administration

Caracas, February 20, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration is forcing all royalty, tax, and dividend payments from Venezuelan oil production be paid into accounts managed by Washington.

The mandate reinforces the White House’s control over Venezuelan crude export revenues in the wake of the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, as well as a naval blockade imposed in December.

The US Treasury Department updated its FAQ section on February 18 to clarify conditions on recently issued sanctions waivers allowing expanded participation in Venezuela’s oil sector to Western corporations.

Under the licenses, only “routine payments of local taxes, permits, and fees” to Venezuelan authorities are permitted.

“Other payments, including royalties, fixed per-barrel production levies, or federal taxes to blocked persons, such as the Venezuelan government or (state oil company) PDVSA, must be made into the Foreign Government Deposit Fund,” the text read.

The acting Rodríguez administration has yet to comment on the new restrictions. 

Since January, Washington has imposed control over Venezuelan crude exports, with proceeds deposited in a US-administered account in Qatar. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced recently that funds will now be deposited directly in a US Treasury account. Senior administration officials have stated that the arrangement gives the White House “leverage” to condition Venezuelan government policies, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Caracas must submit a “budget request” to access its own oil revenues.

At least US $500 million, out of an initial deal estimated at $2 billion, have been returned to Venezuela and offered by banks in foreign exchange auctions. Venezuelan authorities have also reported the import of medicines and medical equipment from US manufacturers using “unblocked funds.”

On Thursday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 50A allowing select firms to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity. The document mirrors General License 50 issued on February 13 but added French firm Maurel & Prom to a list including BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol, and Shell.

Maurel & Prom’s main project in the Caribbean nation is a minority stake in the Petroregional del Lago joint venture, which currently produces 21,000 barrels per day (bpd). The company’s executives recently held a meeting with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of Caracas’ efforts to secure foreign investment.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has issued several licenses to boost US and European involvement in the Venezuelan energy sector, with imports of diluents, inputs and technology now allowed. General License 49, issued on February 13, demands that companies apply for a special license before striking production and investment deals with Venezuela.

The US Treasury issued sanctions waivers while maintaining existing coercive measures against the Venezuelan oil industry in place, including financial sanctions against PDVSA. The licenses likewise block any transactions with companies from Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

The selective flexibilization of sanctions followed the Venezuelan National Assembly’s approval of a pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform grants private corporations expanded control over operations and sales, while opening the possibility for disputes to be taken to external arbitration.

The reformed law also allows the Venezuelan executive to arbitrarily reduce royalties and a new “integrated tax,” capped at 30 and 15 percent, respectively. The executive is likewise entitled to grant reductions to the 50 percent income tax set for the oil industry if deemed necessary for projects to be “internationally competitive.”

According to US-set conditions and the reformed law, minority partners such as Repsol are authorized to sell crude from Venezuelan joint ventures before depositing the owed royalty and tax amounts, as well as dividends belonging to PDVSA, to US Treasury-designated accounts.

The initial crude sales as part of the Trump-imposed arrangement were conducted via commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura, which lifted cargoes at Venezuelan ports before re-selling them to final customers. However, according to Reuters, US-based refiners including Phillips66 and CITGO are looking to secure crude directly from Venezuela to maximize profits.

CITGO, a subsidiary of PDVSA, is close to being taken over by vulture fund Elliott Management following a court-mandated auction to satisfy creditor claims against the South American country. The company has been managed by boards appointed by the US-backed Venezuelan opposition since 2019.

President Trump has long spread conspiracy theories about voting designed to explain away his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Now that he’s president again, Trump has stocked his administration with those who have promoted his falsehoods and in some cases helped him try to overturn his loss.

Those election conspiracists now holding official power range from the attorney general to lawyers filing lawsuits for the Justice Department. Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who unsuccessfully pushed the Justice Department in 2020 to back the president’s false claims, is now leading a sweeping probe of the vote from that election.

The most dramatic action from that mandate was the seizure in late January of ballots and 2020 election records from Fulton County in Georgia, a Democratic stronghold that includes Atlanta. The county has long been a target of election conspiracy theorists aligned with Trump, and the affidavit for the search warrant shows the action was based on 2020 claims that in many cases had been thoroughly investigated.

Election officials across the country, especially those in states controlled politically by Democrats, are bracing for more turmoil during this year’s elections, when control of Congress is on the line.

“The election denial movement is now embedded across our federal government, which makes it more powerful than ever,” said Joanna Lydgate, chief executive of States United Democracy Center, which tracks those who promote election conspiracy theories. “Trump and his allies are trying to use all of the powers of the federal government to undermine elections, with an eye to the upcoming midterms.”

