The first day of Donald Trump’s second term was a national emergency, at least according to the president himself. On Jan. 20, 2025, he declared a “national energy emergency,” pledging to tap into America’s oil and gas reserves. As Salon reported at the time, experts said was a false alarm. At the time, the U.S. was doing fine with its fossil fuel production. The bigger problem, one that Trump continues to deny, centers on curbing emissions and addressing our planet’s overheating problem.
Roughly 18 months later, things have clearly changed. The nation is steeped in an energy crisis of Trump’s own making, largely due to his tariff agenda and war of choice with Iran. Despite a flurry of vague timelines and lofty promises, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be out of the woods any time soon. Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and the recent announcement that the U.S. will take control of the country’s oil fields to the tune of some 65 billion barrels, smacks of desperation. Yes, ExxonMobil has agreed to go along with the theft, but it may be more lip service to the president, as extracting oil from Venezuela would be extremely costly and risky compared to drilling domestically. At any rate, it will be a long time before we see the effects of those moves on gas prices, ethical and environmental ramifications aside.
