U.S. Oil and Gas Industry Association President Tim Stewart said President Donald Trump's developing stranglehold on Venezuela could topple its leadership quickly.
Stewart, appearing Friday on Newsmax's "National Report," said Trump's increasing pressure is the right move.
"Sanctions without teeth are meaningless, and these sanctions have been in place in Venezuela since the Obama era, but they have little effect because nobody actually enforced them," Stewart said.
Stewart said Trump's moves are the leading edge of the push against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's regime.
"President Trump's action is [a] necessary first step in enforcing these sanctions," Stewart said. "And the reason why it's crucial is because Venezuelan oil revenue sustains the government operations. It's not the narcotics, it's the oil money."
Stewart noted that the oil and energy infrastructure was commandeered by the Venezuelan government in 2007, erasing billions of dollars worth of assets and oil revenue from mainly American-owned energy companies.
Stewart said if Trump continues to add pressure on Maduro's regime, the timeline will progress quickly.
"Without that oil revenue coming in, the bureaucracy, the security forces, the minimal social programs that the government provides, that collapses, and it's a quick timeline," he said. "It's a 30- to 45-day time period."
Stewart said he supports Trump's strategy.
"I think the president is exactly right," Stewart said. "This is a Marxist regime that's funding terrorism and causing chaos throughout the Western Hemisphere. From the oil and gas industry's perspective, this is probably one of the smartest moves you can make to cut out, to choke off that cash flow."
Stewart offered no prediction about what might happen to the people of Venezuela if the regime collapses.
But he said that increasing oil and gas output in the U.S. under Trump has helped production levels hit their highest point ever. That should help lower retail gasoline prices, he said, but did not say where prices might bottom out.
Trump has been building pressure against the Maduro regime with a combination of military strikes on drug smuggling boats headed to the U.S., and, within the past week, has begun to confiscate ocean-going tankers carrying Venezuelan oil.
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Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
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