The National Review reports that the Trump administration has struck some manner of oil arrangement with Venezuela — a country whose government has, for a generation, fed itself on anti-American sentiment as steadily as it has fed on petroleum revenues. The question the editors raise is whether such a deal revives that very sentiment, or whether commerce might, over time, do what sanctions could not.

I have some sympathy for the hope that trade civilizes. I spent years arguing that commerce, honestly conducted, builds more durable ties between peoples than any treaty signed at sword's point. A merchant who depends on his customer has a reason to keep the peace that no diplomat can manufacture. That principle I hold still.

But — and here is the rub the National Review correctly identifies — commerce civilizes only when both parties enter it with clean hands and clear accounts. When one party is a government that has systematically looted its own treasury, expelled foreign investors, and defaulted on its obligations, the working tradesman's question must be: what disciplines the other side of this bargain? A deal that gives Venezuela hard currency or market access without demanding institutional reform is not commerce; it is subsidy wearing commerce's coat.

The deeper cost is to trust — a commodity I always valued above silver. The National Review's lead asks whether the arrangement undermines the credibility the United States needs with its neighbors. I would go further: a republic that makes and breaks agreements according to the convenience of the hour trains every future counterpart to discount its promises. That is an expense that does not appear in any barrel-count but is paid, with interest, for decades. (I mark this inference, not recollection — the specifics of the deal's terms lie beyond what the lead discloses.)

I spent years in Paris persuading proud men that the young American republic was a reliable partner. The argument was never that we were powerful — we were not, then. The argument was that we kept our word. Credibility, once spent, must be rebuilt at great cost, and the interest on that debt is paid by ordinary citizens in the form of worse terms on every future negotiation they never see.

My counsel to the working person watching this: track not just the price of gasoline at the pump — which this deal may or may not move — but the longer question of what precedent is being set for how the Republic conducts itself with governments that have mistreated their own people. The household that does business with a dishonest neighbor may get a good price once. It rarely gets a good price twice.