From his Facebook post on 1/10/2026.
Kevin Hayslett is in Clearwater.
Everyone Thinks Venezuela Is a Scandal. It’s a Chess Move.
This was a grandmaster move — even if most people don’t see it that way yet. They think what’s happening in Venezuela is a crime story. A narco-state finally exposed. A wanted man. A failed dictator cornered after years of corruption. That’s the surface narrative. And it’s not wrong. But it’s incomplete.
Because sometimes what looks like accountability is actually strategy. And sometimes a single move solves more than one problem at the same time. That’s what this is.
Yes, the Maduro regime was tied to narcotics trafficking. Yes, the United States treated him as an enemy long before the headlines caught up. And yes, there were serious criminal allegations connected to drugs flowing north that were killing Americans. For years, that story existed in plain sight.
All of that matters. But it’s not the reason this matters. The real issue is oil — not as a slogan, not as a meme, and not as a punchline. Oil as leverage.
Venezuela sits on the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. That’s not speculation. It’s not theory. It’s not potential. It’s documented reality. And for decades, that oil didn’t magically appear on the world market. It flowed because American companies invested billions of dollars building the infrastructure to extract it — wells, pipelines, ports, refineries. Licenses were purchased. Fees were paid. Royalties flowed to the Venezuelan government.
This wasn’t pillaging. It wasn’t theft. It was business.
Then ideology took over. Competence disappeared. Production collapsed. Sanctions followed. Infrastructure decayed. And Venezuela did what isolated regimes always do when they run out of options: they sold cheap oil to whoever would take it.
China stepped in. That’s where this stops being a local story and starts being a global one.
Because oil isn’t just money. Oil is movement. Oil is logistics. Oil is the ability to project power quietly and consistently. You don’t run fleets without it. You don’t fly jets without it. You don’t operate factories, sustain a military, or posture around Taiwan without reliable energy behind you.
People like to pretend we’ve moved past that reality. We haven’t.
Right now, America doesn’t need Venezuelan oil. Gas is relatively cheap. Supply is stable. That’s what makes this moment easy to misunderstand. This move isn’t about today’s prices. It’s about tomorrow’s leverage.
If U.S. companies regain access to Venezuelan production, and if those barrels quietly stop flowing east at a discount, nothing dramatic happens overnight. There are no speeches. No missile launches. No war footage on cable news. But the margins tighten.
China’s flexibility shrinks.
Iran’s options narrow.
Russia’s energy web strains just a little more.
That’s how power actually shifts in the modern world. Not with banners and declarations, but with supply chains, access, and constraints. Pressure without confrontation. Containment without combat. Winning ground without firing a shot.
And here’s the part most people miss entirely: the drug story and the oil story aren’t separate. They’re connected. One justification, one lever, two outcomes. Remove a hostile regime tied to poison killing Americans, and at the same time rebalance a critical energy node away from America’s strategic rivals.
People who play checkers see a scandal.
People who play chess see a board change. That’s the difference.
A checkerboard reacts to what’s directly in front of it. A chessboard thinks in layers. Sacrifices are made early so pressure builds later. Pieces are repositioned not for immediate reward, but to limit what the other side can do three, four, five moves down the line.
This is one of those moments.
When a move looks moral and strategic at the same time, it usually isn’t accidental. It’s deliberate. It’s designed to look simple while doing something much more complex underneath the surface.
So yes — it’s oil. Not because America is greedy, but because power still runs on energy. And pretending otherwise is how nations lose influence without realizing it’s happening.
That’s not checkers. That’s chess. And whether people admit it yet or not, the board just shifted.
If this put words to something you’ve been trying to explain, share it quietly with someone who needs to see it. Or share it with the person you’ve been arguing with — the one who keeps insisting this is “just a scandal.”