Delcy

Is the Trump administration actually stealing from Venezuelans?

The Financial Times estimated the “likely value” of Venezuela’s oil revenues since January, when those income streams (not only from oil and gas, but also from gold and other minerals) came under the direct control and supervision of the US government. Using data from Kpler and Argus Media, the newspaper put the figure at $13 billion. 

Let’s assume that one figure is accurate or at least comes close to the real number. The key question here, which neither the United States nor Venezuelan authorities have bothered to answer, is how much of that has been trickling back to the Venezuelan economy.

American officials, in press conferences and hearings, have given remarks about how the revenue repatriation framework is supposed to work under the current arrangement. There was a temporary framework immediately after the gringo takeover (the famous Qatar fund we reported in January). Now, it allegedly works like this:

1) Oil revenues flow into accounts managed by the US Treasury. Crude buyers, such as India and Spain, route payments into US-controlled “Foreign Government Deposit Funds.” 

2) Secretary of State Marco Rubio (empowered by Executive Order 14373) provides instructions to the Treasury for disbursements to Venezuelan entities, particularly the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV).

3) The funds land in BCV accounts.

4) One chunk of that pays pensions, public workers’ salaries, the military and the police apparatus, i.e. the basic components of the State.

5) Another part of those dollars is channelled to the domestic banking system through a select group of private banks—here’s where things start to get tricky. Rather than holding competitive auctions or floating currency rates on a free market, the BCV distributes capped quotas of dollars to these banks at the strictly controlled official exchange rate.

6) At the final stage, from commercial banks to the private sectors, the transaction is a direct cash sale: to purchase dollars, Venezuelan companies must have the full equivalent in bolivars ready in their accounts. Banks immediately debit the buyer’s bolivar account at the day’s official rate and credit the equivalent dollars into the company’s local foreign-currency account. It works as a rationing mechanism, since major corporations (e.g. those in key sectors like food and medicine) are prioritized, and smaller companies acquire USD on a first-come, first-served basis through online banking platforms until daily dollar quotas run out.

Good. So now we know how the repatriation framework is supposed to work.

Let’s go back to the $13 billion figure, and the stage of the sequence connecting the US Treasury and the BCV. The US calls itself de facto custodian of Venezuelan money (remember EO14373 speaks of the “Custodial Nature of United States Possession”), so it should showcase full transparency over those transactions and demand accountability from the Delcy Rodríguez government. How much money has the US disbursed? Has it published anything about those disbursements? What about the Delcy government?

The fundamental question is not only how much revenue the US and the Rodríguez administration are processing, but who ultimately benefits from these flows and whether they contribute to genuine economic recovery.

Here’s where the news is worse. Washington has not disclosed anything concrete. What we know is limited to what US officials tell journalists (mainly foreign correspondents) off the record, which is very vague, and very little. Most recently, a “senior US official” told reporter Stephania Taladrid (who wrote this 11-pager about Maria Corina Machado) that the Trump administration “authorized the disbursement of more than six billion dollars to Rodríguez’s government.” Officials had given some accounts of the amounts disbursed in the first days of the arrangement. For instance, Rubio mentioned that $300m were disbursed through the Qatari fund during a Senate hearing in late January. In early February, an anonymous US official confirmed that Venezuela received its first $500 million post-Maduro. That was the first full disbursement, the last one that the US addressed, though without offering any form of paper trail.

You could say things are equally opaque on Delcy’s front, with the caveat that we are used to this defining feature of the chavista regime. I should add something else about the US-Venezuela framework explained above: according to public statements from American officials, Caracas should submit monthly budget requests to the US, so Rubio can keep authorizing cash transfers with peace of mind. The State Department (through Western Hemisphere chief diplomat Michael Kozak, who is playing an important role in Venezuelan politics) said in April that the accounting firm KPMG was hired to produce quarterly audits of how Venezuelan oil revenues are being spent. He also claimed that, by then, $3 billion had been “moved through” to Venezuela.

Three months later, those reports do not exist. Or are not public at least. It seems that our friend El Kenedi was right when he warned Venezuela will never show you the money, but that’s the Viceroy’s fault, not just Delcy’s.

