After decades of declining oil production, the US, somewhere around the early 2000s, introduced a new technique to extract oil. Fracking, as this new technique was called, involved drilling wells thousands of feet down, then injecting water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure horizontally to crack rocks and release the oil that had formed. Fracking, or the shale revolution, arrested the decline in American oil production and propelled the US to the number one spot in global oil production.

By 2018, the US was averaging 10.96 million barrels per day, which exceeded the approximately 10.6 million barrels per day produced by Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding the fact that the US and Saudi Arabia are the two highest producers of oil globally, neither holds the number one spot in terms of oil reserves. The number one spot with respects to oil reserves goes to Venezuela, which has in excess of 303 billion barrels of oil reserves. Saudi Arabia is in second position followed by Iran, Canada, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Russia, and the United States.

A number of African and Caribbean nations feature in the oil reserve hall of fame, inclusive of Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Guyana, Sudan, Egypt, Angola, Uganda, Gabon, Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Tunisia, and Trinidad and Tobago. As of 2025, Nigerian oil reserves are estimated at around 37.5 billion barrels and are second on the African continent only to Libya’s 48.4 billion barrels. In the Caribbean, Guyana has leap-frogged Trinidad with a discovery of an estimated 11 billion barrels of oil in reserves. Trinidad and Tobago’s reserves are around approximately 243 million barrels.

Oil is often described as the lifeblood of modern civilisation. It lights our homes and cities; powers our modes of transportation; and it is the raw material from which we make plastics, pharmaceuticals, synthetic material, and fertilisers. Coal, gas, and oil have all been implicated in the rise of greenhouse gases on our planet and may very well be contributing to global temperature rise. Their current bad boy status has not, however, decreased their importance in the global economy.

Euro American hegemony owes much to access and control of fossil fuels. Coal was the power source behind the industrial revolution, which, in turn, led to the whole colonisation enterprise. Coal and oil enabled the Western powers to sail to the ends of the Earth with weapons of the industrial age. When the technologically advanced Western nations met resistance from less technologically advanced natives who did not take too kindly to their land and people being discovered and appropriated, it was goodnight nurse for the native populations.

The American empire which emerged after the conclusion of the two European tribal wars owes much of its rise to dominance to fossil fuels. Recognising the importance of oil to the global economy, the US, in 1974, struck a deal with Saudi Arabia which resulted in oil coming from the Gulf states being priced in US dollars (USD). The petrodollar deal, as it was called, was embraced by other oil-producing nations, resulting in all oil deals being settled globally in USD. Since all countries needed oil, this meant that every country had to have reserves in USD. When combined with the earlier adoption of the USD as the global reserve currency in 1944, the US rose to a position of global dominance unsurpassed in history. Even the Soviet Union was forced to hold reserves of USD for non-Warsaw pact trade.

American military adventures, stretching from the first invasion of Iraq to the current war of aggression against Iran, all underscore just how important oil is to the American empire. The two invasions of Iraq devastated its oil industry, resulting in a significant reduction in production. This would have been economically advantageous for Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, bosom buddies of the US and also significant buyers of American treasuries and bonds. This pattern of destroying the oil-producing capacity of its enemies would be repeated in Libya, Venezuela, and currently in Iran.

Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and Iran all feature in the top oil-producing nations globally. Disrupting oil production in all four of these heavy hitters in oil production not only gave an economic advantage to the US and its oil-producing sycophants in the Persian Gulf, but the disruptions also functioned as an economic weapon against oil-dependent rivals of the US, especially China. The US invasions of Iraq and the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela placed both Iraq and Venezuela in the American sphere of influence.

Should Iran fall in the ongoing US-Israeli aggression, the US would have almost cornered the global oil market, with Russia being the last man standing outside the American sphere of influence. The US control of most of the global supply of oil would be a very formidable weapon that it could wield to cripple any nation in general, and China in particular. There is therefore much method to the apparent madness of President Donald Trump.

While the Israelis are pursuing their hagiographic vision of Eretz Israel, the Trump Administration is trying to arrest the free fall of the American empire by resorting to the true and tested settler colonial strategy of invading other people’s territory, killing the natives, and taking all their stuff for the glory of the empire and its deity. This return to the age and methodology of empire has lit a torch in the world that potentially can lead to a new feeding frenzy as great power competition returns to the international arena with a bang.

Leaders in both oil-producing and non-oil producing nations in Africa and the Caribbean will rue the day they chose not to listen to the wisest voices among us who counselled the construction of bridges of cooperation that would at least have given us a fighting chance against the empire when it returned.

The late president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, was prophetic when he told us that the empire would be back when confronted with an existential threat. The shark of imperialism that went out to sea after the conclusion of World War II has circled and is now returning to our shores. Regrettably, we did not learn much from the history of our ancestors and, sadly, their fate is once again staring us in our face.

Lenrod N Baraka

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Future of Africa and the Caribbean: Challenges and Possibilities. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or rodneynimrod2@gmail.com.