Narrator: In 2011, as the Arab Spring ignited a civil war in Libya, the rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi faced a critical problem: they were running out of fuel. Their tanks were immobile, and the lights in their stronghold of Benghazi were about to go out. With no cash and no access to international markets, their revolution was on the brink of collapse. In this desperate moment, they did not turn to a world superpower, but to a secretive Swiss company. Ian Taylor, the CEO of the commodity trading giant Vitol, flew into the war-torn country and made a high-stakes gamble. He agreed to supply the rebels with the fuel they needed, not for cash, but in exchange for future shipments of crude oil. When Gaddafi’s forces blew up the pipeline that was meant to deliver that oil, Vitol did not back out. It doubled down, extending over a billion dollars in credit to a fledgling rebel government. Vitol’s fuel kept the revolution alive, enabling the advance that ultimately toppled the Gaddafi regime.

This single, audacious deal reveals a hidden world of immense power and influence. In their book, The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources, journalists Javier Blas and Jack Farchy expose the secretive fraternity of commodity traders who control the flow of the world’s most essential resources, operating beyond the reach of governments and regulators to shape economies and global politics.

Narrator: The modern commodity trading industry was built by a generation of audacious, risk-taking pioneers who thrived in the shadows of the global economy. These men, often refugees or outsiders, built empires by going where traditional corporations and banks feared to tread. The most emblematic of this generation was Marc Rich, the founder of the firm that would eventually become Glencore. Rich revolutionized the oil market by creating the "spot market," where oil could be bought and sold for immediate delivery, breaking the stranglehold of the "Seven Sisters," the major oil companies that had controlled the industry for decades.

Rich’s genius was in seeing opportunity in political instability. During the 1970s, he exploited the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, a secret joint venture between Iran and Israel, to move Iranian crude oil to Europe, bypassing the politically fraught Suez Canal. When the Iranian Revolution of 1979 led to a US trade embargo, Rich saw not a barrier, but an opportunity. He continued to buy Iranian oil, defying US sanctions and selling it to desperate buyers around the world, including apartheid South Africa. His philosophy was simple: business is supreme, and political matters are not business. This amoral, swashbuckling approach allowed Rich and his contemporaries to build immense fortunes and establish the foundational principles of the industry: secrecy, a high tolerance for risk, and a willingness to deal with any regime, no matter how unsavory, in the pursuit of profit.

Narrator: Commodity traders evolved far beyond simply buying and selling resources; they became a shadow banking system for the developing world. When traditional banks and international institutions like the IMF turned their backs on politically unstable or financially distressed nations, traders stepped into the void. They became the lenders of last resort, providing desperate governments with the cash and fuel needed to survive. In return, they secured exclusive, long-term rights to a nation's most valuable natural resources at bargain prices.

A stark example of this occurred in Jamaica in the early 1980s. The country was on the verge of economic collapse, unable to raise the $10 million needed to pay for a crucial oil shipment. With the national refinery about to shut down, the Minister for Mines and Energy made a desperate late-night call to Marc Rich in Switzerland. Within 24 hours, Rich had diverted a tanker to Jamaica, delivering the oil without a contract and saving the country from chaos. This act of goodwill was, in reality, a strategic investment. Marc Rich + Co became Jamaica's indispensable partner, providing financing and marketing for its bauxite and alumina industries. The traders were, as one Jamaican official put it, "the last bank in town," and their financial lifeline gave them immense control over the country's economic destiny.

Narrator: The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 represented the single greatest opportunity in the history of commodity trading. An entire empire, with its vast reserves of oil, gas, and metals, was suddenly open for business. This chaotic period, which traders called the "wild east," was a lawless frontier where fortunes could be made overnight. As state-run industries crumbled, traders stepped in to organize the chaos, connecting Russian resources to global markets.

