Venezuela President says US dillers out to destroy his country, but he is doing bang up job on his own

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:

The U.S. wants to use shale oil as a geopolitical weapon to destroy Venezuela by flooding the market with supply and driving prices down, according to the OPEC member.

Hydraulic fracturing, the method used to remove shale oil trapped in rock, is “destructive,” President Nicolas Maduro said during a national address broadcast on radio and television. Venezuela’s economy shrank 2.8 percent last year as crude slumped almost 50 percent amid the fastest pace of U.S. production in more than three decades while the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries resisted calls to cut output.

“The U.S. wants to use oil as a geopolitical weapon,” Maduro, 52, said during his speech on Jan. 21. “They’re trying to destroy Venezuela.”
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He is giving this administration far more credit for strategic thinking than they deserve.  The administration has actually restricted drilling on federally controlled sites and it has actively opposed the Keystone XL pipeline which would have provided enough Canadian oil to replace oil imported from Venezuela.   Venezuela is being destroyed by a command economy and socialism as well as incompetent leadership.  The sooner this government fails, the sooner the people of Venezuela can return to prosperity.