Drilled
How Trump’s “energy dominance” plan helped fuel the new war in Iran
Mar 2, 2026, 9:17 AM GMT
In 1987, when Donald Trump was first flirting with running for president, he told an audience in New Hampshire that the United States should attack the “horrible, horrible country” of Iran, “and take over some of their oil.” In the years since, Trump talked about grabbing control of the natural resources of Venezuela, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, and Libya, too.
For a long time — including during Trump’s first term — this smash-and-grab idea to corner the global energy supply was treated as something of a joke by outside analysts and political opponents. In this second administration, a version of it has become a building block of American power projection, both at home and abroad.
That policy is one of the reasons why the US captured Venezuela’s president. It’s the same reason why this White House now feels like it can choke Cuba so hard that Havana might cough up its leaders. And it’s why the Trump administration was bragging in the run-up to this past weekend’s massive American-Israeli assault on Iran that it could do so without upending the global economy.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-energy-dominance-oil-iran-venezuela-2026-2?op=1
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