Venezuelan

After Maduro’s January 3 extraction and arrest, and the emergence of an uneasy relationship between the United States and interim president Delcy Rodríguez, the conversation about Venezuela has increasingly focused on the future of the oil industry. The issue was central to Trump’s rhetoric in the weeks leading up to the extraction and has remained so as he pushes for a rapid reactivation of the sector as part of what he sees as a broader democratic transition.

It makes sense. For decades, the oil industry has been the heart of the country’s economy. Any viable route toward a solution to Venezuela’s prolonged socioeconomic crisis passes through the recovery of the national oil industry, a sector uniquely damaged under chavismo. This assumption also underpins María Corina Machado’s message, which holds that following a democratic transition, renewed investment and increased exports would fuel economic recovery and the establishment of Venezuela as the “Energy Hub of the Americas.”

Yet both narratives tend to treat the oil industry as a static entity that responds predictably to simple incentives. Last week’s meeting with oil executives at the White House showed that this reality is not so simple, as major corporations like Exxon Mobil appear far less eager to engage than anticipated without stronger guarantees, as shown in a statement they released over the weekend. So, while there is a lot of talk about recovery in the oil industry, it is not clear who will do it or how long it will take. Moreover, any revitalization effort requires a sizable amount of human capital to staff the thousands of jobs the industry demands. In the case of Venezuela, a significant portion of that talent moved abroad to continue their careers as the oil sector deteriorated.

The prospects of recovery become more challenging without their input or expertise. Therefore, while narratives of reactivation suggest these workers would return and work in Venezuela automatically, it is important to directly consider their perspectives. Before Maduro’s extraction and arrest, I spoke with four Venezuelan oil workers overseas to understand what “reactivating” means and whether they would be open to returning to work in Venezuela. All four oil workers spoke on condition of anonymity and are identified by pseudonyms due to professional and personal concerns.

“Political stability is important, and you do see flashes that things might improve and that changes are coming, but real stability never fully materializes.”

Their initial reactions echoed some of the themes of last week’s White House meeting. There are things that need to change in Venezuela’s oil industry to begin imagining a process of reactivation, particularly the importance of a clear legal framework for investors. For Javier, an oil services engineer currently based in South America, this is particularly relevant: “I think a lot will depend on how things are set up, on what the rules of the game look like. For companies to return, and with them the workforce, those rules will matter a great deal.”

Juan, who is based in Saudi Arabia, also emphasized the importance of political stability: “Political stability is important, and you do see flashes that things might improve and that changes are coming, but real stability never fully materializes. That’s one of the main differences in this part of the world. Even when the economy collapses or there are global problems, there is still a great deal of stability.”

They also expressed concerns about how PDVSA, the state-owned oil and gas company, operates, arguing that this would pose a hurdle for potential investment. Carlos, who is based in Houston and currently works in technical support and engineering roles for international operations, emphasized that PDVSA’s relationship with the government should be re-evaluated: “There has to be a total restructuring of what PDVSA is. It should be entirely focused on operations. It shouldn’t worry about the political part.” 

During the years of both Chávez and Maduro, the company became heavily politicized and deeply involved in electoral campaigns, as well as functioning as a logistical arm of the government’s social programs. Beyond enabling corruption and mismanagement, this expansion stretched the company too thin and left it with long-standing debts to oil services companies. Javier noted that those debts would make such companies wary of investing in Venezuela.

There is also a significant concern about the technical capabilities of the industry after years of decay. Juan, for instance, said that with the low levels of maintenance, “it is almost impossible to reactivate it to the level it was before. It will need too much foreign investment to return to the same level.” 

Miguel, a Venezuelan oil industry engineer working in regional engineering management, said there is still much that is unknown and that there is a profound need for technical assessments at every level. “We have to ask, what are all the barriers that prevent us from a higher barrel output?” He added that this would necessarily lead to a process of infrastructure modernization. “When I talk about modernizing infrastructure, I mean evaluating everything, equipment, pipelines, refineries, storage, to see what works, what doesn’t, what needs to be repaired, and what needs to be installed. It’s about asking whether the equipment is still adequate or whether more efficient options exist.” Miguel also emphasized that this process will require the reestablishment of supply chains, from chemicals to spare parts, so that all the different industries linked to the oil business are solidified again.

All of these processes take time and rely on highly uncertain timelines. When considering a potential return to work in Venezuela, nostalgia is quickly confronted by family responsibilities. For instance, Carlos stated: “With all the love and nostalgia in the world, yes, I would like to. But when you have a family, you also have to guarantee their safety.”

The Venezuelan diaspora is not a monolith, but rather a dynamic group. The lessons they learned back home are now being deployed at a global scale and they see recovery as a long process, with the needs of their families as a pressing concern. 

It goes beyond safety. There must also be conditions for families to flourish: “To consider returning, there would also need to be economic, personal, and family conditions in place, good schools, a functioning healthcare system,” Juan added. 

This was a particular concern as well when I talked with my father about it. He has been working in the industry for 30 years and throughout a wide variety of countries. He emphasized that while the idea of returning sounds nice on paper, the living conditions are essential: “We’ve had to move many times, and the underlying theme through all of them has been the fact that the conditions back home were not appropriate. It wouldn’t make sense to rush back”. He also added that while it is true that it is possible to live well in Venezuela, there’s systemic issues that need to be addressed: “You know it is very possible to live well in Venezuela, but there are broader things to think about like inflation or the fact that the healthcare system is not as solid”.  

I wish the story was different and that this highly-skilled workforce would return to quickly rebuild the industry. Yet, in times as complicated as these ones, it’s vital to remember that the Venezuelan diaspora is not a monolith, but rather a dynamic group. The lessons they learned in Venezuela are now being deployed at a global scale and they see recovery as a long process, with the needs of their families as a pressing concern. For instance, Carlos added: “How do I give my children what they need to become, I don’t know, citizens or have the opportunities they currently have within the United States or the different countries where I have lived?” In addition, returning to Venezuela represents, in some cases, starting without the social roots they had growing up. This is the case for Miguel: “My immediate family and my friends are no longer there. Going back to Venezuela would mean returning to a place where my parents are no longer living, my siblings are outside the country, and my wife and her family are also abroad. That Venezuela I might miss, the one I remember from when I was younger, no longer exists.”

Still, despite these calculations, the possibility of return is never fully closed. As Miguel stated: “Obviously, if I’m needed in Venezuela, I’m willing to help rebuild it, but several things would have to align. That’s why my answer today is that we’re still evaluating. Still evaluating. I don’t know.”

United States President Donald Trump says no more Venezuelan oil or money will go to Cuba, and he has suggested the communist-run island should strike a deal with Washington, ramping up pressure on the longtime US nemesis.

Venezuela is Cuba’s biggest oil supplier, but no cargo has departed from Venezuelan ports to the Caribbean country since the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces on January 3 amid a strict US oil blockade on the OPEC country, according to the latest shipping data.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela,” Trump added.

Trump did not elaborate on his suggested deal, but US officials have hardened their rhetoric against Cuba in recent weeks.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump also reposted a message on Truth Social suggesting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could become the president of communist-ruled Cuba.

Trump shared that post with the comment: “Sounds good to me!”

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected Trump’s threats in a post on X.

“Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do,” Diaz-Canel said.

“Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the US for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.”

Earlier, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez insisted “right and justice are on Cuba’s side”.

The US “behaves like an out-of-control criminal hegemon that threatens peace and security, not only in Cuba and this hemisphere, but throughout the entire world”, Rodriguez posted on X.

Rodriguez also said in a separate post on X that Cuba had the right to import fuel from any suppliers willing to export it. He also denied that Cuba had received financial or other “material” compensation in return for security services provided to any country.

Reporting from Cucuta, Colombia, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti said that, despite its defiant rhetoric, Cuba may struggle to find alternative sources of fuel.

“Cuba is going through a very, very difficult situation with rolling blackouts, fuel shortages on a daily basis,” he said.

He added that an oil embargo from the US could worsen and could pressurise Havana to reach a deal with Washington.

Under a US trade embargo, Havana since 2000 has increasingly relied on Venezuelan oil provided as part of a deal struck with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez.

As its operational refining capacity dwindled in recent years, Venezuela’s supply of crude and fuel to Cuba has fallen. But the South American country is still the largest provider with about 26,500 barrels per day exported last year, according to ship-tracking data and internal documents of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA. Venezuela’s shipments covered roughly 50 percent of Cuba’s oil deficit.

