Fox Business host defends Trump plan to tap Syria for oil: “The idea is to ... alleviate the economic issues that come with policing that part of the world”
Published
Citation From the October 28, 2019, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
SANDRA SMITH (CO-ANCHOR): The president is talking about making a deal with ExxonMobil to tap into Syrian oil reserves?
CHARLES PAYNE (FOX BUSINESS HOST): Yeah, we're going to have to get more details on that. I mean, as we all watched the announcement and then the question and answer period. I think essentially what the president is saying, it's kind of crazy that we've spent trillions of dollars, that we lost all these amazing valuable lives to protect a region of the world where the biggest asset is oil and we never tap into it, or we never use it to alleviate some of our economic pressure. How something like that would work, it remains to be seen.
SMITH: He kind of threw it out there.
PAYNE: He threw it out there.
SMITH: He said perhaps he could make a deal with Exxon, one of our great American companies, to go in there and do this properly.
PAYNE: Right. And then he talked about spreading the wealth. In other words it wouldn't be the United States is in the Middle East just to take the oil for ourselves, but I think the idea is to sort of alleviate the economic issues that come with policing that part of the world. We have paid a tremendous toll, human lives, the best and brightest of America, and trillions of dollars.