Scotiabank CEO says Trump doctrine to dominate hemisphere will be good for business

In the wake of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s stunning capture by US forces, Scotiabank CEO Scott Thompson said the “Trump doctrine” — US domination of the Western Hemisphere — will benefit the bank he runs. 

Speaking Tuesday at a conference of Canadian bank CEOs, Thompson said the US pushing harder into Latin America should benefit Scotiabank’s international business.

Richard Brooks, climate finance director with Stand.earth, an international advocacy organization, said overtly endorsing Trump’s desire to control the hemisphere reflects a “complete ethical failure.”

“I'm frankly horrified by his comments,” he said. “He's not hiding his greed in any way. He's being very transparent that his bank is going to make money off of disasters and military interventions.”

If the United States’ takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry is a boon for US oil companies, Canadian banks are also poised to handsomely profit. 

Financial data compiled by Stand.earth reveals four Canadian banks (TD, RBC, CIBC and Scotiabank) collectively invested more than $12 billion between 2021 and 2024 in US oil firms that Trump has pledged would be the beneficiaries of Venezuela’s oil industry. 

The four Canadian banks identified are all in the top 20 global investors of oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, PBF Energy, Halliburton, Valero Energy, Petroleum and Williams Companies. 

The oil firms identified include companies that would profit from extracting oil out of Venezuela and were selected due to historic ties to Venezuela’s oil industry (in the case of Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Williams Companies and Halliburton). The other companies include owners of refineries in Texas and Louisiana that would process the crude (such as Valero Energy and PBF Energy). 

The data, which has been converted from US to Canadian dollars, shows that between 2021 and 2024:

• TD invested $5.5 billion;
• RBC invested $3.1 billion;
• Scotiabank invested $2.3 billion;
• CIBC invested $1.3 billion.

For Brooks, which companies benefit from regime change and which companies enable it are two sides of the same coin. 

“Trump didn't do this out of the blue, he did this because there has been a movement for many years to get regime change in Venezuela because of the nationalization of the oil industry many decades ago,” he said. “Those oil companies were able to put those pieces in place that led to this military intervention because of the financing and the investments done by banks and other institutional investors.”

Earlier this week Trump said he discussed the plan to storm Caracas to capture Maduro with oil companies ahead of the mission. The US Congress and its relevant committees, by contrast, were not briefed ahead of time. After Saturday’s raid, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela indefinitely, and floated the idea that US taxpayers could reimburse companies to invest in Venezuelan oil. Oil executives are reportedly scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Friday. 

Speaking at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami on Wednesday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the short-term plan is for the US to sell the oil out of Venezuela to markets.  

“Of course, in the long run, [the plan is to] create the conditions that the major American companies that were there before — maybe [those] that weren’t there before, but want to be there — will go in,” he said, adding that “the resources are immense.”