Cuba also relies on imported crude and fuel provided by Mexico in smaller volumes.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum last week said her country had not increased supply volumes but, given recent political events in Venezuela, Mexico had turned into an “important supplier” of crude to Cuba.

Meanwhile, amid Trump’s threats to Cuba, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said Americans generally want Trump to focus on the domestic economy.

“There is an affordability crisis in this country, groceries are expensive, housing is expensive, health insurance has gone up,” she said, reporting from Washington, DC.

“This is a president who has said he will focus on America First. We have now seen him bomb seven countries, … so within [Trump’s] base, they are starting to see cracks because this is not what he promised on his campaign trail,” she added.

WASHINGTON — After President Trump ordered strikes that led to the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, celebrations erupted in Venezuelan communities across the U.S.

But for many of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants facing possible deportation, their relief and joy were cut by the fear about what comes next from an administration that has zeroed in on Venezuelans as a target.

“Many of us asked ourselves, ‘What’s going to happen with us now?’” said A.G., a 39-year-old in Tennessee who asked to be identified by her initials because she lacks legal status. Even so, Maduro’s ouster gave her a lot of hope for her mother country.

Venezuelans began fleeing in droves in 2014 as economic collapse led to widespread food and medicine shortages, as well as political repression. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans are now living outside the country — including 1.2 million in the U.S.

Venezuelans migrants walk toward Bucaramanga, Colombia, in 2019.

(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

A.G. and her now-18-year-old son arrived at the southern border in 2019. Since then, she said, they have built a good life — they own a transport company with delivery trucks, pay taxes and follow the law.

Maduro’s fall left her with mixed feelings.

“He’s obviously a dictator, many people have died because of him and he refused to give up power, but the reason that they entered Venezuela, for me what President Trump did was illegal,” she said. “Innocent people died because of the bombs. I’m asking God that it all be for good reason.”

Dozens of Venezuelans and others were killed in the U.S. invasion — more than 100, a government official said — including civilians.

The Trump administration is framing its Venezuela operation as an opportunity for Venezuelans like A.G. “Now, they can return to the country they love and rebuild its future,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser.

Katie Blankenship, a Miami-based attorney with Sanctuary of the South who has represented many Venezuelans facing deportation, sees a less promising future.

“We’re going to see increased targeting of Venezuelans to force them to leave the U.S. into a political and socioeconomic environment that’s likely only more destabilized and subject to more abuse,” she said.

The Venezuelan community in the U.S. swelled, in part, because the Biden administration expanded pathways for them to enter the country.

Volunteer help a Venezuelan immigrant at the storage units from a volunteer-run program that distributes donations to recently arrived Venezuelan immigrants in need, in Miami, Fla., in 2023.

(Eva Marie Uzcategui / Los Angeles Times)

One of those programs allowed more than 117,000 Venezuelans to purchase flights directly to the U.S. and stay for two years if they had a U.S.-based financial sponsor and passed a background check. Other Venezuelans entered legally at land ports of entry after scheduling interviews with border officers.

By the end of the Biden administration, more than 600,000 Venezuelans had protection from deportation under Temporary Protected Status, a program used by both Republican and Democratic administrations for immigrants who cannot return home because of armed conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly referred to Venezuelan immigrants as criminals, singling them out more than any other nationality — in 64% of speeches, an Axios analysis showed. He has said repeatedly, without evidence that Venezuela emptied its prisons and mental institutions to flood the U.S. with immigrants.

One of Trump’s first acts as president was to designate the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. Within two months, he invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport 252 Venezuelan men accused of being Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned and tortured despite many having no criminal histories in the U.S. or Latin America.

Later, the Trump administration stripped away protections for Venezuelans with financial sponsors and TPS, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling the latter “contrary to the national interest.”

In a September Federal Register Notice, Noem said that TPS for Venezuelans undercut the administration’s foreign policy objectives because one result of allowing Venezuelans in the U.S. was “relieving pressure on Maduro’s regime to enact domestic reforms and facilitate safe return conditions.” In other words, if Venezuelans returned home, that would pressure the government to enact reforms.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, left, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, right, participates in a news conference near Camp 57 at Angola prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary and America’s largest maximum-security prison farm, to announce the opening of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that will house immigrants convicted of crimes in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on Sept. 3, 2025.

(Matthew Hilton / AFP via Getty Images)

The administration has offered contrasting assessments of conditions in Venezuela. Noem wrote that although certain adverse conditions continue, “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”

Throughout the year, though, the State Department continued to reissue an “extreme danger” travel advisory for Venezuela, urging Americans to leave the country immediately.

Conditions for Venezuelans in the U.S. grew more complicated after a man from Afghanistan was accused of shooting two National Guard members in November; in response, the administration froze the immigration cases of people from 39 countries, including Venezuela, that the administration considers “high-risk.” That means anyone who applied for asylum, a visa, a green card or any other benefit remains in limbo indefinitely.

After a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act in September, the Justice Department appealed. In a support brief filed in December, the Justice Department cited escalating tensions with Venezuela.

David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist and expert on Venezuelan politics, said that invading Venezuela could justify renewed use of the Alien Enemies Act.

The law says the president can invoke the Alien Enemies Act not only in times of “declared war,” but also when a foreign government threatens or carries out an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against the U.S.

“Now it will be difficult, I think, for the court to say, ‘No, you can’t use this,’” Smilde said.

With U.S. officials promising improved conditions in Venezuela and encouraging citizens to return, Smilde said, they could invoke the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who don’t leave willingly.

“There’s several layers to this,” he said, “and none of it looks very good for Venezuelan immigrants.”

This couple from Venezuela shared their story of why they left their three children back in their home country and spoke of the the experiences of their travel to the United States at the Parkside Community Church in Sacramento on June 16, 2023.

(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)

Jose, a 28-year-old Venezuelan living east of Los Angeles, fled Venezuela in 2015 after being imprisoned and beaten for criticizing the government. He lived in Colombia and Peru before illegally crossing the U.S. border in 2022, and now has a pending asylum application. Jose asked to be identified by his middle name out of fear of retaliation by the U.S. government.

The news this week that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman in Minnesota heightened his anxiety.

“You come here because supposedly this is a country with freedom of expression, and there is more safety, but with this government, now you’re afraid you’ll get killed,” he said. “And that was a U.S. citizen. Imagine what they could do to me?”

People visit a memorial for Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Jose qualifies for a work permit based on his pending asylum, but his application for one is frozen because of the executive order following the National Guard shooting.

The news of Maduro’s arrest was bittersweet, Jose said, because his mother and grandmother didn’t live to witness that day. He said his mother died last year of kidney failure due to lack of medical care, leaving him as the primary breadwinner for his two young sisters who remain in Venezuela with their father, who is disabled.

Still, he said he’s happy with what Trump has done in Venezuela.

“People are saying he’s stealing our petroleum,” he said, “but for 25 years, Cuba, China and Iran have been stealing the petroleum and it didn’t improve our lives.”

Many Venezuelans were encouraged by news that Venezuela would release a “significant number” of political prisoners as a peace gesture.

For Jose, that’s not enough. Venezuela’s government ordered police to search for anyone involved in promoting or supporting the attack by U.S. forces, leading to detentions of journalists and civilians.

“Venezuela remains the same,” he said. “The same disgrace, the same poverty and the same government repression.”

A.G. said she was heartened to hear Noem say Sunday on Fox News that every Venezeulan who had TPS “has the opportunity to apply for refugee status and that evaluation will go forward.” But the administration quickly backtracked and said that was not the case.

Instead, Noem and other administration officials have doubled down on the notion that Venezuelans without permanent lawful status should leave. Noem told Fox News that there are no plans to pause deportation flights despite the political uncertainty in Venezuela.

Tragesser, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman, said the agency’s posture hasn’t changed.

“USCIS encourages all Venezuelans unlawfully in the U.S. to use the CBP Home app for help with a safe and orderly return to their country,” he said.

Caracas, January 9, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump hosted executives from major Western energy corporations at the White House on Friday after touting a US $100 billion investment plan in Venezuela’s oil industry.

The Trump administration has moved to claim control over the Caribbean nation’s most important economic sector in the wake of the January 3 bombings and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.

“We’re going to discuss how these great American companies can help rapidly rebuild Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry and bring millions of barrels of oil production to benefit the United States, the people of Venezuela and the entire world,” the US president told reporters.

The meeting featured representatives from Chevron (USA), Shell (UK), Eni (Italy), Repsol (Spain) and 13 other energy and trading firms. Chevron has been the only major US company to maintain operations in Venezuela amidst US sanctions.

