Dhruva Kumar, Alba Party, Former MP Candidate writes that Scottish politics has finally woken up to the geopolitical crisis, yet remains oddly silent on an older story: how U.S. power behaves when oil and strategic resources are at stake:
Scotland speaks often about a just transition under the Labour Westminster government, yet we overlook the geopolitics that will shape it. Two arenas matter now: Venezuela, where U.S. sanctions flip-flops have jolted heavy‑crude supply, and Greenland, which banned new oil licensing but is pivotal to Western critical‑minerals and Arctic security strategies.
Greenland is the mirror image: in 2021, it ceased new oil and gas licensing, citing environmental and economic costs, yet has drawn stronger U.S./EU interest in rare earths and Arctic security.
From Venezuela to Greenland, Washington’s pattern is clear. In Venezuela, U.S. sanctions have evolved into direct control over who can sell the country’s oil and where the money goes – a shift from “regime change” to long-term management of another nation’s core resource. In Greenland, U.S. interest has moved beyond missile‑warning bases to a renewed diplomatic presence and a growing focus on minerals and rare earths as the Arctic ice retreats.
Scotland sits at the intersection of those same pressures. The North Sea may be a mature basin, but billions of barrels of oil equivalent remain, and recent surges in revenues have reminded us how central these flows still are to our public finances. At the same time, the North Atlantic is militarily critical, Faslane anchors the UK’s nuclear deterrent, and Scotland’s offshore wind and marine resources are among Europe’s most valuable.
Overlay that with Donald Trump. He is not just a sometime visitor with a tartan tie, but an owner of loss-making, debt-laden golf resorts at Menie and Turnberry that have relied on UK support schemes and opaque financing. He has waged a decade-long crusade against Scottish offshore wind, rhetoric that has since been exported into a wider global war on renewables from the White House. In Venezuela, he has been explicit about “taking” oil to reshape a country on U.S. terms; in Greenland, he floated outright acquisition in pursuit of strategic minerals.
It would be naïve to assume Scotland is exempt from that mindset simply because we fly the Saltire. Our energy transition, our remaining oil and gas, and our critical geography all sit within the same mental map that links Caracas, Havana and Nuuk.
The question for Scotland is not whether tanks will roll up Union Street, but whether, in the next round of US–UK trade, security and energy deals, our future is quietly bargained away in boardrooms and back channels without a single Scottish voice in the room – as with the recent decisions involving Wick.
It is time this angle was interrogated openly in our media before decisions are made for us, not by us.
Yours in shared ambition,
Dhruva Kumar