The Financial Times, which ran the story that ignited the controversy, is playing an interesting role in shaping the conversation about the value of Venezuelan assets and liabilities. Right before the devastating earthquakes, an FT scoop said the Delcy government would reveal a $240 billion debt pile (“much higher than expected”). The latest article might not paint the full picture (as a New York Times reporter suggests) but it’s perhaps the first major broadsheet to lambast Trump for his irresponsible (and misleading) remarks, and his team for the lack of transparency over the handling of Venezuelan money. This issue is nothing new, although the recent catastrophe makes full disclosure much more urgent. Other prominent figures and organizations had raised their voice before the quakes.

On June 2, Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann wrote a column in Project Syndicate titled “The Rape of Venezuela” where he addresses this issue and others, including the politics of the looming debt restructuring and the lack of a democratic recovery. In it, he accuses the Trump White House of viewing Venezuela not as a democratic reconstruction project, but as a strategic hydrocarbon asset in the service of American power. A day later, the Council on Foreign Relations (a leading liberal-leaning US think tank) broke down how US control of Venezuelan oil remains murky. That has served as a valuable source for much of the stuff we mention here.

Going back to yesterday’s story, it quotes Venezuelan economist Alejandro Grisanti noting clear indications of large dollar inflows over the past few months. While Grisanti had initially expected economic growth to accelerate in the fourth quarter of this year, he noted that the recent earthquake is now likely to push that recovery back into the middle of next year.

These “indications of large dollar inflows” provide a clear clue as to how the Delcy Rodríguez administration is spending the oil revenues disbursed by the US Treasury. The BCV continues to deploy significant foreign currency reserves to artificially stabilize the official exchange rate. As Juan Comella observed in May, Rodríguez’s monetary policy differs little from that of the Maduro regime. Grisanti and Ecoanalítica remain sharp critics of this interventionist model, the very mechanism that wrecked Venezuela’s economy in the first place by turning privileged access to official-rate dollars into a primary driver of systemic corruption and economic inefficiency.

In an April report, Ecoanalítica criticized the rigid framework governing the domestic private sector’s acquisition of foreign exchange. Only entities with foreign bank accounts (which can be cleared through the SWIFT network) can buy dollars from the select group of major Venezuelan banks, effectively excluding emerging firms and SMEs. Consequently, local businesses receiving US dollars often cannot execute international transactions (such as paying overseas vendors) because they lack the proper banking infrastructure or because their local financial institutions lack correspondent banks abroad. Furthermore, the report highlights that retail accounts held by natural persons capture 20-30% of total FX allocations. This reflects the classic playbook of rewarding cronies while perpetuating market distortions: privileged individuals purchase dollars cheaply at the official BCV rate and immediately offload them on the parallel market at a premium.

We may not know the exact figures, but funds are trickling through the system. The fundamental question is not only how much revenue the US and the Rodríguez administration are processing, but who ultimately benefits from these flows and whether they contribute to genuine economic recovery.

July 9 (UPI) — Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez said she will send a formal letter to King Charles III, seeking release of the country’s gold reserves at the Bank of England, asserting the assets are needed to finance recovery efforts after the deadly June 24 earthquakes.

During a videoconference Wednesday with officials overseeing 87 temporary camps established for earthquake survivors, Rodríguez said she had begun direct international efforts to recover frozen Venezuelan assets and use them to respond to the disaster.

“That gold belongs to our people and should be used to address the terrible, tragic consequences of these twin earthquakes,” Rodríguez said, according to TeleSur.

She also renewed calls for an end to sanctions against Venezuela, arguing the country has financial resources frozen abroad that could be used to fund reconstruction after the disaster, which has killed 3,800 people.

In addition to appealing directly to the British monarch, Rodríguez said she is also in talks with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

She said the goal is to unlock about $3.568 billion in Special Drawing Rights held by Venezuela at the IMF.