Trump added that the corporations would be “dealing” with the US directly and not with Venezuelan authorities. Multiple US officials in recent days have claimed that proceeds from crude sales will be deposited in accounts run by administration before being rerouted to Venezuela. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has confirmed “negotiations” to resume oil shipments to the US but has not commented on the rumored terms.

In his press conference, Trump said the White House would “devise a formula” to ensure that Caracas receives funds and corporations recover their investments while the US government would get any “leftover funds.” He added that Washington would offer the corporations “security guarantees” to operate in Venezuela.

Despite the Trump administration’s incentives, oil conglomerates have expressed reservations on committing to major investments in Venezuela.

Friday’s meeting at the White House also included executives from ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, two companies that refused to accept the new conditions from the former Chávez government’s oil reforms in the 2000s.

Both companies pursued international arbitration. ExxonMobil was compensated to the tune of $1.6 billion, significantly below its demands, while ConocoPhillips is looking to enforce awards totaling $12 billion. The Houston-headquartered enterprise will collect part of the debt via the forced auction of Venezuela’s US-based refiner CITGO.

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods stated that the company would need “significant changes” to Venezuela’s legal infrastructure before considering a return to the country.

In parallel to the White House gathering, India’s Reliance Industries, the country’s largest conglomerate, is reportedly seeking a US greenlight to resume purchases of Venezuelan crude. Reliance was a significant PDVSA customer before being driven away by US sanctions threats.

Venezuela’s oil sector, the country’s most important revenue source, remains heavily targeted by US unilateral coercive measures, including financial sanctions, an export embargo, and secondary sanctions.

Washington has maintained pressure on Caracas to impose oil conditions by enforcing a naval blockade and seizing tankers attempting to sail away with Venezuelan crude. On Friday, the US Navy seized the fifth tanker since early December, the Timor Leste-flagged Olina which had sailed from Venezuelan shores days ago as part of a flotilla attempting to break the US blockade.

Trump claimed that Venezuelan authorities assisted in the capture of the Olina tanker. According to the New York Times, US naval forces are chasing multiple tankers into the Atlantic, while others that left are reportedly heading back toward Venezuela.

Washington’s interest in controlling the Venezuelan oil industry has already seen the US Treasury Department issue sanctions waivers to global traders Vitol and Trafigura. The two companies were represented in the January 9 White House meeting.

Asked about Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, Trump said that the Venezuelan leader “seems to be an ally.” A US State Department delegation landed in Caracas on Friday to evaluate conditions for the reopening of the US embassy in the Venezuelan capital.

Amidst US official statements and diplomatic pressure, Venezuelan authorities have likewise sought meetings with some of its main allies, including Russia and China.

Rodríguez met with Chinese Ambassador Lan Hu Thursday, thanking Beijing for its condemnation of the US attacks and Maduro abduction. While US officials have pledged to reduce Chinese economic ties with Venezuela, Rodríguez stated in a recent broadcast that Caracas would maintain “diversity” in its economic and geopolitical relations.

Also on Thursday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil hosted Russian Ambassador Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov. Gil acknowledged Moscow’s support in the wake of the US January 3 attacks and expressed the two nations’ joint commitment to dialogue and sovereignty.

Today Trump brought the heads of Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and many other oil giants into the White House. He talked about something like a $100 billion investment, promised U.S. protection, and warned Russia and China to keep their hands off. 

But there is a fundamental difference between systems imposed by the state (like China), versus the U.S. In China, if the top leader says “go build,” a company might grumble in private but it will die trying. In the U.S., you can’t order private companies to sink tens of billions into a country and just hope they salute. There are shareholders, lawyers, insurers, boards, and risk people involved. The oil tycoons will happily try to join forces, but the market is their true boss. Trump has to convince the private sector that the money will be safe and that’s exactly where up to this point, the new regime in Venezuela is still failing the test.

An oil project doesn’t get approved because someone “likes the idea” or gets mandated. First, the company tries to prove the oil is really there and worth extracting (surveys, test wells, production forecasts). Then they price the whole mess: what it’ll cost to fix old equipment or build new stuff, how long it’ll take, and what could go wrong. Finance teams run scenarios like a nervous pilot checking every gauge: oil prices, delays, tax changes, accidents, expropriation. Lawyers obsess over the contract details (who owns what, who can change the rules, where disputes get decided). And here’s the institutional reality check: if courts can’t be trusted, contracts are just paper, and if nobody can say who truly controls the police, the military, and the streets, then there’s no safeguard (especially if there’s reluctance to enact more force by the US). Only if the numbers still work after all that, and the risks can be insured or controlled, does the board sign off on the “final investment decision,” which is the moment the company stops talking and starts spending real billions of dollars. So from first study to first meaningful barrels, you’re usually talking 18–36 months for a brownfield restart (in existing/old facilities), and 3–7 years for a bigger rebuild or new development (which seems to be Trump’s appetite).

These things will be discussed behind closed doors, not in the media show presented today, and we’ll learn more soon enough.

Here’s a prospective roadmap, on what could happen, depending on the type of work:

6 months

The companies already present in Venezuela will probably invest quickly in debottlenecking (“low-hanging fruits”) that requires low investment and gradually increases production.

Most companies will commit to starting an exploratory technical and commercial feasibility process to assemble a development business plan for the country. This only requires bringing in a limited technical team, so upfront costs will be very low, and any of these companies can take the risk without long-term guarantees (if they lose that money and time, who cares). Trump will guarantee security for the personnel sent to Venezuela.

Based on private agreements around buying Venezuelan assets (privatization), new exploration, asset expansion, etc., Trump will instruct the interim leadership so that PDVSA and Congress enable those actions.

The first privatizations begin to be announced (the least complex and most obvious ones), those requiring the least purchase investment and the least production-recovery investment. I think this could happen even before free elections, because as Trump said, most of these companies are used to operating in some of the most sinister places in the world.

Engineering phases move forward to restore basic services needed to operate facilities (especially electricity supply). Stabilizing the country’s electrical system is fundamental for the oil industry.

6 to 18 months

Engineering advances for larger-scale projects that can meaningfully increase production. Again, this is very low-cost for the companies, and they take relatively little risk moving these forward even if they may have to cancel later.

Gradual production increases materialize as the debottlenecking projects (“low-hanging fruit”) come online.

FID (Final Investment Decision) might happen for some small or medium-sized projects, with U.S. guarantees that the government cannot expropriate them.

18 months +

This is where it gets interesting, because a democratic transition becomes fundamental for these companies to make FIDs to buy major PDVSA assets or execute greenfield projects (new plants, new infrastructure, etc.).

Remember: most of these companies are publicly traded. They will invest in projects with the highest returns at an acceptable level of risk. If the Trump administration cannot guarantee long-term stability through a healthy democracy, it’s likely these companies won’t risk huge sums of money.

The pace will also be dictated by expectations for oil prices at the time. If prices are expected to be low, investment will move more slowly.

This entire analysis also somewhat ignores the complexity of human talent in the country. It will be uphill to find the talent needed to execute these projects and operate the plants, and that could stretch timelines even further. Venezuela once had it, but it’s now dispersed all over the world (including Venezuela).

That’s why the political transition has to move fast. If Trump wants serious capital to be involved, the reforms have to be visible and irreversible, starting with unmistakable signals that the old regime’s habits are gone. A clean first step that could be an important signal: free every political prisoner. Not a symbolic handful. All of them. 

Big projects don’t live on election cycles, they live on 10–20-year timelines for ROI. If investors think the whole arrangement can be shaken up after the 2028 election (due to the Democrats retaining the White House), they’ll hesitate, or they’ll demand terms so protective that Venezuela’s interim regime won’t like them.

Venezuela’s economic restart and Venezuela’s political liberation are the same project. You don’t get one without the other. If the transition wants oil money to actually land it has to build the boring stuff that makes capitalism work: credible courts, enforceable contracts, and proof that the control of violence is achieved.

CARACAS, Venezuela — At the White House, President Trump vows American intervention in Venezuela will pour billions of dollars into the country’s infrastructure, revive its once-thriving oil industry and eventually deliver a new age of prosperity to the Latin American nation.

Here at a sprawling street market in the capital, though, utility worker Ana Calderón simply wishes she could afford the ingredients to make a pot of soup.

“Food is incredibly expensive,” says Calderón, noting rapidly rising prices that have celery selling for twice as much as just a few weeks ago and two pounds of meat going for more than $10, or 25 times the country’s monthly minimum wage. “Everything is so expensive.”

Venezuelans digesting news of the United States’ brazen capture of former President Nicolás Maduro are hearing grandiose promises of future economic prowess even as they live through the crippling economic realities of today.

