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Brouillette Should Resign Over Racially Insensitive Remarks
Statement of Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen
WASHINGTON
Note: In an interview with Axios today, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette compared the refusal by several major banks to finance oil and gas development in the Arctic to discrimination faced by people of color.
No, Secretary Brouillette, the experiences of oil and gas companies are not equivalent to those of discriminated-against communities of color. Bank redlining against African American communities involved the pernicious refusal to provide mortgage and banking services on account of race. The increasing number of banks declining to lend for Arctic drilling are taking minimal--and inadequate--steps to avert catastrophic climate change.
Not the same thing, Brouillette. In fact, given that the climate crisis will most severely impact people of color in the U.S. and around the world, bank refusal to support Arctic drilling is, in spirit, diametrically opposed to historic redlining.
Redlining against African Americans--which was based on both official U.S. government and private bank policy--is an especially raw and shameful part of American history, with lasting effects. It is outrageous and morally repugnant that the energy secretary would equate discriminatory bank practices toward African Americans with lending policy to oil and gas companies.
He should resign.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Victory for Corporate Tax Dodgers as OECD Approves Watered-Down Global Minimum Tax
“The Trump administration has chosen to prioritize maintaining rock-bottom taxes for big corporations to the detriment of ordinary Americans and our allies across the globe," said one critic.
Jan 05, 2026
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development is facing criticism for buckling under US demands when finalizing an update to the global minimum corporate tax agreement.
As reported by Reuters on Monday, the OECD agreed to amend a 2021 deal to enforce a 15% global minimum corporate tax to include "simplifications and carve-outs to align US minimum tax laws with global standards, accommodating earlier objections raised by the Trump administration."
Under the original framework, OECD members agreed to apply a 15% corporate tax on multinational corporations that book profits in jurisdictions that have lower tax rates.
President Donald Trump objected to this, however, and insisted that some US corporations be given exemptions that have subsequently been granted by OECD states.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the revised deal "represents a historic victory in preserving US sovereignty and protecting American workers and businesses from extraterritorial overreach," while noting that it allowed for US-headquartered firms to be subject only to US global minimum taxes.
Some critics, though, accused the OECD of letting the US get away with robbery.
Zorka Milin, policy director at the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition, warned that the deal "risks nearly a decade of global progress on corporate taxation" by allowing "the largest, most profitable American companies to keep parking profits in tax havens."
“The Trump administration has chosen to prioritize maintaining rock-bottom taxes for big corporations to the detriment of ordinary Americans and our allies across the globe," Milin added.
Alex Cobham, chief executive at Tax Justice Network, said other OECD members were only hurting themselves by caving to Trump's demands.
"By the Tax Justice Network’s assessment, France for example is already losing $14 billion a year to tax cheating US firms, Germany is losing $16 billion, and the UK is losing $9 billion," Cobham explained. "Today’s bending of the knee to Trump will cost countries billions more. But how much more? Tellingly, the OECD, which has delivered this shameful result, and OECD members have not put a number on the scale of tax losses that will result."
An analysis published last month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) made the case that global minimum corporate taxes were needed to prevent US companies from sheltering vast profits by reporting them in nations that serve as offshore tax havens.
As an example, ITEP pointed to data showing that the profits US companies reported in notorious tax havens such as Barbados and the British Virgin Islands were more than 100% of those territories' gross domestic product, which the report noted "is obviously impossible."
ITEP went on to state that full implementation of this global minimum tax is "the best hope for blocking the types of tax avoidance that have weakened corporate income taxes all over the world" by making it "difficult for any single government (even one as powerful as the US) to ignore or weaken it."
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International Law Experts Agree: Trump-Ordered Attack on Venezuela 100% Illegal
"International law is not 'dead' just because the most powerful no longer respect it," one expert stressed. "To preserve the rules-based international order, all states need to call out breaches of the law when they occur."
Jan 05, 2026
Protests have erupted in the US and around the world following President Donald Trump's attack on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, and international law experts on Monday joined in rebuking the deadly military operation, with several outlining exactly how Trump's actions were unlawful.
At Just Security, University of Reading professor of international law Michael Schmitt, New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, and NYU Reiss Center on Law and Security senior fellow Tess Bridgeman explained that the US military's bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro differs legally from the dozens of boat strikes the US has carried out in the past four months.
The attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed more than 100 people and have also been violations of international law, according to numerous legal experts—but they "have occurred in international waters against stateless vessels," wrote Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman.
In contrast, the operation in the early morning hours on Saturday took place within Venezuelan borders and "is clearly a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter," they wrote. "That prohibition is the bedrock rule of the international system that separates the rule of law from anarchy, safeguards small states from their more powerful neighbors, and protects civilians from the devastation of war."
Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, to which both the US and Venezuela are parties, states:
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
The scholars vehemently rejected the narrative the Trump administration has put forward for months about its escalation in the Caribbean and Venezuela: that the White House simply aims to protect Americans from drug trafficking, a claim that officials have repeated despite the fact that US and international law enforcement agencies have not identified the South American country as a significant player in the drug trade.
For Trump's assertions that drug cartels in Venezuela pose an imminent threat to Americans "to make any sense," wrote the authors, "the drug activity must be characterized as an 'armed attack' against the United States... Drug trafficking simply does not qualify as, and has never been considered, an 'armed attack.' In brief, the relationship between drug trafficking and the deaths that eventually result from drugs being purchased and used in the United States is far too attenuated to qualify as an armed attack."
