here. But we can sell them the stuff until they do something stupid like invade Taiwan.

 

[QV]

My guess is if we weren’t selling to them, the pipeline wouldn’t be viable, but I could be wrong. Every valid argument I heard about pipelines was to get it to that high demand in China.

Obviously, as others said, they should not be allowed to invest in the infrastructure for theO&G industry here. But we can sell them the stuff until they do something stupid like invade Taiwan.

I suppose if we control some of their oil supply, opposed to less stellar dictatorships, they may not be so quick to do something stupid like invade Taiwan. We can turn it off.

 

[brihard]

Bear in mind that 'Canada' doesn't sell oil to China. Canadian companies do. There's not a tab that the government has a hand on that we can just unilaterally and arbitrarily turn off. It would require something along the lines of imposing formal sanctions regulations under the Special Economic Measures Act, in order to prohibit our companies from doing business with them.

That, of course, would invite immediate and significant reprisal from them. And it would force our sellers to sell at probably a fairly significant discount to attract other buyers, because we would be having to pull them away from their existing supply relationships by offering a better price. Otherwise we just aren't selling our oil.

Weaponizing commodities is fraught with risk.

 

[Kirkhill]

Bear in mind that 'Canada' doesn't sell oil to China. Canadian companies do. There's not a tab that the government has a hand on that we can just unilaterally and arbitrarily turn off. It would require something along the lines of imposing formal sanctions regulations under the Special Economic Measures Act, in order to prohibit our companies from doing business with them.

That, of course, would invite immediate and significant reprisal from them. And it would force our sellers to sell at probably a fairly significant discount to attract other buyers, because we would be having to pull them away from their existing supply relationships by offering a better price. Otherwise we just aren't selling our oil.

Weaponizing commodities is fraught with risk.

But surely every course of action entails risk?