“They know that the outlook has significantly changed but they don’t see it yet on the ground. What they’re seeing is repression. They’re seeing a lot of confusion,” says Luisa Palacios, a Venezuelan-born economist and former oil executive who is a research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “People are hopeful and expecting that things are going to change but that doesn’t mean that things are going to change right now.”

Whatever hope exists over the possibility of U.S. involvement improving Venezuela’s economy is paired with the crushing daily truths most here live. People typically work two, three or more jobs just to survive, and still cupboards and refrigerators are nearly bare. Children go to bed early to avoid the pang of hunger; parents choose between filling a prescription and buying groceries. An estimated eight in 10 people live in poverty.

It has led millions to flee the country for elsewhere.

Those who remain are concentrated in Venezuela’s cities, including its capital, Caracas, where the street market in the Catia neighborhood once was so busy that shoppers bumped into one another and dodged oncoming traffic. But as prices have climbed in recent days, locals have increasingly stayed away from the market stalls, reducing the chaos to a relative hush.

Neila Roa, carrying her 5-month-old baby, sells packs of cigarettes to passersby, having to monitor daily fluctuations in currency to adjust the price.

“Inflation and more inflation and devaluation,” Roa says. “It’s out of control.”

Roa could not believe the news of Maduro’s capture. Now, she wonders what will come of it. She thinks it would take “a miracle” to fix Venezuela’s economy.

“What we don’t know is whether the change is for better or for worse,” she says. “We’re in a state of uncertainty. We have to see how good it can be, and how much it can contribute to our lives.”

Trump has said the U.S. will distribute some of the proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil back to its population. But that commitment so far largely appears to be focused on America’s interests in extracting more oil from Venezuela, selling more U.S.-made goods to the country and repairing the electricity grid.

The White House is hosting a meeting Friday with U.S. oil company executives to discuss Venezuela, which the Trump administration has been pressuring to open its vast-but-struggling oil industry more widely to American investment and know-how. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump acknowledged that reviving the country’s oil industry would take years.

“The oil will take a while,” he said.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The country’s economy depends on them.

Maduro’s predecessor, the fiery Hugo Chávez, elected in 1998, expanded social services, including housing and education, thanks to the country’s oil bonanza, which generated revenues estimated at some $981 billion between 1999 and 2011 as crude prices soared. But corruption, a decline in oil production and economic policies led to a crisis that became evident in 2012.

Chávez appointed Maduro as his successor before dying of cancer in 2013. The country’s political, social and economic crisis, entangled with plummeting oil production and prices, marked the entirety of Maduro’s presidency. Millions were pushed into poverty. The middle class virtually disappeared. And more than 7.7 million people left their homeland.

Albert Williams, an economist at Nova Southeastern University, says returning the energy sector to its heyday would have a dramatic spillover effect in a country in which oil is the dominant industry, sparking the opening of restaurants, stores and other businesses. What’s unknown, he says, is whether such a revitalization happens, how long it would take and how a government built by Maduro will adjust to the change in power.

“That’s the billion-dollar question,” Williams says. “But if you improve the oil industry, you improve the country.”

The International Monetary Fund estimates Venezuela’s inflation rate is a staggering 682%, the highest of any country for which it has data. That has sent the cost of food beyond what many can afford.

Many public sector workers survive on roughly $160 per month, while the average private sector employee earned about $237 last year. Venezuela’s monthly minimum wage of 130 bolivars, or $0.40, has not increased since 2022, putting it well below the United Nations’ measure of extreme poverty of $2.15 a day.

The currency crisis led Maduro to declare an “economic emergency” in April.

Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist who studies emerging markets, says for those hurting the most, there is no immediate sign of change.

“Short-term, most Venezuelans will probably not feel any economic relief,” she says. “A single oil sale will not fix the country’s rampant inflation and currency collapse. Jobs, prices and exchange rates will probably not shift quickly.”

In a country that has seen as much strife as Venezuela has in recent years, locals are accustomed to doing what they have to in order to get through the day, so much so that many utter the same expression

“Resolver,” they say in Spanish, or “figure it out,” shorthand for the jury-rigged nature of life here, in which every transaction, from boarding a bus to buying a child’s medicine, involves a delicate calculation.

Here at the market, the smell of fish, fresh onions and car exhaust combine. Calderon, making her way through, faces freshly skyrocketing prices, saying “the difference is huge,” as the country’s official currency has rapidly declined against its unofficial one, the U.S. dollar.

Unable to afford all the ingredients for her soup, she left with a bunch of celery but no meat.

Cano and Sedensky write for the Associated Press. Sedensky reported from New York. AP writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

The United States government has said it aims to control Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely.

“We need to have that leverage and that control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday.

His comments come days after US forces abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Saturday. Since then, the administration of US President Donald Trump has announced a deal under which Venezuela would turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US to sell.

That comes against a backdrop of demands that Venezuelan government officials open up access to US oil companies or risk further military action.

On Friday, executives from several major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, are slated to meet with the president to discuss potential investments in Venezuela.

Can the US control Venezuelan oil sales indefinitely?

“The US federal government can absolutely intervene, make demands, capture what it wants, and redirect those barrels accordingly. I don’t know of anything that would meaningfully interfere with the federal government if that’s what it decided to do,” Jeff Krimmel, founder of Krimmel Strategy Group, a Houston, Texas-based energy consulting firm, told Al Jazeera.

There are, however, geopolitical hurdles. The US has less leverage than it did more than two decades ago when the US military and its allies entered Iraq, another oil-rich country. Today, other superpowers could stand in the way in ways they did not in 2003.

“When we went into Iraq, we were living in a unipolar moment as the world’s only great power. That era is over. China is now a great power, and most experts consider it a peer competitor. That means it has ways to hurt the US economy and to push back militarily, including through proxy conflicts, if it chooses to oppose such actions,” Anthony Orlando, professor of finance and law at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, told Al Jazeera.

China is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan crude, although it only imports about 4 percent of its oil from the South American nation.

“It’s a question of whether they want to draw a line in the sand with the United States and say, ‘You can’t do this, because if we allow it, you’ll keep pushing further,’” Orlando said.

“If you’re a minor power like Venezuela, not China or Russia, you’re a country vulnerable to US intervention. That creates an incentive to align more closely with China or Russia to prevent it from happening, and that’s not a good outcome for the United States,” Orlando continued.

In the days since Maduro’s abduction, members of the Trump administration have also renewed calls to take over Greenland.

How does this compare with Iraq?

The US intervention in Venezuela has been compared to its involvement in Iraq, which began under the administration of former President George W Bush in 2003. At the time, Iraq had the second-largest oil reserves in the world, with 112 billion barrels.

However, production was limited. Prior to the invasion, Iraq produced 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), rising to 4.5 million bpd by 2018.

While the Iraqi government retained ownership of oil, US companies were often given no-bid contracts to operate there, including ExxonMobil and BP, and the majority of sales went to Asian and European markets.

In 2021, Iraq’s then-President Barham Salih claimed that an estimated $150bn in money stolen through corrupt deals had been “smuggled out of Iraq” since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Unlike during the Bush administration and its aims for Iraq’s oil, the Trump administration has been explicit about the role of oil in its attack on Venezuela.

“The difference between Iraq and this is that [Bush] didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil,” Trump said in a conversation with MS Now anchor Joe Scarborough.

Comparatively, in 2002, prior to the US invasion, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asserted that the operation to take control of post-war reconstruction had “literally nothing to do with oil”.

“When the Bush administration went into Iraq, they claimed it wasn’t about that, even though there was substantial evidence it was a factor. This time it’s more explicit, so it’s clear it will impact oil markets. [But] one lesson from the Iraq war is that it’s easier said than done,” Orlando, the professor, told Al Jazeera.

Will this benefit oil companies?

Analysts argue that investments in Venezuela might not actually benefit oil companies due to rising economic uncertainty, the need for major infrastructure improvements, and the fact that large companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron already have capital programmes planned for the remainder of the decade.

“Either [the companies] will have to take on more debt or issue more equity to raise the capital needed, or they’ll have to divert capital expenditures from other regions into Venezuela. In either scenario, I expect substantial shareholder pushback,” Krimmel, the energy consultant, said.

Increased production will also require infrastructure improvements. Venezuelan oil is dense, which makes it more difficult and expensive to extract compared to oil from Iraq or the US.

Venezuelan oil is often blended with lighter grades from the US. It is comparable in density to Canadian oil, which, despite tensions between Ottawa and Washington, comes from a US ally with more modern extraction infrastructure.

