FTR, I just chatted for awhile with a guy working nearby , a hard worker with a college degree, born and raised in Venezuela. In a nutshell he is very happy that trump did what he did bc the entire government there is fully in with the drug lords so a massive change was needed and he believes...
Same here.
Regarding the 1.3T trade surplus, this interesting free article points out plenty of issues with it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/opinion/china-trade-deficit-surplus-tariffs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ElA.h-1J.7ucA0BmvnAL7&smid=url-share
Some of it reminded me of the opening pages from the book A New Earth by Eckart Tolle. He writes about what it might have been like to witness the opening of the first flower ever on earth.
The US will "run" Venezuela the same way we were going to build the wall and Mexico will pay for it, and same way $trump was going to stop the war in Ukraine before he even took office.
Utter BS and hogwash.
We seem to have an insane president which does not portend well for optimal results.