Venezuela’s gold reserves remain in custody at the Bank of England. According to Deutsche Welle, U.K. courts previously rejected transferring control of the assets to Nicolás Maduro’s administration after determining it was not the country’s legitimate government.

Rodríguez became interim president in January after Maduro was captured by U.S. military forces.

Separately, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Iván Gil called Wednesday for the release of Venezuelan state assets frozen abroad during a virtual meeting with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“We have accounts belonging to the Venezuelan state in different parts of the world that have been frozen as a result of illegal sanctions,” Gil said, according to NTV24.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, who is in Venezuela, said the scale of the disaster prompted the United Nations to launch an urgent appeal for $296 million to support relief operations after the earthquakes.

According to multiple media reports, tracked international financial assistance pledged or delivered to Venezuela has exceeded $600 million through multiple donors and aid channels.

The U.S. State Department said it has committed more than $386 million in direct humanitarian assistance. The aid includes more than 400 metric tons of supplies, including hygiene kits, emergency shelter materials and food.

The assistance is being distributed through the Red Cross, UNICEF and the U.N. World Food Program rather than through Venezuela’s central government.

Despite those contributions, the financial challenge remains immense. U.N. estimates place total physical damage to homes, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure at about $37 billion, meaning the international aid received so far covers only the initial emergency response, including medical care and temporary shelter for displaced residents.

Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, says 80% of the buildings that collapsed in back-to-back earthquakes were privately developed. She also confirmed that more than 2,500 people are dead and that search and rescue operations still continue.

One of the memorable moments of Venezuela’s crazy January ‘26 was ExxonMobil Chairman Darren Woods sitting across from President Trump, telling him Venezuela was “uninvestable.” His company is owed billions from Chávez-era expropriations, spent years in arbitration tribunals, and had watched its assets nationalised without fair compensation. Four months later, ExxonMobil’s technical teams were on the ground in Venezuela, evaluating assets including the Cerro Negro project. Woods was telling investors he felt positive about the opportunities.

The arc from expropriated creditor to ¿partner? is not happening by accident. In April 2026, the IMF and World Bank resumed dealings with Venezuela for the first time since 2019, opening the path to a formal economic assessment and potentially unlocking $4.9 billion in frozen special drawing rights. In May, the Delcy administration announced a “comprehensive restructuring of its sovereign debt” and PDVSA obligations, appointing Centerview Partners as financial adviser and pledging a macroeconomic framework by June. This did not include a request for a macroeconomic programme established by the Fund, which distanced itself from Venezuela’s announcement shortly after. According to Reuters, Venezuela’s total liabilities could be above $150 billion.

On June 2, Venezuela added Hogan Lovells as legal counsel for the restructuring under a dual mandate that also covers strategic lobbying for the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. The account is led by Norm Coleman, a former Republican senator with deep political connections in the capital. Neither selection has been free of political entanglement. Former Trump official Mauricio Claver-Carone, earmarked by The Washington Post as Venezuela’s unofficial viceroy, has vouched for Centerview. His business partner, Jessica Bedoya, was on the same chartered flight to Caracas as two Centerview executives on February 12, weeks before the firm finalized its contract (Centerview denied Bedoya played any role in their assignment).

Some of the companies that spent a decade winning arbitration awards against Venezuela may now be considering turning those claims into something more useful: an operating agreement, a new oil deal. Whether the game is actually changing, and the extent to which Delcy’s technical cadres can manage the process her government is trying to kickstart, are two of the huge questions for Venezuela’s “transition” observers.

Without the IMF as an anchor, the most aggressive litigants will extract preferential recoveries while others are left with worthless paper.

The shape of how Venezuela got here is also visible in a Delaware courthouse. In December, a judge signed the order transferring Citgo to Amber Energy, an affiliate of Wall Street hedge fund Elliott Management, for 5.9 billion dollars. The gavel came down, but the sale did not close. CITGO is now in legal and political limbo.

The transaction requires approval from OFAC, which has repeatedly extended the freeze on CITGO-related transactions. The State Department is now the main barrier blocking the sale, while Treasury, Commerce, and Energy favour letting it proceed. Ten days ago, OFAC issued General License 5W, extending the freeze on CITGO share transfers to June 19. A World Bank delegation visited Caracas last month. Everything suggests Delcy Rodríguez now feels compelled to show she can find a way to pay them back. That she has a plan.

