Q&A of the Day – The Impact of President Trump’s Energy Policies on Production
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station page in the iHeart app.
Today’s entry: Submitted via Talkback: Hey Brian, I can already see the mainstream media's narrative building on Trump being obsessed with oil. But I'd like to point out that unlike the Democrats, Trump is building a balanced approach to maintaining progressive development of our country's energy resources as opposed to the Democrats. Green good oil bad. What's your thoughts?
Bottom Line: Right, so last week what played out in Venezuela is a microcosm of how so-called experts/analysts continue to get it wrong when it comes to the meaningful impact of President Trump’s policies. A week ago, fears of the U.S. being at war with Venezuela, transition uncertainly and concerns of an oil production collapse that would surely lead to higher prices over the near-term, were to be found with most GSS news reports.
A week later there are no U.S. boots on the ground and there’s been no additional use of force. The transition to an interim government led by the former vice president has been smooth, the U.S. has confiscated $2.5 billion of illegally shipped oil for the benefit of Americans and Venezuelans, and far more oil was shipped out of the country than had happened previously. So, about that as this is the biggest energy-related development coming out of the first week of Maduro’s ouster.
As I broke down last week - Venezuela has 17% of the world’s proven oil reserves – the highest of any nation, and yet were producing only 1% of the world’s oil last year as the nationalized oil industry had almost completely collapsed due to the economic crisis brought about by 20+ years of socialist policies including underinvestment in the state controlled oil industry. In other words, there was effectively only upside to oil production and levels. And what did see occur last week?
According to shipping data tracked by Bloomberg, Chevron, the only U.S. company that had been operating in Venezuela in recent years, loaded about 1.68 million barrels during the first week of January 2026—nearly five times the volume from the corresponding period. The entire output of Venezuela had fallen to about 900,000 barrels per day. Simply getting the corrupt and incompetent Maduro regime out of the way led to a week 1 increase of 87% output for the entire country led by Chevron's actions alone.
This has led to the energy market analysts now becoming more concerned about developments in Iran, and whether the protests by citizens to the terror sponsoring leadership of the Ayatollah, could lead to the government’s collapse (which similar to the removal of Maduro) would be one of the most positive possible developments for the citizens of that country but also the free world let alone the energy markets going forward.
In specifically addressing today’s question here’s the Trump 2.0 energy production scorecard:
- Hydro power: 0%
- Nuclear: +0.2%
- Coal: + 1.4%
- Wind: +1.8%
- Crude Oil: +2.6%
- Natural Gas: +3.5%
- Solar: +34%
Once again perceptions regarding Trump energy policy and real outcomes are generally in two different places. The president’s regulation cuts helped produce an “all of the above” approach to increased energy production in this country – which is essential given the increased demands of the AI age that are playing out at data centers across the country. Most notably though, while growth in oil production was meaningful last year – as record U.S. oil production was achieved – the only two categories of energy production which didn’t reach new record levels happened to be hydro power – which was static largely due to power production being maxed out at existing plants previously (similar to why the growth in nuclear power was as low as it was as well) and coal production.
Nuclear power, wind power, crude oil, natural gas and solar all reached record levels during the first 11+ months of the Trump administration – with solar far-and-away coming out the biggest winner. It’s rather remarkable that an industry as developed as the solar industry enjoyed a 34% increase in energy generation in under a year – but that’s exactly what we saw. For those who will say President Trump is oil obsessed – what is he in regard to the natural gas (which is a cleaner fuel) but especially the solar industry which has thrived unlike any other under his policies?
What’s more? The United States is the most environmentally efficient producer of energy in the world. In other words, no country does a better job at producing less of an environmental impact for power production than we do. Notably, Venezuela has long been the worst producer of energy worldwide. For example, when the U.S. produces oil, the environmental impact, measured in carbon is between 3 to 4 times lower than Venezuela – and well ahead of countries that like to virtue signal environmentalism like Canada.
As mentioned in today’s note – President Trump’s approach is indeed balanced with renewables – largely solar – proving to be the biggest winner by far.