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Our full discussion transcribed after the break:
by Rod D. Martin
September 3, 2026
I appeared on NTD Good Morning with Cary Dunst to discuss how Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal gives Washington new leverage over Ottawa, offers a free Iran a way to restore its energy wealth, and gives Venezuelans their futures back.
Cary and I discuss:
How Trump’s oil deal hits China, Russia, and Cuba
Why socialism turned an oil superpower into a basket case
How Venezuelan prosperity could become Iran’s future
How Venezuelan crude gives America new leverage over Canada
PLUS how Trump’s deal refills our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for free
It’s a quick 8 minutes: watch the interview, and pass it along!
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Our Full Discussion:
Cary Dunst: Joining us now to talk about the significance of the U.S.-Venezuela oil deal is Rod D. Martin. He’s founder and CEO of Martin Capital. Thanks for joining so early, Rod. Good to see you.
I’d love your reaction to how the Venezuelan oil deal actually ripples and affects Russia and China.
Rod D. Martin: Well, it really does, doesn’t it? It turns out that the fields in question were producing oil that was largely owned by the Chinese and the Russians. From the Chinese perspective, they’re obviously the world’s largest importer.
From the Russian perspective, Venezuela owes them a lot of money. Russia was taking that oil in payment of debt and then exporting it to other countries to try to pay for its war.
Likewise, Venezuela was shipping a lot of oil to Cuba, and we’ve cut that off. The Cubans were using it partly for energy, but partly for re-export so that they would have cash, because they have a socialist economy that produces almost no cash and certainly no quality of life for their people.
That’s exactly true in Venezuela. Venezuela was almost a First World country before the socialists won an election in the 1990s. It has been under increasing dictatorial darkness ever since. The Venezuelan economy has collapsed. The Venezuelan people have been supplementing, if you can call it that, their foodstuffs by raiding garbage dumps. Countless Venezuelans have had to flee the country, to the United States and even to Colombia, all because socialism doesn’t work.
Cary Dunst: Well, another way in which it didn’t work in Venezuela is that it took one of the biggest oil producers in the world and made it into one of the smallest.
They were producing millions of barrels a day. They got down into the low hundreds of thousands of barrels a day. That’s a staggering decline for a country that actually has the largest proved oil reserves of any country on Earth.
Rod D. Martin: Well, these fields represent 65 billion barrels of that oil. It’s an extraordinary amount. These are fields that have to be maintained. The Chinese didn’t have the technology to do it. We do.
The Chinese aren’t going to be allowed to invest the capital, because we don’t want Venezuela to be a Chinese puppet state.
But now American companies are going to go in and develop those fields. The result will be an enormous amount of investment in the Venezuelan people and in skilled jobs for them, giving Venezuela its future back.
Cary Dunst: I want to get to the benefits to the U.S. and Venezuela. But first, I want to get your view: certainly not overnight, but does this have any implications for the Iran war?
Rod D. Martin: Oh, absolutely, mostly because it harms China, and you alluded to that at the outset. China was getting about a $21-a-barrel discount off Brent for years and years. That’s basically a third off their oil.
As we’ve discussed many times, China has been getting 40 percent of its oil from these illicit, illegal, sanctioned sources: Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. That is an enormous prop to their economy. It gives them a huge external subsidy to goods that they’re already subsidizing, for the purpose of putting unfair trade practices in place that allow them to sell products much, much cheaper than anybody else can produce them.
Not through better innovation. Not through better efficiency. Through cheating.
And what that does is destroy American and European industries and American and European jobs. That goes away. And the Iran blockade doubles down on that. Nothing is getting in or out of an Iranian port right now.
So the Chinese are scrambling. They’re having to go out and purchase on the open market. That’s a disaster for them. It’s also a demonstration of a possible future for Iran.
If we were able to go into a free Iran and help the Iranian people redevelop their oil fields, which are in terrible disrepair and terrible disarray now, we could help Iran become a first-world country in the next generation. It would be an extraordinary boon to them and to the entire world.
Canada’s Strategic Folly
Cary Dunst: It’s interesting how that could be a model. What happens in Venezuela could be templatized for Iran.
Now, Rod, I want to get your view on President Trump’s comments that this is essentially the biggest oil deal ever. How does that directly help the Venezuelan people, and how does that advance U.S. interests?
Rod D. Martin: Well, we normally think a lot of what the President says is hyperbole, but this really isn’t. This probably is the biggest oil deal ever. And it’s really quite extraordinary for the United States in multiple dimensions.
One is that we are in a stupid, needless trade war with Canada, which has just lost its mind. Mark Carney is basically telling Donald Trump that he’s going to stand there and hold his breath until he turns blue.
Seventy percent of Canada’s exports come to the United States. They can’t really shift that. And nowhere is that more true than in oil, where they’ve basically boxed themselves in by refusing to build pipelines. Their oil has to ship to the United States. It has to be refined in the United States. If it’s sold to an export market, it has to be sold from the Gulf Coast of the United States. It’s an entirely self-inflicted wound.
They could have built another pipeline to the Pacific, and the government keeps blocking it because of this Green New Scam nonsense. But it’s worse than that. They wouldn’t even allow the building of a pipeline from Alberta to eastern Canada. So most of eastern Canada’s oil comes through pipelines that travel through the United States.
Why on Earth would somebody pick a trade war with a power they’re that dependent on?
Alberta’s oil is a heavy, sour crude that is not dissimilar from what we get out of Venezuela. Many American refineries are optimized for that exact grade of crude because we invested heavily in Venezuela before the socialist takeover, and of course we’ve invested heavily in Alberta as well. So we’re optimized for what they produce.
We can accommodate Canada’s oil and Venezuela’s. But if Canada wants to mess with us, we’re going to have an alternate supply now.
We’re also going to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with this oil for free. That’s part of the deal. So it’s an extraordinary boon to the American taxpayer.
Giving Venezuelans Their Futures Back
Cary Dunst: And just briefly, with about 20 seconds, what does it mean for the Venezuelan people?
Rod D. Martin: This is going to be the first shot in the arm they’ve had since Chávez won his election in the ’90s. They’re going to have a shot at actually having a great future now, because they’re going to make a fortune on this.
If we go down the same road, electing the socialists here, there won’t be anyone to similarly bail us out. We would do well to take note.
Cary Dunst: Well, a deal that potentially will send ripples for decades to come. Rod D. Martin, thanks so much for joining.
Rod D. Martin: Good to be here.