The Russian aluminum industry became the epicenter of this frenzy. Brothers David and Simon Reuben of the company Trans-World partnered with a local dealer, Lev Chernoy, to dominate the sector. They used a strategy called tolling: they would supply Russian smelters with the raw material, alumina, and take payment in finished aluminum, which they then sold on the world market for a massive profit. They soon controlled over half of Russia's aluminum exports. However, this lucrative business was incredibly dangerous. The "aluminum wars" of the 1990s were marked by gangland violence and assassinations as rival groups, including future oligarchs, fought for control. The Reubens eventually sold their assets for hundreds of millions of dollars, but their story illustrates how traders capitalized on the "biggest closing-down sale in history," facilitating the rise of the Russian oligarchs by providing the financing and market access that built their empires.

Narrator: If the Soviet collapse created the "wild east," China's economic ascent in the 2000s created a "supercycle"—a decade-long boom in commodity prices that generated unprecedented wealth. China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization created an insatiable appetite for every conceivable natural resource, from copper and iron ore to coal and oil. This surge in demand sent prices soaring and transformed the commodity trading industry once again.

No one capitalized on this shift more effectively than Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore. While his competitors focused on pure trading, Glasenberg pursued a different strategy: he began buying the assets themselves. Foreseeing the coming boom, he acquired coal mines in Australia and South Africa when prices were low. When Chinese demand exploded, Glencore was not just a trader of coal but one of the world's largest producers. This hybrid "miner-trader" model gave Glencore a guaranteed supply and immense market power. The China supercycle turned Glencore into a behemoth, culminating in its massive 2011 IPO, which created several new billionaires overnight and shone a spotlight on the incredible, and previously hidden, wealth of the industry.

Narrator: With their newfound wealth and control over essential resources, the top commodity traders became more than just merchants; they became merchants of power. Their financial firepower allowed them to finance entire countries and influence geopolitical events. In 2017, Glencore and Vitol provided billions in loans to the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, effectively bankrolling its push for independence. While they claimed to be apolitical, their financing directly enabled a political movement that challenged the stability of the region.

This power also came with immense ethical controversies. Traders were found to have profited from crises that caused widespread human suffering. During the food crisis of 2008-2010, as prices for wheat and corn skyrocketed, trading houses like Cargill and Glencore made record profits. In 2010, after a severe drought in Russia, a senior Glencore executive publicly called for Russia to ban wheat exports. Russia complied, and the resulting price spike caused panic in the Middle East, a region heavily dependent on Russian wheat. This food inflation was a key factor in the social unrest that ignited the Arab Spring. Glencore, having bet on rising prices, profited handsomely from a crisis it helped create.

Narrator: The era of operating in complete secrecy is over. Glencore's IPO, combined with a series of high-profile scandals, has placed the industry under a microscope. Governments, particularly the United States, are now using their regulatory power more aggressively. The US Department of Justice has launched sweeping corruption probes into Glencore, Vitol, and Trafigura, resulting in massive fines and admissions of bribery. Furthermore, the aggressive use of secondary sanctions means that traders can be punished for doing business with countries like Iran or Russia, even if those deals are legal in their home jurisdictions.

Beyond regulation, the industry faces structural threats. The democratization of information has eroded the traders' traditional edge, while the rise of state-owned Chinese trading firms creates powerful new competitors. The most significant threat, however, is climate change. As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, the business models of oil giants like Vitol and coal producers like Glencore face an existential crisis. The swashbucklers of capitalism now find themselves in a world that is less tolerant of their secrecy and increasingly hostile to the very commodities that made them rich.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The World for Sale is that a small, interconnected group of private companies has, for the last half-century, wielded a level of global influence rivaling that of nations, all while operating almost entirely outside of public view and democratic accountability. These traders are the essential-yet-invisible architects of the modern global economy, ensuring that fuel reaches the pump, food reaches the supermarket, and factories receive their raw materials.

Their story forces a challenging question: In an increasingly transparent and interconnected world facing the urgent threat of climate change, can this model of unaccountable power persist? The traders have always thrived by adapting to change, but they now face a world that is not only watching them more closely than ever before but is also beginning to fundamentally question the morality and sustainability of the world they helped build.