“I don’t think Canada’s going to be too happy about all this,” Orlando said.

However, Chevron, the only US company currently operating in Venezuela, is seeking authorisation from Washington to expand its licence to operate in the country after the US placed restrictions on it last year, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.

The US role in energy, particularly oil and gas, has surged in recent years amid the rise of fracking technology. The US is now the largest producer of oil in the world. But recent cuts to alternative energy programmes and increasing energy demands from the artificial intelligence industry have led Republicans to double down on expanding the oil and gas sector.

“There is an oil supply surplus. Even if we were in a supply deficit right now, military action in Venezuela wouldn’t unlock incremental barrels quickly. So even if you were trying to solve a short-term supply deficit, which, to be clear, we do not have, Venezuela wouldn’t be an answer because it would take too long and be too expensive to ramp production up,” Krimmel added.

While Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves, the OPEC member represents only 1 percent of global oil output.

Currently, Chevron is the only US company operating in Venezuela. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips operated in Venezuela before Hugo Chavez nationalised the oil sector in 2007, leading to a downturn in production over years of disinvestment and poorly run facilities. In the 1990s, Venezuela produced as much as 3.5 million bpd. That has since fallen due to limited investment, with production averaging 1.1 million bpd last year.

“Venezuela’s infrastructure has deteriorated under both the Chavez and Maduro regimes. While they are extracting oil, returning to production levels from 10 or 20 years ago would require significant investment,” Orlando said.

Caracas, January 7, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration has vowed to control Venezuelan oil sales for an “indefinite” period in the wake of the January 3 bombings and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“Instead of the oil being blockaded, we’re gonna let the oil flow to US refineries and around the world to bring better oil supplies, but have those sales done by the US,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Goldman Sachs conference on Wednesday, January 7.

According to Wright, the process would begin with crude that is currently loaded on tankers that have not left Venezuelan shores because of the US naval blockade, before selling future production “indefinitely, going forward.”

A “fact sheet” published by the Department of Energy went on to claim that proceeds from sales of Venezuelan crude “will first settle in US-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks to guarantee the legitimacy and integrity of the ultimate distribution of proceeds.”

The document stated that a “selective rollback” of US economic sanctions will allow transactions involving Venezuelan oil products in global markets. The Department of Energy likewise announced supplies of diluents and equipment to Venezuela’s oil industry, which also require the lifting of sanctions, alongside broader US investment in the oil sector and electric grid.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed in a Wednesday press conference that the US has a “three-step plan” for Venezuela in the wake of the January 3 military attack. The first step involves “stabilizing” the country to allow for the arrival of US and Western corporations, before a stage of “national reconciliation” and finally a “transition.”

In the wake of the strikes that killed over 80 people in the Caribbean nation, Trump and administration officials have repeatedly threatened the Venezuelan government into accepting its demands, especially in the oil sector.

On Wednesday, US authorities announced the seizure of two new tankers as part of efforts to strangle Venezuelan crude exports. Rubio recently referred to the US’ naval blockade as a “lever of leverage” against Caracas. US forces had previously seized two other tankers transporting Venezuelan crude.

According to ABC, Washington has demanded that Caracas’ oil production and exports be done exclusively with US partners. In 2025, over 80 percent of Venezuelan crude exports were destined for Chinese refineries. However, Politico reported that US oil conglomerates are reluctant to invest heavily in Venezuela.

Trump had emphasized in recent weeks that the US’ main interest was control over Venezuela’s oil industry and reserves. On Tuesday, he wrote on social media that Venezuelan authorities had agreed to “turn over 30-50 million barrels” of oil to the US, in reference to the crude currently blockaded, and that he would “control” the proceeds.

On Wednesday, Trump published another social media post claiming that Caracas would only be purchasing US-made products with the oil sales revenues.

US actions have drawn domestic criticism, with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy blasting Rubio’s “insane plan.”

“They are talking about stealing the Venezuelan oil at gunpoint for an undefined time period as leverage to micromanage the country. The scope and insanity of that plan is absolutely stunning,” Murphy told press.

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, for its part, issued a statement on January 7 informing of talks for the “sale of large volumes of crude to the United States.” The communiqué made no reference to the terms alleged by US officials.

“PDVSA ratifies its commitment to continue building alliances that boost national development and contribute to global economic stability,” the text read.

PDVSA added that the prospective agreement would follow a “scheme” similar to the one that currently applies to Chevron. 

The US oil giant is a minority partner in four joint ventures with PDVSA. Under its present sanctions waiver, Chevron allocates crude for PDVSA to sell. However, under a previous license, Chevron would commercialize all the oil before transferring proceeds to its Venezuelan partners.

Acting President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodríguez has not commented on the US officials’ claims. In a Wednesday night televised broadcast, she said Venezuela has developed “diversified economic and geopolitical relations” all around the world.

The Venezuelan oil industry has faced multiple waves of economic sanctions dating back to the first Trump administration, including financial sanctions, an export embargo and secondary sanctions.

Caracas has made repeated calls for foreign investment, including from US companies. US refineries, particularly in the Gulf Coast, are especially geared toward Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude blends. The US was the main destination for Venezuelan oil exports prior to the 2019 embargo.
The Nicolás Maduro government additionally created favorable conditions for oil partners in a bid to ramp up oil production. The 2020 Anti-Blockade Law establishes mechanisms that supersede Venezuela’s hydrocarbon legislation, including concessions whereby private companies can lift more than half the crude produced.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Wednesday sought to assert its control over Venezuelan oil, seizing a pair of sanctioned tankers transporting petroleum and announcing plans to relax some sanctions so the U.S. can oversee the sale of Venezuela’s petroleum worldwide.

Trump’s administration intends to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following its ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid. Besides the United States enforcing an existing oil embargo, the Energy Department says the “only oil transported in and out of Venezuela” will be through approved channels consistent with U.S. law and national security interests.

That level of control over the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil could give the Trump administration a broader hold on oil supplies globally in ways that could enable it to influence prices. Both moves reflect the Republican administration’s determination to make good on its effort to control the next steps in Venezuela through its vast oil resources after Trump has pledged the U.S. will “run” the country.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the oil taken from the sanctioned vessels seized in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea would be sold as part of the deal announced by Trump on Tuesday under which Venezuela would provide up to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S.

“One of those ships that was seized that had oil in the Caribbean, you know what the interim authorities are asking for in Venezuela?” Rubio told reporters after briefing lawmakers Wednesday about the Maduro operation. “They want that oil that was seized to be part of this deal. They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if they cooperate and work with the United States.”

Seizing 2 more vessels

U.S. European Command said on social media that the merchant vessel Bella 1 was seized in the North Atlantic for “violations of U.S. sanctions.” The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a blockade on sanctioned oil vessels around Venezuela.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed U.S. forces also took control of the M Sophia in the Caribbean Sea. Noem said on social media that both ships were “either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it.”

The two ships join at least two others that were taken by U.S. forces last month — the Skipper and the Centuries.

The Bella 1 had been cruising across the Atlantic nearing the Caribbean on Dec. 15 when it abruptly turned and headed north, toward Europe. The change in direction came days after the first U.S. tanker seizure of a ship on Dec. 10 after it had left Venezuela carrying oil.

When the U.S. Coast Guard tried to board the Bella 1, it fled. U.S. European Command said a Coast Guard vessel had tracked the ship “pursuant to a warrant issued by a U.S. federal court.”

As the U.S. pursued it, the Bella 1 was renamed Marinera and flagged to Russia, shipping databases show. A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, said the ship’s crew had painted a Russian flag on the side of the hull.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had information about Russian nationals among the Marinera’s crew and, in a statement carried by Russia’s state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti, demanded that “the American side ensure humane and dignified treatment of them, strictly respect their rights and interests, and not hinder their speedy return to their homeland.”

Separately, a senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Klishas, decried the U.S. action as “blatant piracy.”

The Justice Department is investigating crew members of the Bella 1 vessel for failing to obey Coast Guard orders and “criminal charges will be pursued against all culpable actors,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said.

“The Department of Justice is monitoring several other vessels for similar enforcement action — anyone on any vessel who fails to obey instructions of the Coast Guard or other federal officials will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Bondi said on X.

The ship had been sanctioned by the U.S. in 2024 on allegations of smuggling cargo for a company linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

Easing sanctions so U.S. can sell oil

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is “selectively” removing sanctions to enable the shipping and sale of Venezuelan oil to markets worldwide, according to an outline of the policies published Wednesday by the Energy Department.