Trump has remade the federal government as an arm of his own personal will, and his attorney general, Pam Bondi — who helped try to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss — has declared that everyone working at the Justice Department needs to carry out the president’s demands. Even with all the issues facing him in his second term, from persistent concerns about the economy to his immigration crackdown, Trump continues to push the false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Some of the people who populate his administration are, like Bondi, longtime supporters who continued to help Trump even as he sought to overturn an election. Some played minor roles in supporting the false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Still others have pushed conspiracy theories, often fantastical or debunked, that have helped persuade millions of Republicans that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday lashed out at Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs agenda, calling them “fools” who made a “terrible, defective decision” that he plans to circumvent by imposing new levies in a different way.

In a defiant appearance at the White House, Trump told reporters that his administration will impose new tariffs by using alternative legal means. He cast the ruling as a technical, not permanent setback, for his trade policy, insisting that the “end result is going to get us more money.”

The president said he would instead impose an across-the-board 10% tariff on imports on global trade partners through an executive order.

The sharp response underscores how central tariffs have been to Trump’s economic and political identity. He portrayed the ruling as another example of institutional resistance to his “America First” agenda and pledged to continue fighting to hold on to his trade authority despite the ruling from the nation’s highest court.

Trump, however, said the ruling was “deeply disappointing” and called the justices who voted against his policy — including Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated to the court — “fools” and “lap dogs.”

“I am ashamed of certain members of the court,” Trump told reporters. “Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”

For years, Trump has insisted his tariffs policy is making the United States wealthier and giving his administration leverage to force better trade deals, even though the economic burden has often fallen on U.S. companies and consumers. On the campaign trail, he has turned to them again and again, casting sweeping levies as the economic engine for his administration’s second-term agenda.

Now, in the heat of an election year, the court’s decision scrambles that message.

The ruling from the nation’s highest court is a rude awakening for Trump at a time when his trade policies have already caused fractures among some Republicans and public polling shows a majority of Americans are increasingly concerned with the state of the economy.

Ahead of the November elections, Republicans have urged Trump to stay focused on an economic message to help them keep control of Congress. The president tried to do that on Thursday, telling a crowd in northwest Georgia that “without tariffs, this country would be in so much trouble.”

As Trump attacked the court, Democrats across the country celebrated the ruling — with some arguing there should be a mechanism in place to allow Americans to recoup money lost by the president’s trade policy.

“No Supreme Court decision can undo the massive damage that Trump’s chaotic tariffs have caused,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a post on X. “The American people paid for these tariffs and the American people should get their money back.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump’s tariffs an “illegal cash grab that drove up prices, hurt working families and wrecked longstanding global alliances.”

“Every dollar your administration unlawfully took needs to be immediately refunded — with interest,” Newsom, who is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid, wrote in a post on X addressed to Trump.

The president’s signature economic policy has long languished in the polls, and by a wide margin. Six in 10 Americans surveyed in a Pew Research poll this month said they do not support the tariff increases. Of that group, about 40% strongly disapproved. Just 37% surveyed said they supported the measures — 13% of whom expressed strong approval.

A majority of voters have opposed the policy since April, when Trump unveiled the far-reaching trade agenda, according to Pew.

The court decision lands as more than a policy setback to Trump’ s economic agenda.

It is also a rebuke of the governing style embraced by the president that has often treated Congress less as a partner and more as a body that can be bypassed by executive authority.

Trump has long tested the bounds of his executive authority, particularly on foreign policies, where he has heavily leaned on emergency and national security powers to impose tariffs and acts of war without congressional approval. In the court ruling, even some of his allies drew a bright line through that approach.

Gorsuch sided with the court’s liberals in striking down the tariffs policy. He wrote that while “it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problems arise,” the legislative branch should be taken into account with major policies, particularly those involving taxes and tariffs.

“In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future,” Gorsuch wrote. “For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious.”

He added: “But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.”

Trump said the court ruling prompted him to use his trade powers in different ways.

In December, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted has the administration can replicate the tariff structure, or a similar structure, through alternative legal methods in the 1974 Trade Act and 1962 Trade Expansion Act.

“Now the court has given me the unquestioned right to ban all sort of things from coming into our country, to destroy foreign countries,” Trump said, as he lamented the court constraining his ability to “charge a fee.”

“How crazy is that?” Trump said.

WASHINGTON — Immigrant advocates fear a Trump administration proposal released Friday amounts to an indefinite pause on new work permits for asylum seekers.

The draft regulation from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would halt the acceptance of work permit applications when average processing times at the agency exceed 180 days.

The regulation also would extend the time asylum seekers must wait before becoming eligible to apply for a work permit, lengthening the period from 150 days to 365 days.

