Concerning the Yemen massacre, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have pleaded woefully for a ceasefire. Then, waving their arms wildly behind their backs, they gesture to Saudi pilots to take off to deliver more American ordinance on civilians Houthis rebels.
In Geneva, the United Nations talkers wave their arms wildly in warning of an unparalleled humanitarian crisis. At the White House, a bellowing idiot billionaire waves a mighty hand at a meeting and says, “Sure, call them terrorists of communists, as long as the gas keeps flowing.” Yes, The Trump administration is considering designating Yemen’s Houthi rebels a terrorist organization. After all, this will smooth things over with the 40 Americans paying attention these days.
Today’s hypocrites would cause Jesus himself to depart from the path of forgiveness. The brand of Pharisees in Washington’s temples of power make those who crucified God incarnate look like Girl Scouts. I know my readers will forgive the sacrilege here because it’s about time for some fire and brimstone or big flooding events again. Half the population of Yemen is probably going to die soon, and all because some fabulously wealthy sheiks hate Iranian Shia Islamists and the country’s massive oil and natural gas reserves. Oh, you can throw in that Donald Trump wants to make America great again by pumping more gas into SUVs in the United States than ever before, and you get an idea how come Yemenis must die.
The whole U.S. policy clown show for the last couple of decades has been about propping up an unsustainable “American Dream” that began after we “won” World War II at the expense of the Soviets. I’ll assume anybody is reading NEO is already up with me on all this. So, now let’s looking beyond Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, and into his administration chock full of crooked energy deals.
With Yemen missile explosions still lighting the corners of your mind, let’s turn to a Trump minion named Wilbur Louis Ross Jr., who just so happens to be the current Secretary of Commerce. Now, this Ross fellow is a slippery little billionaire who runs a private equity firm called WL Ross & Co. LLC. Trump’s commerce underboss is notorious for being known on Wall Street as “The King of Bankruptcy,” or a big, crooked shark in my dear departed Mom’s lingo. But let’s forget financial criminals and the crimes nobody’s figured out sentences for, at least for the moment. Ross’ WL Ross & Co. was the “biggest investor” in Navigator Holdings, which owns the world’s biggest fleet of large liquefied gas vessels. He also owned a stake in Diamond S Shipping Group Inc., one of the biggest medium-sized tanker fleets in the world which runs under Chinese and Marshall Islands registries. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this barracuda’s dealings; I only mention him because his presence in the cabinet is symbolic. Okay, and because Trump’s new fracking and drilling rules will send billions to LNG shipping magnates in the next years.
Wilbur Ross supposedly divested himself from Navigator when he assumed the role as Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. Or, he ran Navigator through his chief of staff at the Commerce Department, WL Ross longtime executive Wendy Teramoto. God knows – as they say. We can say the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged WL Ross & Co. for allegedly swindling its own investors, and that Ross reimbursed investors $11.8 million and paid a fine of $2.3 million. As I said, penalties for billionaire crooks are still up in the air. What significant about Ross, Yemen, and MAGA is that while Trump runs interference in the news battling CNN, underneath the trillions and trillions are flowing. Reread that.
Yes, President Donald Trump is one big diversionary Tweeting stock market windup toy. I’ve said this before in a more diplomatic way. All you have to do is look at the cabinet, the circle around Trump, and the policy moves as a function of profiteering. Get this person, every move Trump makes is a business deal – period. As for Ross, the biggest shareholders in Navigator are (get this) are a chain of businesses in the Cayman Islands. But, let’s not get off track. It’s more important to focus on Trump policy and people like Ross (not Vladimir Putin). Few reading this will recall it was Ross who was instrumental in Trump’s U.S.-China bilateral trade agreement that let American companies ship LNG to China! Are you with me now? Let’s play “pretend” so I can drive the point home.
Let’s say Trump’s whole cabinet is a bunch of insider trading, lowlife bankster, economic criminals willing to do anything for money. Let’s further assume that Trump put the thumbscrews to the Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade to the U.S., and then traded off so China would buy American LNG. Now, remember, Russia’s Putin already inked deals for China to take Russia’s gas. Throw in Iran as the largest remaining reservoir of natural gas on Earth, and you see the Trump presidency for what it is. American oligarchs and their European equivalents, versus Russia and China, for total domination of the world. Sensational, I know, but an interesting “play pretend,” no?
This S&P Global report tells us Ross’ (Trump’s) China bet will pay off. Xi Jinping’s country just became the world’s biggest LNG importer, and Putin’s pipeline gas comes in second in Beijing. Now you figure out if I am still typing a “play pretend” story of Trump-Big Energy collusion, or not. Let’s imagine Rex Tillerson just got tired of messing around in Washington, so he quit. He is “Exxon,” remember. (Just saying) Quoting Neil Beveridge, senior analyst at Sanford C Bernstein research, from the S&P story:
“Despite Russian gas, we see a growing gas deficit in the China market from 2020 onwards, with a 90 Bcm gap by 2030.”
BAM! Donald Trump keeps another promise; he’s making America great again for sure. And lining the pockets of the 1% at breakneck speed too. Whoever owns Navigator now (probably Ross through the Cayman Islands people) they made a killing on this Trump detente.
So, how does Yemen factor in? Well, it’s no fairy tale that Trump’s former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon Yemen back in the 1990s. It’s also a fact that Yemen nationalized the gas-drilling operation of Tillerson’s bunch when the exploration contract expired back in 2005. And the man who backstabbed Tillerson and Exxon? Why Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled for three decades until he succumbed to pressure to step down. He then signed on with the Houthis Trump, and the Saudis are trying to kill but betrayed them looking for a better deal in 2017. It is believed that Saleh has hidden some $32–60 billion in at least twenty countries, making him one of the world’s richest persons. The former leader was allegedly killed by Houthis seeking revenge for his betrayal of them, but reports of his death seem sketchy.
My point is already made, I hope. Ross, Tillerson, Trump, and other administration advisors like Quarles (Carlyle Group + Cynosure Group) make the Russians look like soap salesmen. Yemen and the rest of the world sitting over natural resources had a just better look out. And U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo? They’re just killers willing to do what’s necessary. Let’s be real finally; there’s nobody on Earth willing to put a stop to all this killing for oil and gas.
Stay tuned; I’ll have to look at more Donald Trump constituents for my next story.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”