Developing Venezuela won't be as simple as Trump thinks

Part of Donald Trump's back-of-an-envelope "plan" for Venezuela, such as it is, is that the big American oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips should invest billions in upgrading the country's oil facilities and related infrastructure, to the tune of $100 billion, he says.

Unfortunately, he forgot to ask those companies if that was OK, and now they are showing themselves extremely leery of any such investment. Exxon CEO Darren Woods put it quite succinctly: "It's uninvestable."

Trump has tried to reassure them, insisting: "You have total safety. You're dealing with us directly and not deal with Venezuela at all. We don't want you to deal with Venezuela." But canny operators like Woods realize that it's not as simple as that, and after having had assets seized there twice already, they are understandbly reticent to do there again. They are probably also wondering whether they can trust Trump's America and more than they could Chávez and Maduro's Venezuela.

It seems quite likely that Trump will find himself bogged down for years or decades in the beleaguered South American country. And, frankly, I hope he does. I just feel sorry for the Venezuelan (and at least half of the American) people.