That gets bandied about occasionally:
[paywalled. I don’t have a subscription, but I think the thing speaks for itself]
As does:
Trump thinks a weaker dollar is great for America. Is he right? - NPR
Also, I was listening to … NPR (?) yesterday. Some Trump toadie was explaining how legitimate, normal, and good-for-the-average-American our ‘deal’ with Venezuela was going to be.
When I closed my eyes, I could totally imagine I was listening to Kermit Roosevelt spinning the Eisenhower Administration’s position on Operation Ajax.
Venezuela. Iran. Greenland? Forgive a wee bit of AI content, if you would:
Relevant AI content
The “resource richness” of Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland represents three completely different profiles of natural wealth, spanning traditional fossil fuel dominance, diversified hydrocarbon reserves, and the future frontier of green technology minerals.
Here is a direct comparison of how their resource profiles stack up:
| Territory |
Primary Resource Strengths |
Global Rank / Significance |
Accessibility & Status |
| Venezuela |
Liquid Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Gold, Iron Ore |
#1 largest proven oil reserves globally |
High volume, low optimization: Mostly heavy crude requiring complex refining; heavily limited by political and economic collapse. |
| Iran |
Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Zinc, Copper, Petrochemicals |
#2 largest gas reserves, #3–4 oil reserves; world-class mineral diversity |
High diversification, trapped value: Readily extractable but severely choked by decades of international sanctions and infrastructure underinvestment. |
| Greenland |
Rare Earth Elements (REEs), Titanium, Platinum, Hydro-power, Freshwater |
Top-tier untapped global frontier for critical tech minerals |
Low current extraction, massive future potential: Extensively trapped beneath ice sheet; highly sensitive to climate change and environmental regulations. |
Venezuela: The Single-Resource Titan
Venezuela is the definition of hyper-concentrated fossil wealth. It sits on an estimated 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, surpassing Saudi Arabia.
- The Heavy Catch: The vast majority of Venezuela’s oil is located in the Orinoco Belt and consists of “extra-heavy crude.” Unlike light, sweet crude, this oil is thick like molasses and requires specialized refining or mixing with diluents to flow and process, making extraction more expensive.
- The Resource Curse: Venezuela is a textbook example of the “resource curse” (or Dutch Disease). Its extreme reliance on oil completely hollowed out its manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Decades of political volatility, mismanagement of the state oil company (PDVSA), and heavy international sanctions have left its massive reserves largely stranded or under-produced. [2]
Iran: The Hydrocarbon and Mineral Powerhouse
Unlike Venezuela’s concentration on heavy oil, Iran possesses a highly diversified, world-class portfolio of both energy and hard minerals.
- Dual Energy Dominance: Iran holds the world’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves (anchored by the massive offshore South Pars field) and sits comfortably in the top four for global oil reserves.
- The Mineral Backbone: Beyond hydrocarbons, Iran is located on an incredibly rich Tethyan metallogenic belt. It holds some of the world’s largest deposits of zinc, copper, decorative stone, and iron ore.
- The Infrastructure Bottleneck: Because Iran has faced rounds of strict economic sanctions over decades, it lacks the Western capital and advanced technology needed to modernize its extraction facilities. Much of its resource wealth is either heavily consumed domestically or exported through limited, sanctioned trade channels.
Greenland: The Green-Tech Frontier
Greenland represents a completely different kind of resource richness. It is not an active industrial powerhouse but rather the world’s premier untapped frontier for critical minerals essential to the global energy transition.
- The Clean Energy Treasury: Greenland contains immense, untouched deposits of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) (such as neodymium and praseodymium), which are vital for electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and defense technology. It also boasts massive reserves of platinum, palladium, titanium, and nickel.
- Water and Ice: Aside from minerals, Greenland holds roughly 10% of the world’s freshwater reserves in its ice sheet. As global scarcity increases, this pure water and the potential for massive coastal hydropower are becoming major strategic assets.
- The Climate Paradox: Greenland’s resources are incredibly difficult to extract because they are locked beneath thick ice sheets in a harsh Arctic environment with virtually no roads or deep-water ports. However, climate change is melting the ice pack, making these critical elements increasingly accessible and turning Greenland into a geopolitical tug-of-war between the West, Russia, and China.
AI responses may include mistakes.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/BJP4KarbianglongEast/posts/venezuela-sits-on-a-173-trillion-treasure-oil-wealth-bigger-than-the-worlds-bigg/876273614989008/
[2] https://theses.hal.science/tel-02521345v1/file/KIRAT.pdf
Coincidence? Hm.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!!
–Mr. Oleg Arch
