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Secretary Wright Says Greenland Is About National Security, Discusses Venezuela Oil on CBS News

January 21, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:08:27

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright spoke with Ed O’Keefe of CBS News on January 20, 2026, according to the Department of Energy video, and was asked why the United States needs Greenland amid polls the host cited showing most Americans opposed.

Wright said it is predominantly about national security — Greenland’s strategic position on the map and increasing activity by major powers in the Arctic and Nordic region, with the President thinking long-term, as he described it. He compared concern over the Middle East early on, which he said led to peace and a positive outcome, and predicted the same here, as he put it. On resources, he said Greenland has mineral and oil potential but is remote; development would be about economic development for Greenlanders, not meaningful resource capture for the United States, and the issue is national security, as he stated it.

On Venezuela, Wright said he expected new U.S. investments beyond Chevron later this year, as he stated the timing, with many companies interested and a possible data room set up in Houston in cooperation with PDVSA and Venezuela’s government for evaluation, as he described it. He said a country with enormous resources that lacked rule of law could be a ripe area for American investment if stabilized, and that the Venezuela move is also dominantly about national security — a hemisphere country that, as he described it, harbored Hezbollah with Iran, hosted Russia and Cuban mercenaries, propped up Cuba’s dictatorship and sold oil cheaply to China. He said Venezuela would nonetheless have meaningfully positive energy implications for Americans by lowering energy prices, as he put it.

Why it matters

Wright’s answers frame both Greenland and Venezuela as security moves first, with energy development as a secondary benefit — the Energy Secretary carrying the administration’s strategic case.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Ed O’Keefe on CBS News - January 20, 2026”, 2026-01-21 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-01-21). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.