Reply #15: the thing is Venezuela is actually more important to the US than the ME [View All]

[plurality]

Everyone thinks that we're so up on controlling the ME because we need their oil. But that's not really the case. We get less than 10% of our oil from the Middle East, but we need to control it because they could produce their oil for around $2 a barrel while everywhere else on Earth it's around $12-14 to produce. So if it were independantly controled they could put the rest of the world's oil producers out of business.

The thing about Venezuela is that they provide us with about 40% of our oil. So if they stopped selling or did something like switching to the euro, we could be equally if not more fucked.