Let’s do the maths. Start with the oil production of the US and add Canada. Then include Venezuela and the rest of Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina and everywhere else in between: Brazil, Guyana, Colombia.

Like it or not, all of them are living under the “Donroe Doctrine” — an increasingly belligerent Washington’s sphere of influence over the Americas. Together, they account for nearly 40 per cent of the world’s oil output.

Then it’s a choice of language to describe what the US administration will do with all those barrels. It may try to exert direct control as in Venezuela, or oversee, influence and simply enjoy the benefits of what’s produced. Whatever the word, President Donald Trump now has his very own oil empire.

With Venezuela, Donald Trump now has an economic and geopolitical lever no US president has had since the 1940s.Credit: AP

And I’m talking about actual barrels already flowing into the market, not underground reserves that would take time and money to be developed. With such resources Trump has an economic and geopolitical lever no US president has had since Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s. At home and nearby, his country can tap a vast sea of oil.

The implications of getting unfettered access to Venezuela’s reserves, the world’s largest, were immediately apparent to anyone in the energy and commodities business, particularly American foes. Oleg Deripaska, a US-sanctioned Russian oligarch, put it well on Saturday: Washington would have the means to keep the oil........

© The Sydney Morning Herald