In the meantime, Amber Energy is pressing daily for access to CITGO’s financial and operational details even though it is not formally in control, while CITGO itself cannot make major investment decisions or hire key personnel. A company valued at $13 billion is being run in slow motion, waiting for Washington to decide what Venezuela’s most valuable foreign asset is actually worth, to whom, and under what terms.

None of this happened overnight. The process was set in motion by Hugo Chávez when he went on a nationalisation spree that expropriated the assets of ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Crystallex, and dozens of other foreign companies across the oil, mining, and manufacturing sectors. Those companies didn’t go home quietly. They went to arbitration. And they won.

The restructuring announcement tries to change the terms of the conversation. Venezuela is no longer being asked whether it will engage with its creditors. It has begun doing so. Centerview Partners is on the ground. A macroeconomic framework is due soon. The creditor committee, which includes GMO, Greylock Capital, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price has been ready to negotiate since January.

ConocoPhillips has been explicit: recovering the billions owed from past expropriations takes priority over any new drilling.

An IMF programme, if it materialises, could signal credibility. It would serve as the anchor for the entire restructuring process. IMF conditionality establishes a debt sustainability framework that defines how much Venezuela can actually pay, which in turn defines what creditors can realistically expect. It also catalyses coordination. Rather than pursuing individual enforcement actions against Venezuelan assets, creditors have an incentive to wait for an orderly process. Without that anchor, the most aggressive litigants will extract preferential recoveries while others are left with worthless paper.

Delcy Rodríguez announced the restructuring without first securing that anchor. She has stated there are “no plans” to contract an IMF loan. The IMF, for its part, says it is willing to support a programme but requires clarity on economic data and external debt that Caracas has not yet provided. Very soon, we will find out whether Venezuela is building toward an IMF-anchored process or trying to engineer one without it.

Several of the companies owed the largest arbitration awards are well positioned to operate Venezuelan assets: ExxonMobil at Cerro Negro, ConocoPhillips at its former Petrozuata and Hamaca projects. ConocoPhillips has been explicit: recovering the billions owed from past expropriations takes priority over any new drilling. A negotiated settlement that converts arbitration claims into operational stakes, with revenue streams tied to production, would give creditors a return and Venezuela a rebuilt industry. The OFAC licensing architecture already enables this. Since January 2026, OFAC has issued or updated more than eight general licenses expanding authorised activity in Venezuela’s energy and financial sectors. Washington has built the tools, such as General License 58. The question is whether Venezuela can use them. 

What this push does not resolve is the harder question: whether Venezuela has the institutional capacity to negotiate on its own terms rather than simply accept whatever is offered. Woods’s shift from “uninvestable” to “positive” in four months signals appetite, not commitment. ExxonMobil wants its assets back or a return on its claims. So does ConocoPhillips. So does every creditor in the queue. The question is whether Venezuela can show up to this negotiation as a party with a strategy, not just a debtor with a problem.

The path forward requires exactly what fifteen years of chavismo didn’t build: legal capacity, a coherent negotiating strategy, and the institutional infrastructure to distinguish between claims that should be settled, claims that should be contested, and claims that might be converted into something more useful than a judgment. The latter could amount to an oil agreement like the one Chevron got in the early 2020s. Venezuela’s reformed Hydrocarbons Law allows international arbitration to resolve disputes in the oil and gas sector. So does the new Mining Law for gold and strategic minerals.

The framework now exists in writing. Whether Venezuela can implement it coherently, and whether it can hold up against the inevitable tension between Venezuelan law as established in the new statutes and US jurisdiction as required by OFAC licenses, are the open questions that will determine whether this moment becomes the start of something durable or another lost opportunity.

None of that sounds like glamorous policymaking. It doesn’t play well in a speech. But the alternative, continuing to treat international arbitration as someone else’s problem, has a documented price tag. It is measured in refineries.