The proposal says USCIS expects that new work permit applications for asylum seekers “would be paused for an extended period, possibly many years.”

Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said the regulation would be catastrophic for asylum seekers, their families and U.S. communities.

“Forcing individuals who are working and living in the United States legally out of their jobs is not only cruel, but it is bad policy,” she said. “If this regulation goes into effect, it will hurt U.S. families, businesses and the U.S. economy.”

The proposed regulation change comes amid broad efforts by the Trump administration to end humanitarian benefits and restrict legal immigration.

For example, Homeland Security has sought to terminate Temporary Protected Status benefits that provided work permits and deportation protection to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. And in a memo released this week, the agency said agents are authorized to detain refugees who have not yet filed applications for lawful permanent residence after their first year in the U.S.

Under the first Trump administration, agency officials in 2020 similarly proposed increasing the employment eligibility waiting period to one year.

A coalition of civil rights organizations filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Sunday, seeking to prevent it from misusing voter information seized from the Fulton County, Ga., elections office last month. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 16 (UPI) — Several civil rights groups are suing the Trump administration to prohibit it from misusing voter information that it seized from Fulton County, Ga., last month.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, the NAACP and Atlanta and Georgia State Conference branches of the NAACP filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Sunday.

They seek to block the Trump administration from using the voting records to purge voters from the rolls, improperly disclose information, dox or intimidate voters.

“We have very serious concerns about what the Trump administration could do with the voting records of thousands of people from Fulton County,” Robert Weiner, director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement.

“When people registered to vote, they did not sign up for the release of their private information and social security numbers, especially not to politicians and their loyalists bent on advancing debunked conspiracy theories.”

The FBI raided the Fulton County elections office in Union City, Ga., on Jan. 28, and commandeered sensitive voter information from the 2020 general election. The lawsuit alleges that this included personal data and documents that could identify who voted for a particular candidate.

About 700 boxes of ballots were taken from the elections office as well as other materials related to the election.

FBI agents executed a warrant at the direction of the White House, a warrant affidavit revealed.

President Donald Trump has maintained that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and he was the true winner, despite numerous court decisions striking down his claims.

Trump’s claims have continued since his return to the White House, as well as broader claims of election fraud. He has called for elections to be “nationalized” in recent weeks, saying Republicans should “take over” elections in “at least maybe 15 places.”

A POPULAR UK holiday park has gone into administration after nearly 20 years.

The future of the resort, which features a retail village, golf course, and theatres, currently remains uncertain.

Stonham Barns Park, based in the Suffolk countryside, filed the notice on Monday, February 16.

David Hudson and David Hinrichsen of FRP Advisory have been appointed as joint administrators following a period of financial pressure on the business”.

The administrators confirmed they are focused on continuing to trade the site while seeking a buyer, with the aim of securing the park’s future as a going concern.

All existing holiday bookings will be honoured, and the site will continue to take new bookings, with all facilitiesoperating as normal throughout the administration process. 

David Hudson, joint administrator and partner at FRP, told The Sun: “We are very much focussed on business as usual and want to reassure guests with existing bookings that these are unaffected.

“Anyone considering booking a visit can make one with confidence too.  

“We are actively marketing the site for sale and would welcome bidders who see the opportunity here with a well-established and popular caravan park.” 

Located conveniently on the A1120 tourist route, Stonham Barns Park was first opened in 1987, with the current management taking over in 2001.

Stonham Barns eventually evolved into a multi-facility destination, offering fun for all the family for 362 days of the year.

The park is famous for hosting niche enthusiast shows, including historic re-enactments of the Viking era, as well as classic car shows and darts tournaments.

Visitors can also enjoy countless onsite attractions, including an indoor soft play area, a pirate-themed adventure golf, a vibrant shopping village, an owl sanctuary and Meerkat castle, fair rides, and fishing lakes.

The park is also popular with golf enthusiasts, offering a nine hole golf course, simulator bays, a street golf driving range, a chip n putt course, golf darts, and foot golf.

Stonham Barns Showground is also located within the park, hosting numerous events throughout the year, including an annual dog show and a Christmas spectacular.

Visitors can also rent or buy holiday homes on-site, including luxury lodges situated around the scenic lake.

In December, the HMRC issued the park with a Winding Up Petition, a last‑resort enforcement tool when other collection options have been exhausted.

A deadline was reported for the end of January, with no official amount disclosed.

At the time of issue, company directors publicly stated that the park was fully in funds to meet the obligation and that there was no risk to the ongoing operation of the resort and its on‑site businesses.

The Sun has reached out to Stonham Barns for comment.