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Following last month’s dramatic capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump Administration is now shifting into high gear to expand the footprint of Western companies in Venezuela’s oil sector. Through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a series of new Venezuela General Licenses (GLs) have been published, including GL 50, which authorizes companies, including BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol, and Shell to begin oil production operations in Venezuela. These new authorizations come just after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited some of the South American nation’s oil-producing facilities, accompanied by its Chavista acting president, Delcy Rodríguez.
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On January 21, 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a framework for a potential deal over Greenland after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,” Trump wrote. This agreement prompted the U.S. president to back down from earlier threats to impose tariffs on the exports of eight European countries, which were scheduled to take effect on February 1st.
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President Donald Trump promised to reconsider tariffs on India if New Delhi ceases purchasing Russian crude oil. Targeting Moscow’s second-largest crude oil buyer strikes directly at the Kremlin’s financial underbelly in its war of attrition against Ukraine. While this leverage may prove consequential as peace talks are limping, some in Washington worry that pressure on India is strengthening those in New Delhi arguing for “strategic autonomy”, including the India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar. Speaking to the media in at the Munich Security Conference, he refused to a give a clear answer to the question whether India is cutting its Russian oil purchases. In the meantime, a political row exploded in New Delhi as the Congress-led opposition has accused Narendra Modi’s government of “selling out under pressure”. Overplaying Washington’s hand could reduce future avenues for cooperation to contain China in Southeast Asia or the Middle East with Indian support, through the I2U2 and other frameworks.
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Japan’s 2026 election results signal a major energy shift for the country. Sanae Takaichi of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) reclaimed her position as Prime Minister of Japan, winning by a landslide during the snap general election. She effectively gave her party control of the lower house with a two-thirds supermajority without any coalition obligations. With control over three-quarters of the chamber, 352 seats out of the 465, the ruling party will be able to overridevetoes by the upper house. The ability to push its policies will provide the LDP with certainty over its proposed energy and industrial policies.
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The vision for a rebuilt Gaza that Jared Kushner unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos this January is nothing if not audacious. A “New Gaza,” defined by skyscrapers and high-tech data centers, aims to replace a century of terrorism and wars — and grievance politics with the promise and logic of the free market.
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Each new crisis in Iran revives fears of a repeat of 1979, when Iranian oil production collapsed by 80 percent, removing 7 percent of supply from the global market and triggering a historic energy shock. Today, with Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), including its bloody volunteer Basij militia, killing the citizens en masse, and with President Donald Trump weighing his options, events in and around Iran are prompting similar anxieties. But the conditions that turned Iran’s 1979 upheaval into a global oil shock no longer exist. Leadership change in Iran — as very recently advocated by Trump — would create short-term market disruption, but these risks are manageable.
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The rise of AI, the shift from renewables to fossil fuels and nuclear, and other changes in Trump Administration policies indicate that 2026 will continue to reshape U.S. energy. The growing focus on energy as a national security instrument is driving a chain reaction, shifting priorities across sectors, easing restrictions, and prioritizing the expansion of conventional energy infrastructure. In 2026, nuclear energy and reactor development, as well as grid build out, will be at the forefront, generating winners and losers in capital markets.
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With acting President of Venezuela Delcy Rodrigues coming to Washington on Tuesday, January 13th, all eyes are on whether the Chavista regime can negotiate its way out of the crisis caused by the rendition of its leader, Nicolás Maduro, by the U.S. military on January 3rd.
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The Russia-Ukraine war has been brutal to the Russian energy sector. New problems are emerging, and old issues are accumulating as Russia enters 2026. Losing Syria in December of 2024 and Venezuela in January 2026 exposes Russia’s global ambition as an emperor with no clothes. Ukraine’s bloody slog comes at a huge cost.
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Exporting energy has long been recognized as a money-making machine for Moscow. It has not only filled the Kremlin’s war chest but also generated immense personal wealth for Russian leaders and affiliated oligarchs. But in 2025, the picture of Russian energy became much more complicated. The Russian energy sector now functions not only as a strategic asset but also as a source of vulnerability exposed by war, sanctions, and asymmetric attacks.
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As 2025 draws to a close, the Trump White House, Department of Energy, Department of Interior, the EPA, and numerous other federal agencies involved in regulating energy and the environment have shifted away from the Biden Administration’s emphasis on “green transitions” and expensive renewables, and towards an approach that prioritizes conventional energy sources and energy security. The climate change assumptions of the Obama-Biden era that guided U.S. energy policy since 2008 are no longer influential. Today, energy security is paramount, and economic efficiency takes precedence over other concerns, with federal efforts to decarbonize and move toward a clean energy economy being replaced by initiatives that expand oil and gas production and accelerate the development of traditional energy sources — hydrocarbons and nuclear.
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On December 8, 2025, Turkish troops entered northern Syria from Afrin, Ras al-Ain, and the northern Aleppo countryside a year after their chosen candidate, the Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ended the Syrian civil war, ousting Ba’athist dictator Bashar al-Assad and installing HTS founder and leader Ahmad al-Sharaa as Syria’s interim president. Until recently, HTS was recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the U.N. Security Council, Canada, Turkey, and other countries. While current reporting frames the convoy’s entry primarily in terms of Turkey’s ongoing security posture in northern Syria, this is an insufficient understanding of Ankara’s escalation. A clearer picture emerges if one analyses Turkey’s Islamist policies, neo-Ottoman imperial aspirations, as well as energy security strategy.
