March 24 (UPI) — The United States on Monday announced it will impose a 25% tariff on the imports of any country involved in Venezuela’s oil industry, as the Trump administration targets the South American nation.
The tariffs were authorized Monday via an executive order that Trump signed, accusing Venezuela and its ruling regime of President Nicolas Maduro of posing “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.
“The United States will not tolerate any third-countries or their oil companies producing, extracting or exporting oil and oil-related products with the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“This is a regime that has consistently stolen elections, pillaged from its people and colluded with our enemies. Any country that allows its companies to produce, extract or export from Venezuela will be subject to new tariffs, and any companies will be subject to sanctions.”
Trump said the tariffs will be imposed next week because Venezuela has sent migrants who are criminals and gang members into the United States. Those allegations have not been supported by facts.
Trump also said Monday he may scrap plans for 25% reciprocal tariffs to other nations for imports of pharmaceuticals, cars and lumber set to go into effect April 2.
“I may give a lot of countries breaks,” Trump said Monday in the White House of reciprocal tariffs that match foreign countries’ tariffs dollar for dollar. “We might be even nicer than that.”
Trump didn’t specify countries exempted but at a later White House event said semiconductor industries also may be targeted and hinted at ones on autos.
At the market close Monday, the stock prices were up broadly upon news Trump may not enact the broad tariffs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 597.97 to 42,583.32, Standard & Poors 500 up 100.01 to 5,767.59 and NASDAQ Composite up 404.54 to 18,188.59.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil May futures were up 98 cents to $69.25 barrel.
Trump vs. Venezuela
Trump has had an adversarial relationship with Maduro and Venezuela.
During his first term in the White House, Trump led a failed maximum pressure campaign of escalating sanctions and political pressure to unseat Maduro after the authoritarian leader’s re-election was deemed illegitimate in late 2018.
Since his return to Washington on Jan. 20, Trump has again focused on Venezuela, blaming it and the Maduro regime of sending violent migrants into the United States.
In a statement on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the secondary tariffs were being imposed “for numerous reasons, including the fact that Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murders and people of a very violent nature.”
He added that Venezuela has also been “very hostile to the United States and the freedoms which we espouse.”
Venezuela’s foreign ministry rejected the secondary tariffs as “arbitrary, illegal and desperate.”
“For years, the fascist right, repudiated by the Venezuelan people. has promoted economic sanctions with the illusion of surrendering Venezuela. They have failed. They have failed because Venezuela is a sovereign country, because its people have resisted with dignity and because the world no longer submits to any scheme of economic dictatorship,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The policy of maximum pressure has failed in Venezuela and in the world.”
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Tren de Aragua members. A district judge on Monday declined to block his restraining order.
Oil exports
Venezuela exported an average of about 660,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2023, including 233,000 to the United States and 270,000 to China, according to data obtained by CNBC from Kpler.
Saudi Arabia was the No. 1 exporter, with 6.659 million per day.
In 2023, the Biden administration lifted sanctions on Venezuelan oil but they were reinstated in April 2024 after the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of failing to hold free and fair elections.
Chevron was granted permission to pump oil there. The Treasury Department announced on Monday it would be extended to May 27. Chevron’s stock price on NASDAQ was up slightly Monday.
CITGO, a U.S.-based oil refiner and subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA, is not publicly traded.
Tariffs could be imposed on goods from China because of oil purchases from Venezuela. This means those goods will face a 45% tariff, with steel and aluminum hit with a 70% tax.
Trump has already enacted 20% tariffs for all Chinese goods entering the United States, with steel and aluminum imports facing an additional 25% tariff.
“This announcement by the Trump administration appears to be one more action targeting China,” Matt Smith, lead oil analyst of the Americas at Belgian analytics provider Kpler, told CNN.