The sales are slated to begin immediately with 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil. The U.S. government said the sales “will continue indefinitely,” with the proceeds settling in U.S.-controlled accounts at “globally recognized banks.” The money would be disbursed to the U.S. and Venezuelan populations at the “discretion” of Trump’s government.

Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA said it is in negotiations with the U.S. government for the sale of crude oil.

“This process is developed under schemes similar to those in force with international companies, such as Chevron, and is based on a strictly commercial transaction, with criteria of legality, transparency and benefit for both parties,” the company said in the statement.

The U.S. plans to authorize the importation of oil field equipment, parts and services to increase Venezuela’s oil production, which has been roughly 1 million barrels a day.

The Trump administration has indicated it also will invest in Venezuela’s electricity grid to increase production and the quality of life for people in Venezuela, whose economy has been unraveling amid changes to foreign aid and cuts to state subsidies, making necessities, including food, unaffordable to millions.

Ships said to be part of a shadow fleet

Noem said both seized ships were part of a shadow fleet of rusting oil tankers that smuggle oil for countries facing sanctions, such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

After the seizure of the now-named Marinera, which open-source maritime tracking sites showed was between Scotland and Iceland earlier Wednesday, the U.K. defense ministry said Britain’s military provided support, including surveillance aircraft.

“This ship, with a nefarious history, is part of a Russian-Iranian axis of sanctions evasion which is fueling terrorism, conflict, and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine,” U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said.

The capture of the M Sophia, on the U.S. sanctions list for moving illicit cargos of oil from Russia, in the Caribbean was much less prolonged.

The ship had been “running dark,” not having transmitted location data since July. Tankers involved in smuggling often turn off their transponders or broadcast inaccurate data to hide their locations.

Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers had left the Venezuelan coast since Saturday, after the U.S. captured Maduro.

The M Sophia was among them, Madani said, citing a recent photo showing it in the waters near Jose Terminal, Venezuela’s main oil export hub.

Windward, a maritime intelligence firm that tracks such vessels, said in a briefing to reporters the M Sophia loaded at the terminal on Dec. 26 and was carrying about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil — a cargo that would be worth about $108 million at current price of about $60 a barrel.

The press office for Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the seizures.

Toropin, Boak, Lawless and Biesecker write for the Associated Press. Lawless reported from London.

United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to free up the flow of Venezuelan oil to benefit Venezuelans after US forces abducted President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said at a media briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida hours after Maduro was seized on Saturday. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.”

Then, on Tuesday, the US president said he wanted to use proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States”. Rubio has echoed Trump in his comments in recent days.

But what has been holding back the flow of Venezuelan oil, preventing the country from attracting investments and driving the country into poverty?

A key reason is one that Trump and Rubio have been silent about: Washington’s own efforts to strangle Venezuela’s oil industry and economy through sanctions, which also have set off a refugee crisis.

What has Trump said about Venezuelan oil?

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US.

Trump wrote: “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

Trump added that he had directed his energy secretary, Chris Wright, to execute the plan “immediately”.

“It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote.

During the news conference on Saturday, Trump said US oil companies would fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”.

Earlier Trump had accused Venezuela in a Truth Social post of “stealing” US oil, land and other assets and using that oil to fund crime, “terrorism” and human trafficking. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller has made similar claims in recent days.

What does it mean for the US to take Venezuelan oil?

Oil is trading at roughly $56 per barrel.

Based on this price, 30 million barrels of oil would be worth $1.68bn and 50 million barrels of oil would be worth $2.8bn.

“Trump’s statement about oil in Venezuela is beyond an act of war; it is an act of colonisation. That is also illegal based on the UN Charter,” Vijay Prashad, the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research based in Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa, told Al Jazeera.

Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US involvement in Venezuela was “less about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela’s oil deposits”.

“This [oil] is the number one target. Trump is not content with just allowing US oil firms to get concessions but to ‘run’ the country, which entails absolute and indefinite control over Venezuela’s resources.”

According to the website of the US Energy Information Administration, the US consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2023.

What has Rubio said about Venezuelan oil?

In an interview on the NBC TV network’s Meet the Press programme that aired on Sunday, Rubio said: “We are at war against drug trafficking organisations. That’s not a war against Venezuela.”

“No more drug trafficking … and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefitting the people of Venezuela or, frankly, benefitting the United States and the region,” Rubio said.

Rubio said in the interview that since 2014, about eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, which he attributed to theft and corruption by Maduro and his allies. According to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from May, nearly 7.9 million people have indeed left Venezuela.

But he was silent on the US’s own role in creating that crisis.

What are the US sanctions against Venezuela’s oil?

Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in 1976 under then-President Carlos Andres Perez during an oil boom. He established the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) to control all oil resources.

Venezuela continued to be a major oil exporter to the US for some years, supplying 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After President Hugo Chavez took office in 1998, he nationalised all oil assets, seized foreign-owned assets, restructured the PDVSA and prioritised using oil revenue for social programmes in Venezuela.

From 2003 to 2007, Venezuela under Chavez managed to cut its poverty rate in half – from 57 percent to 27.5 percent. Extreme poverty fell even more sharply, by 70 percent.

But exports declined, and government authorities were accused of mismanagement.

The US first imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil in retaliation for nationalising US oil assets in 2005.

Under US sanctions, many senior Venezuelan government officials and companies have been barred from accessing any property or financial assets held in the US. They cannot access US bank accounts, sell property or access their money if it passes through the US financial system.

Critically, any US companies or citizens doing business with any sanctioned individual or company will be penalised and risk becoming subject to enforcement actions.

Maduro took over as president in 2013 after Chavez’s death. In 2017, Trump, during his first term in office, imposed more sanctions and tightened them again in 2019. This further restricted sales to the US and access for Venezuelan companies to the global financial system. As a result, oil exports to the US nearly stopped, and Venezuela shifted its trade mainly to China with some sales to India and Cuba.

Last month, the Trump administration imposed yet more sanctions – this time on Maduro family members and Venezuelan tankers carrying sanctioned oil.

Today, the PDVSA controls the petroleum industry in Venezuela, and US involvement in Venezuelan oil drilling is limited. Houston-based Chevron is the only US company that still operates in Venezuela.

How have sanctions hurt Venezuela’s oil flows?

Trump might today be interested in getting Venezuelan oil flowing, but it is US sanctions that blocked that flow in the first place.

Venezuela’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily in the Orinoco Belt, a region in the eastern part of the country stretching across roughly 55,000sq km (21,235sq miles).

While the country is home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves – at an estimated 303 billion barrels – it earns only a fraction of the revenue it once did from exporting crude.

[BELOW: The sentence above promises statistics that will show how much oil exports have dropped, but the next graf doesn’t deliver. We should add that figure]

According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Venezuela exported $4.05bn of crude oil in 2023. This is far below other major exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn) and Russia ($122bn).

How have US sanctions hurt Venezuelans and the country’s oil infrastructure?

The US sanctions on Venezuelan oil prevent US and non-US companies from doing business with the PDVSA. Because the US is a market no one wants to lose, firms, including banks, are wary of taking any steps that could invite Washington’s sanctions.

In effect, that has meant Venezuela’s oil industry has been almost entirely deprived of international financial investment.

The sanctions additionally restrict Venezuela from accessing oilfield equipment, specialised software, drilling services and refinery components from Western companies.

This has resulted in years of underinvestment in the PDVSA’s infrastructure, leading to chronic breakdowns, shutdowns and accidents.

The sanctions have also resulted in broader economic turmoil.

The country’s gross domestic product per capita stood at about $4,200 in 2024, according to World Bank data, down from more than $13,600 in 2010.

From about 2012, the economy went into a sharp decline, driven by domestic economic policies, a slump that was later deepened by US sanctions. The resulting hardships have pushed millions of Venezuelans to leave the country – the same people who Trump and Rubio now argue should benefit from Venezuela’s oil revenues.

Does the US have any claim to Venezuelan oil?

US companies began drilling for oil in Venezuela in the early 1900s.

In 1922, vast petroleum reserves were initially discovered by Royal Dutch Shell in Lake Maracaibo in Zulia state in northwestern Venezuela.

At this point, US companies ramped up their investments in the extraction and development of Venezuelan oil reserves. Companies such as Standard Oil led development under concession agreements, propelling Venezuela to a position as a key global supplier, especially for the US.

Venezuela was a founding member of OPEC, joining at its creation on September 14, 1960. OPEC is a group of major oil-exporting countries that work together to manage supply and influence global oil prices.

But the claims by Trump and Miller that Venezuela somehow “stole” US oil are baseless under international law, experts said.