"It is indisputable that drug trafficking is condemnable criminal activity, but it is not the type of activity that triggers the right of self-defense in international law," they continued, adding that any possible involvement by Maduro's government in the drug trade also does not rise "to the level of an armed attack against the United States."
Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman wrote that "Operation Absolute Resolve," as the administration has termed the Saturday attack that killed more than 80 people, "amounts to an unlawful intervention into Venezuela’s internal affairs," and that while officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have claimed the kidnapping of Maduro was simply a law enforcement operation and not an act of war, the US does not have jurisdiction to carry out such an action in Venezuela without the government's consent.
"The United States has engaged in governmental activity in Venezuela—law enforcement—that is exclusively the domain of the Venezuelan government," wrote the authors. "Even though the United States does not recognize the Maduro government as legitimate, international law provides that the relevant officials to grant consent are those of the government that exercises 'effective control' over the territory; in this case, officials in the Maduro administration."
As a head of state, Maduro is also subject to protections from enforcement jurisdiction by another state, they wrote, under "customary international law."
"The United States has engaged in governmental activity in Venezuela—law enforcement—that is exclusively the domain of the Venezuelan government."
The authors wrote that, as Maduro said in a statement Monday, the president may be considered a prisoner of war and be "entitled to the extensive protections of the Third Geneva Convention," given his status as commander-in-chief of Venezuela's armed forces. His wife is also "entitled to a robust set of protections afforded to captured civilians" under the Fourth Geneva Convention, they wrote.
The explanation by Schmitt, Goodman, and Bridgeman bolstered remarks by other international law experts including Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism.
Saul on Saturday condemned Trump's "illegal aggression against Venezuela and the illegal abduction of its leader and his wife," and said the president "should be impeached and investigated for the alleged killings," of dozens of Venezuelans in the attack.
“Every Venezuelan life lost is a violation of the right to life," he said.
At the Conversation, Australian National University international law professor Sarah Heathcote emphasized that the UN Security Council, which held an emergency meeting Monday in response to the US strike, had not authorized the attack. Such an authorization, along with consent by Venezuela's government or a credible claim that the US was acting in self-defense, would have made the Trump administration's actions lawful.
Instead, she wrote, "the US intervention in Venezuela was as brazen and unlawful as its military strike on Iran in June last year."
"But international law is not 'dead' just because the most powerful no longer respect it," she said. "To preserve the rules-based international order, all states need to call out breaches of the law when they occur, including in the current instance."
At the Security Council meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized "the imperative of full respect, by all, for international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, which provides the foundation for the maintenance of international peace and security."
"Venezuela has experienced decades of internal instability and social and economic turmoil. Democracy has been undermined. Millions of its people have fled the country," he said. "In situations as confused and complex as the one we now face, it is important to stick to principles. Respect for the UN Charter and all other applicable legal frameworks to safeguard peace and security."
"International law contains tools to address issues such as illicit traffic in narcotics, disputes about resources, and human rights concerns," he added. "This is the route we need to take."
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'I Consider Myself a Prisoner of War,' Says Maduro, Pleading Not Guilty in US Court
"I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I remain the president of my country."
Jan 05, 2026
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called himself a "prisoner of war" while pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism charges in a US court in New York City on Monday, after the Trump administration abducted him and his wife in an overnight raid that killed dozens of people.
"I am the president of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war. They captured me in my house in Caracas," Maduro said in Spanish at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse. "I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I remain the president of my country."
After being seized by US forces before dawn on Saturday, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were moved to a Brooklyn jail, over the objections of New York City's recently inaugurated mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who called President Donald Trump after the military operation.
The Associated Press reported on the couple's transfer to the Manhattan courthouse early Monday:
A motorcade carrying Maduro left jail around 7:15 am and made its way to a nearby athletic field, where Maduro slowly made his way to a waiting helicopter. The chopper flew across New York Harbor and landed at a Manhattan heliport, where Maduro, limping, was loaded into an armored vehicle.
A few minutes later, the law enforcement caravan was inside a garage at the courthouse complex, just around the corner from the one where Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records. Across the street from the courthouse, the police separated a small but growing group of protesters from about a dozen pro-intervention demonstrators, including one man who pulled a Venezuelan flag away from those protesting the US action.
The 25-page US indictment released Saturday claims that Maduro, who previously served in Venezuela's National Assembly and as the South American country's minister of foreign affairs, "has partnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States."
Maduro "now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking," the document continues. "That drug trafficking has enriched and entrenched Venezuela's political and military elite."
Like her husband, Flores pleaded "not guilty, completely innocent," during the Monday arraignment. According to CNN, reporters observed bandages on Flores' head and her attorney, Mark Donnelly, told the presiding judge that she sustained "significant injuries during her abduction," including possibly bruised or fractured ribs.
The presiding judge is Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old appointed to the Southern District of New York by former President Bill Clinton. Al Jazeera noted that he "has overseen numerous high-profile cases in his career, including relating to the 9/11 attacks and the Sudanese genocide."
"It's my job to assure this is a fair trial," said Hellerstein, who scheduled the next hearing for March 17.
The weekend abduction has sparked global protests, comparisons to the US invasion of Iraq, demands for Trump's impeachment, concerns about the involvement of American oil companies, and fears of the White House's threats of more military action elsewhere.
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