moving the rubble was slow to come and sometimes lacked fuel. Some rescue teams had no torches. The stench of rotting corpses is now pervasive. Injured survivors who make it to hospital find the wards short-staffed and ill-equipped. The regime, which is as incompetent as it is authoritarian, has been slow to distribute aid. Since January, when Donald Trump sent military forces to capture Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s problems have become America’s, too. President Trump replaced Mr Maduro with his more biddable deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, and has boasted that he now runs the country through her. That is an exaggeration, but America does directly control Venezuela’s oil revenues, and Ms Rodríguez must to some degree co-operate with Uncle Sam if she wishes to avoid her predecessor’s fate. (He is stuck in an American prison.) America’s unique involvement in Venezuela brings unique responsibilities. It should do more to fulfil them. About 300 American rescuers have arrived, along with 900 marines. But of $300m promised in aid, only $100m is new money. All help is welcome, but the need is great. Meanwhile, other challenges are looming. Venezuela’s most popular politician, the opposition leader María Corina Machado, is in exile. The Trump administration has told her not to try to return, for fear that her arrival in Caracas would spark unrest. Until now, she has complied. But, after the quakes, she is understandably desperate to get back to her people. In the past week America and the regime have blocked her. That is wrong. As a Venezuelan, she has a right to go home. Elections have been promised, but many fear the regime will keep delaying them. Fury is building. Mr Trump’s popularity in Venezuela, sky-high just after he removed the hated Mr Maduro, has been falling. This is a dangerous mix. An election may not be feasible soon, but America and the regime should set a timetable for one. That might assuage public anger. It might also give foreign investors hope that the country will one day be less lawless, and hence worth investing more in. The earthquakes have aggravated another huge challenge: the mess that is the government’s debts. By one estimate, Venezuela’s sovereign debt adds
up to $240bn, or 240% of GDP. If that is accurate, a restructuring would be the most ambitious ever attempted anywhere. Worse, the IMF, which is normally a neutral arbiter, is not involved and the mix of creditors includes Chinese banks, Russia’s government and others who choose to remain anonymous. American officials say they hope a deal can be struck by the end of the year, but that sounds fanciful. America must not accept a partial, botched agreement merely to stay on schedule. That would be open to legal challenge and accusations of corruption. To give Venezuela its best shot at stable finances, America must instead press its government to stick to international rules and engage with the IMF, even if it takes longer. For the thousands crushed or smothered by the quakes, it is too late. For Venezuela, there is a chance of renewal, but they deserve better than Mr Trump and his dire protégée. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//leaders/2026/07/02/venezuelas-earthquakes-are-partly- americas-problem
We woz wrong about oil The market bested us. But for The Economist, there is no shame in that July 2nd 2026 An editor of The Economist once said: “We are a paper of opinion and views. We stick our neck out and consequently risk having it chopped from time to time.” The oil price has delivered such a blow. At the end of April, almost two months after America and Israel attacked Iran, we said oil traders were in “la-la land” thinking that oil prices would fall to $88 by the end of the year. Today Brent crude costs just over $70 a barrel. Our prediction went about as well as the war. We got it wrong for two reasons. First, we thought that America and Iran would hold out against a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz: America because Mr Trump deludedly thought he held the whip hand, Iran because its regime knew its people could be made to endure more pain. In fact,
facing the fury of American motorists, Mr Trump all but folded, preventing a disaster. Since the two parties struck a provisional deal in June, enough oil has been getting out of the Gulf to reassure markets that supply is coming back online, even if the future of the strait remains uncertain. Our second oversight was, like others, not anticipating the staggering degree to which China would be able to slash its oil imports. Crude imports are 5m barrels a day lower than a year ago, despite the fall in prices. China has cut its demand and shored up supply. Its oil reserves are opaque—many barrels are hidden from satellites underground, and there is a blurred line between official reserves and corporate inventories. But they have been shown to be a powerful buffer. Perhaps a newspaper whose critics bang on about a clanger in 1999, when we wrongly predicted oil prices falling to $5 a barrel, should have known better. We woz wrong then, too. Fortunately, we can report that investors who say we are a guide to what to bet against are cherry-picking our failures. With the help of AI we analysed 7,000 of this century’s leaders. When we are moderately out-of-consensus, our record is good. Our more outlandish predictions are, unsurprisingly, more likely to be wrong. In any case, as free-traders, we take a strange satisfaction in being bested by the markets. It is a reminder that the price of an asset in a liquid market is the closest thing there is to the distilled judgment of humanity. Prices incorporate information dispersed unevenly among countless individuals, from the amateur investor to Europe’s high-rolling oil traders. The market is not always right—and did not expect oil prices to fall as much as they did— but to think that with average luck anyone can reliably do better is to commit an error akin to that of central planners who think they can allocate resources better than the price mechanism can. Why, then, have an opinion at all? Prediction markets cover an increasing range of events, making it easier than ever to see how the market views the future. Yet someone who reflexively substitutes the market’s opinion for their own will not know why they believe what they believe. The case for prediction is therefore like the case for free speech. Well-argued opinions sharpen the thinking of those who read them, even when they are wrong.