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A year after former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’athist dictatorship collapsed under the blows of Ahmed El-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) Islamist militia, the Kremlin, the patron of the deposed regime has not disappeared. Despite expectations, Russia has not withdrawn from Syria, but instead has retrenched itself “under new management.”
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Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently wrapped up a successful visit to the White House, boosting the 80-year-old strategic relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The desert kingdom’s quest for technological progress was front and center. Yet, making Saudi Arabia a global leader in AI remains challenging.
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Russia’s war machine is showing unmistakable signs of strain. After nearly four years of fiscal overreach caused by injecting trillions of rubles into the Russian economy, the Kremlin can no longer disguise its distress. American envoys met in Geneva on Sunday, November 23rd with Ukrainian officials to discuss a permanent ceasefire, however, this is no time to go easy on Moscow, as U.S. sanctions seem to be working.
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The U.S.-China competition for AI dominance is on, and one key arena where China has so far outrun the competition is the emergence of “cloud cities” or “smart cities” – mega-cities that integrate AI-run capabilities and robotics to run things more efficiently, and help to mitigate negative impacts on the environment, improving the quality of life for citizens. The negative aspect of this trend from the citizen’s eye view may involve concerns about privacy and monitoring, which has required advanced thinking and preparation in countries where individual freedom ranks high on the value scale, such as the U.S. and the EU.
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The British Anglo American and Canadian Teck Resources mining companies announced an agreement on one of the most significant mining mergers in recent history that will create a new giant with a combined market value exceeding $53 billion. The all-share deal is expected to close within 18 months, pending regulatory approval, and will establish Anglo Teck as one of the top five global copper producers. This marks a tectonic shift in global mineral supplies with major geopolitical implications.
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Faltering energy security and unstable rare earths supply chains have prompted Europe to think creatively about securing its energy and strategic mineral supply. Brussels has decided to aim for the stars, literally, by putting its sights on the moon. In a European Commission report published on September 9th, the EU noted that to meet its energy needs, there may be a growing emphasis on advanced mining technologies, including space mining, which could start with the Moon.
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While Russia’s economic performance has been lackluster as its war economy struggles to underpin growth, a clear bright spot remains: nuclear energy. Following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, where the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline progress dominated headlines, Rosatom signed a memorandum with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) on personnel collaboration, building on recent wins in Central Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Rosatom has customers lined up worldwide, but as financing problems and global competition build, the jury is out on whether they can expand on their recent success. As the United States seeks to modernize its moribund nuclear power capabilities, Russia’s Rosatom stands as both a competitor and a model.
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President Trump has repeatedly criticized solar and wind, most recently in at the U.N. General Assembly, calling them “a joke” and the “scam of the century.” Congressional Republicans passed the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which put the brakes on federal clean energy subsidies by terminating investment and production tax credits for wind and solar projects not in service by the end of 2027, with a “beginning of construction” deadline of July 4, 2026.
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The spectacular displays at the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin were carefully crafted to showcase the evolution of Xi Jinping’s Beijing-centric political bloc which aspires to rival Washington. The U.S. administration is embracing an “America First” agenda and using tariffs as a foreign policy battering ram. Meanwhile, President Trump may be on to something in writing “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as you conspire against the United States of America.”
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A report on the Consumer Price Index published in early August of this year found that the cost of electricity in the United States is rising at more than double the rate of general inflation. American households have seen their electricity bills rise 30% since 2021. This is contributing heavily to rising cost-of-living concerns across the country. At the center of these price hikes is the AI revolution, and the sector’s projected expansion means the increased costs are unlikely to level off any time soon.
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Turkey sits at the intersection of Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East—a prime geopolitical piece of real estate in the Eastern hemisphere. As Europe and the U.S. seek to reduce reliance on Russian energy corridors as well as Iranian oil and gas, Ankara is moving quickly to position itself as the key transit hub linking Asia and Europe. Lacking significant reserves of its own, Turkey is leveraging its geographical position, including Russia/the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Iraq, post-war Syria, and access to Europe. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is balancing alliances to expand his country’s regional influence.
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The Texas power grid, long isolated from the rest of the country’s interconnections to avoid federal oversight, has its share of long and near-term problems, such as a projected 8.3% shortfall by 2027 as demand increases, and limited weatherproofing.
Though the Texas legislature and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the independent state grid operator, have taken important steps to more consistently inspect plants and transmission stations as well as plan for increased demand, challenges remain. For instance, severe storms this past May led to widespread outages. Resolving these issues is not easy. The path forward is slow and expensive, with no easy solutions or shortcuts in the offing. This web of problems is why Texas-based Fermi America’s announcement of its HyperGrid project this past June led to an outburst of optimism.
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Qatar has warned that it may stop exporting liquefied natural gas to the European Union in response to the Brussels corporate sustainability due diligence directive, which entered into force on July 25th, 2025. The CSDDD requires large companies to remedy environmental harm and human rights concerns (such as forced labor) in their supply chains or incur fines. The rules apply to both EU and non-EU companies with a yearly turnover greater than €450 million. Notably, the rules will not take full effect until 2027 and will be implemented gradually through 2029 based on company size.
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