The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, adopted by the UN General Assembly in a resolution in 1962, is clear that sovereign states have the inherent right to control, use and dispose of their resources for their own development.

In other words, Venezuela alone owns its oil.

The Panama Canal has become the focus of increased US pressure as the Trump administration tries to curb Venezuelan oil shipments. Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo breaks it down.

“We are here fulfilling our duties until you return.” The son of abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro delivered a message to his father from the floor of the country’s congress, where he also serves as a lawmaker. He also mentioned his mother, Cilia, who is also in US custody.

Videos and images are emerging on social media showing what appears to be a large U.S. military operation now underway around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, which includes multiple large explosions and the presence of American special operations helicopters. While there has been no official announcement of such an operation kicking off, this comes after months of U.S. military buildup in the region aimed at pressuring cartels and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

See all the latest updates at the bottom of the post.

We have reached out to the White House, Pentagon, and U.S. Southern Command for comment and will update this story with any pertinent information provided.

Videos show explosions and the resulting clouds of smoke across the skyline.

A brief power vacuum had emerged in Venezuela in the sudden chaos and confusion after the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro by the United States.

But shortly after the US military rained strikes down on Caracas and other areas on Saturday, US President Donald Trump – in a surprise snub against Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize – noted that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, 56, had been sworn in as interim president.

The right-wing Machado – who had cosied up to Trump, especially after her October Nobel win, an honour that he himself coveted and she dedicated to him – was described by the US president as not having enough support or “respect” to be Venezuela’s leader.

Trump said Rodriguez had talked to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again”.

“I think she was quite gracious,” Trump added. “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.”

However, Rodriguez’s remarks soon after the strikes and abduction were diametrical: She criticised the US military action as “brutal aggression” and called for Maduro’s immediate release.

“There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolas Maduro,” Rodriguez said defiantly on state television as she was flanked by top civilian officials and military commanders.

Who, then, is the current acting president of Venezuela?

Revolutionary roots

A Caracas native, Rodriguez was born on May 18, 1969. She is the daughter of left-wing rebel fighter Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, who founded the Socialist League party in the 1970s. Her father was killed while tortured in police custody in 1976, a crime that shook many activists of the era, including a young Maduro.

Rodriguez’s brother, also named Jorge, also holds a key role in government as the head of the National Assembly.

She is an attorney who graduated from the Central University of Venezuela and rose rapidly through the political ranks in the past decade. Rodriguez has a long history of representing on the world stage what late President Hugo Chavez called his socialist “revolution” with those carrying on his legacy referred to as Chavistas.

She served as communication and information minister from 2013 to 2014, foreign minister from 2014 to 2017 and as the head of a pro-government Constituent Assembly, which expanded Maduro’s powers, in 2017.

Economic prowess

Rodriguez is sometimes perceived as more moderate than many soldiers who took up arms with Chavez in the 1990s.

Rodriguez’s roles as finance and oil minister, held simultaneously with her vice presidential post, have made her a key figure in the management of Venezuela’s economy and gained her major influence with the country’s withered private sector. She has applied orthodox economic policies in a bid to fight hyperinflation.

Maduro added the oil ministry to Rodriguez’s portfolio in August 2024, tasking her with managing escalating US sanctions on Venezuela’s most important industry.

Rodriguez developed strong ties with Republicans in the US oil industry and on Wall Street who balked at the notion of a US-led change in Venezuela’s government.

Among her past interlocutors were Blackwater security company founder Erik Prince and, more recently, Richard Grenell, a Trump special envoy who tried to negotiate a deal with Maduro for greater US influence in Venezuela.

A ‘tiger’

Despite being perceived as more moderate, Maduro has called Rodriguez a “tiger” for her die-hard defence of his socialist government.

When she was named vice president in June 2018, Maduro described her as “a young woman, brave, seasoned, daughter of a martyr, revolutionary and tested in a thousand battles”.

After Maduro’s abduction on Saturday, Rodriguez demanded the US government provide proof of life for Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and minced no words in denouncing the US actions.

“We call on the peoples of the great homeland to remain united because what was done to Venezuela can be done to anyone. That brutal use of force to bend the will of the people can be carried out against any country,” she said in an address broadcast by the state television channel VTV.

The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela’s Supreme Court later on Saturday ordered Rodriguez to serve as acting president.

The court ruled that Rodriguez will assume “the office of President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in order to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the Nation”.

China has called on the United States to immediately release Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after Washington carried out massive military strikes on the capital, Caracas, as well as other regions, and abducted the leader.

Beijing on Sunday insisted the safety of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores be a priority, and called on the US to “stop toppling the government of Venezuela”, calling the attack a “clear violation of international law“.

It was the second statement issued by China since Saturday, after US President Donald Trump said Washington had taken Maduro and his wife and flown them out of the country.

On Saturday, Beijing slammed the US for “hegemonic acts” and “blatant use of force” against Venezuela and its president, urging Washington to abide by the United Nations charter.

China is closely watching developments in Venezuela, according to Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalisation.

Mok told Al Jazeera that a Chinese delegation had met Venezuelan officials just hours before the US action, adding that Beijing was not surprised by Washington’s move, given the scale of US strategic and economic interests in the region.

What did stand out, he said, was how the operation was carried out, as it may “represent the long-term US strategy in the region”.

China is Venezuela’s largest buyer of oil, Mok added, although the country accounts for only 4-5 percent of its total oil imports. Beyond energy, he said, China has growing trade and investment interests across Latin America, meaning Beijing is paying close attention to political shifts in the region.

Mok warned that if a future US administration were to revive a Monroe Doctrine-style policy, it could increase tensions with China, as Latin America is a “pillar of China’s Global South strategy”.

Still, China is likely to limit its response to the events in Venezuela to diplomatic protest rather than hard power, according to China-based analyst Shaun Rein.

“I think China has issued a very strong condemnation of the United States, and they’re working with other Latin American and Caribbean countries to say this isn’t right,” Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group, told Al Jazeera.

Rein said Beijing is deeply alarmed but constrained, and its options are limited.

“There’s not a lot of things that China can do. Frankly, it doesn’t have the military power. It only has two military bases outside of China, while America has 800,” Rein noted, stressing that, “historically, China is not warlike”.

“China is just going to make proclamations criticising the United States’ actions, but they’re not going to push back with military action, and they’re probably not going to push back with economic sanctions.”

Global condemnations, celebrations

World reaction has poured in since the US military action in Venezuela, with opinion firmly split over the intervention.

Left-leaning regional leaders, including those of Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico, have largely denounced Maduro’s ouster, while countries with right-wing governments, from Argentina to Ecuador, have largely welcomed it.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday said he backed a “peaceful, democratic transition” of power in Venezuela, but urged that international law be respected.

His government was “monitoring developments”, he said in a statement.

South Korea also responded on Sunday, calling for a de-escalation of tensions.

“Our government urges all involved parties to make utmost efforts toward easing regional tensions. We hope for a quick stabilisation of the situation via dialogue, ensuring democracy is restored, and the will of the Venezuelan people is honoured,” its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Venezuela has been increasingly isolated, particularly after Maduro’s contested election in 2024.

China and Russia, however, continue to maintain strong economic and strategic ties, and alliances have grown with Iran over their shared opposition to US policy.

Leaders around the world have responded with a mix of condemnation and support to the US capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

Following a large-scale strike on Venezuela on Saturday, Maduro and his wife were captured by US forces and removed from the country. The pair have been indicted on drug charges in New York.

In an initial response, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government would “shed no tears” for the end of Maduro’s regime.

Neighbouring Latin American countries condemned the actions, as did Venezuela’s long-term allies, Russia and China. China said it was “deeply shocked and strongly condemns” the use of force against a sovereign country and its president.

Russia accused the US of committing “an act of armed aggression”.

Iran, which is locked in its own dispute with Trump over his promise of intervention in its country, called the strikes a “flagrant violation of the country’s national sovereignty”.

Trump said the US will “run” Venezuela “until we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”.

Many Latin American leaders condemned the US actions.

President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva in Brazil wrote on X that the actions “cross an unacceptable line”, adding “attacking countries in flagrant violation of international law is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability”.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America, while Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel described it as a “criminal attack”.

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric expressed “concern and condemnation” on X and called for “a peaceful solution to the serious crisis affecting the country”.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Cane accused the US of a “criminal attack”, while Uruguay said in an official statement it was monitoring developments “with attention and serious concern” and “rejects, as it always has, military intervention”.

Trump has indicated that Cuba could become part of a broader US policy in the region, calling it a failing nation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuba was a disaster run by incompetent leaders who supported Maduro’s administration. He said the government in Havana should be concerned

The Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello urged citizens to remain calm and to trust the country’s leadership and military, saying, “The world needs to speak out about this attack,” according to the Reuters news agency.

