Remember this?
The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-I’m Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
And this?
“We want to work with you. We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and, when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”
Mr. Obama was saying that while he was drastically slowing down leasing and permitting in the US and whining about “subsides” to US oil corporations. We apparently can subsidize government controlled oil companies in foreign countries, but not here (and I’m not arguing for subsidies here – just pointing out the usual Obama contradiction – kind of like he’s against bailouts, except for Chrysler, GM, Solyndra, etc.)
Well, that little jump-start of ObamaDollars has indeed helped “develop these oil reserves”. And the beneficiary?
It didn’t do much for the US, but it made billions for his buddy Soros!