Without such views, there would be nothing to aggregate into a market price. So we will keep on predicting. In so doing we also hope to spare our readers a great deal of drudgery. The easiest way not to be wrong is to avoid taking any definite view at all, an approach that makes many bureaucratic reports joy-slayingly dull. We read those so you don’t have to—a service for which the occasional blunder is, we hope, a price worth paying. Sorry for our mistake. It will happen again. ■ Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//leaders/2026/07/02/we-woz-wrong-about-oil
Was the Trump administration’s blocking of Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models dystopian? Also this week, startups in Honduras, sharing companies’ wealth, cricket in India, China, reading July 2nd 2026 Letters are welcome via email to letters@economist.comFind out more about how we process your letter The Trump administration’s blocking of Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models was more than chaotic, it was dystopian (“America’s AI power grab”, June 20th). Just one directive took a leading AI model offline overnight, which worked because the model has an owner, Anthropic, that could be told what to do. This is the actual problem. Centralisation is a liability for anyone working with AI, and it will happen again whether by this government or another.
The solution is to build the only economically viable counter-balance to the hyperscalers: decentralised AI. Contrary to what the large AI companies would have you believe, it is possible to match their business models with open, public, decentralised alternatives. They just have a vested interest in gaslighting us into thinking otherwise. Jake BrukhmanFounder and chief executiveCoinFundMiami You characterised America’s decision to close access to Anthropic’s models as a demonstration of its “vast new power”. That may be true in the short term, but in the end it is as unsustainable as Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In both cases allies and foes alike seek alternative supplies, for AI infrastructure and crude oil respectively, ultimately undermining the very power exercised. The White House has accelerated a dynamic that has been at play since at least the tariff announcements of Liberation Day in April 2025, which is an impetus to build new collaborations, such as the possible “middle power” coalitions on AI that you outlined. The conflict with Iran has also given new urgency to the transition to renewable energy, which was in danger of stalling in developed countries. Faisal SheikhFounder and chief executiveMonmouth CapitalLondon The framing of Anthropic as “cultlike” is as misguided as Donald Trump’s description of its founders as “left-wing nutjobs” (“A test of faith”, June 20th). A tech firm with a sense of civic responsibility above a commercial self-interest is a rarity; that doesn’t make it a cult. Part of Anthropic’s popularity rests on its principled stand. Its push for AI regulation hopes to guide innovation responsibly without throttling it. Mr Trump’s actions were akin to China’s harassment of Alibaba—killing some chickens to scare the monkeys. John ParmanBerkeley, California Your article on Caribbean special jurisdictions characterised Próspera, which was established on the Honduran island of Roatán in 2017, as a haven for techno-libertarians seeking to escape regulation and attract fintech, biotech and robotics startups (“Castles made of sand”, June 13th). I moved to Honduras specifically because of Próspera.