But Argentinian President Javier Milei – who Trump has described as his “favourite president” – wrote “Freedom moves forward” and “Long live freedom” on social media.

Meanwhile UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer refused to be drawn into whether or not the military action may have broken international law.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme on Saturday morning, the prime minister did not condemn the US strikes.

He said he was waiting to establish all the facts but would not “shy away from this”, adding he was a “lifelong advocate of international law”.

The UK was not involved in the strikes and Sir Keir said he had not spoken to Trump about the operation.

Later on Saturday, Sir Keir posted on X that the UK “regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime”.

“The UK government will discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people,” he added.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas reiterated the bloc’s position that Maduro lacks legitimacy, that there should be a peaceful transition of power, and that the principles of international law must be respected.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the transition of power “must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people” in a post on X.

He added he hoped González – the opposition’s 2024 presidential candidate – could ensure the transition.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the legality of the US operation was “complex” and international law in general must apply.

He warned that “political instability must not be allowed to arise in Venezuela”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected”, his spokesperson said. He was “deeply alarmed” by the strikes, which set a “dangerous precedent”.

He called on all actors in Venezuela to engage in inclusive dialogue, in full respect of human rights and the rule of law”.

In the US, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said, “Let me be clear, Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but launching military action without congressional authorization, without a federal plan for what comes next, is reckless”

Caracas, January 3, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan popular movements and international solidarity organizations have taken to the streets to condemn a US military attack against the country and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.

Following the bombings and special operations raid in the early hours of January 3, pro-government collectives began to concentrate in Caracas near Miraflores Presidential Palace. Demonstrations were likewise registered in many other Venezuelan cities.

“Long live a free and revolutionary Venezuela,” grassroots leader Mariela Machado told press in the Caracas demonstration. “International institutions must stop being accomplices and take a stance because our people are being massacred.”

She went on to state that “the US government is not the world’s police” and demanded the safe return of the Venezuelan President.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López published statements in the early morning hours, urging the international community to take a stance against the US actions and calling for popular mobilization.

International solidarity organizations also set up emergency rallies in dozens of cities, including London, New York and several Latin American capitals.

US forces began the attack at 2 am local time with missiles fired against a number of Venezuela military installations in the capital and surrounding areas. Social media users broadcast fires and large columns of smoke emerging from Fuerte Tiuna, the main military installation in Caracas.

The port in La Guaira, an airbase in Higuerote, Miranda State, and a radar facility in El Hatillo, Eastern Caracas, were among the targets reportedly struck. Venezuelan authorities have not disclosed information concerning damages and casualties.

A few hours after the first bombings, US President Donald Trump announced that a special operations raid had kidnapped Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores and that the two were “flown out of the country.” The pair was reportedly taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima warship.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that Maduro and Flores were indicted in a New York District Court on charges including “narco-terrorism conspiracy.” In recent years, US officials have repeatedly accused Maduro and other Venezuelan high-ranking officials of “flooding” the US with drugs. However, they have not presented any court-tested evidence, while UN and DEA reports have shown Venezuela to be a marginal player in global drug trafficking.

In a Saturday press conference, Trump stated that the US will “run” Venezuela until there are conditions for a “safe, proper and judicious transition.” He added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials will be charged with “running the country.”

The US president reiterated claims to Venezuelan oil resources and threatened that Venezuela would have to “reimburse” the US for oil nationalizations and damages from alleged drug trafficking. Trump went on to say that Rubio had held talks with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, alleging that she had been sworn in and had vowed to accept US dictates.

Trump dismissed the idea of María Corina Machado taking power in the South American nation, affirming that the far-right leader lacks on-the-ground support. 

Washington’s military attack and special operations raid followed months of buildup and escalating regime-change threats against Caracas. US forces have amassed the largest military deployment in decades in the Caribbean Sea while also conducting dozens of bombings against small boats accused of narcotics trafficking.

The military operation drew widespread international condemnation from Latin America and elsewhere.

“The US bombings and Maduro’s capture are unacceptable,” Brazilian President Lula da Silva wrote on social media. “These actions are an affront to Venezuelan sovereignty and set an extremely dangerous precedent for the international community.”

Colombian, Mexican and Cuban leaders were among those to strongly reject US actions and demand respect for international law.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly held a phone conversation with Vice President Rodríguez, reiterating Moscow’s support for the Venezuelan government and a call for dialogue.

For its part, the Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement “fiercely condemning the use of force against a sovereign nation.” Beijing urged Washington to cease its violations of international law and respect other countries’ sovereignty.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil held multiple phone conversations with counterparts from different countries who expressed their condemnation of the US attacks as violations of international law.

Caracas has likewise requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Two prior meetings called by Venezuela saw China, Russia and other countries criticize the US’ military actions but ultimately no resolutions were put forward.

Jan. 2 (UPI) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said claims that his government engages in drug trafficking are lies, and he is willing to meet with President Donald Trump amid rising tensions.

Maduro on Thursday accused the Trump administration of knowingly making false claims of drug trafficking, including recent comments by Trump saying Venezuela’s alleged drug trafficking is akin to using weapons of mass destruction

“Since they cannot accuse me, since they cannot accuse Venezuela of having weapons of mass destruction, since they cannot accuse us of having nuclear rockets, of preparing a nuclear weapon, of having chemical weapons, they invented an accusation that the United States knows is as false as that accusation of weapons of mass destruction, which led them to an eternal war,” Maduro said while referencing the Iraq War.

The Venezuelan president offered to work with U.S. officials to oppose drug trafficking and repeated his prior offers to meet with Trump to discuss the U.S. military targeting alleged drug vessels, seizing oil tankers and blockading Venezuelan ports.

“The U.S. government knows, because we’ve told many of their spokespeople that, if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we’re ready,” he said in a taped interview on Venezuela’s state-owned channel teleSUR.

The Venezuelan president also suggested his country and the United States could work together to enable U.S. firms to invest in Venezuela’s oil industry “whenever they want it, wherever they want it and however they want it.”

Maduro refused to comment on a recently reported U.S. strike on an alleged drug-processing facility located among docks on Venezuela’s Caribbean coastline.

The CIA also has refused to comment on the strike, which Trump announced on Monday and said “knocked out” a drug facility on Saturday night.

The president in October announced he authorized the CIA to undertake operations in Venezuela but did not say what kind.

The Defense Department also sent a carrier strike group to the Caribbean to stop alleged drug-trafficking fast boats from transporting drugs intended for the United States and Europe and more recently to blockade Venezuelan ports amid seizures of sanctioned vessels.

The White House has said the strikes on the alleged drug boats are intended to stop South American drug cartels from sending drugs to the United States, which has some U.S. officials questioning the legality of such strikes.

The U.S. Southern Command announced two more boat strikes that killed five in international waters on New Year’s Eve.

The United States began striking the alleged drug boats in September and has sunk at least 36 and killed at least 115.

Most of the drug boat strikes, 23, have occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean and away from Venezuela, while 11 others occurred in the Caribbean Sea, with another two in undisclosed locations.

The United States also has placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro and recently sanctioned some of his family members for their alleged roles in drug trafficking.

Trump also has accused Maduro of intentionally sending criminals and others to the United States during the Biden administration, including members of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang that he has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

The United States Department of the Treasury has issued a new round of sanctions aimed at isolating Venezuela’s oil industry, as part of President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against the South American country.

The sanctions announced on Wednesday target four companies and their associated oil tankers, which are allegedly involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.

Trump has claimed that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro leads a so-called “narco-terrorist” government that seeks to destabilise the US, a charge repeated in the latest sanctions announcements.

“Maduro’s regime increasingly depends on a shadow fleet of worldwide vessels to facilitate sanctionable activity, including sanctions evasion, and to generate revenue for its destabilizing operations,” the Treasury said on Wednesday.

Petroleum is Venezuela’s primary export, but the Trump administration has sought to cut the country off from its international markets.

Wednesday’s notice accuses four tankers – the Nord Star, the Rosalind, the Valiant and the Della – of helping Venezuela’s oil sector to circumvent existing sanctions, thereby providing the “financial resources that fuel Maduro’s illegitimate narco-terrorist regime”.

“President Trump has been clear: We will not allow the illegitimate Maduro regime to profit from exporting oil while it floods the United States with deadly drugs,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“The Treasury Department will continue to implement President Trump’s campaign of pressure on Maduro’s regime.”

Claims on Venezuelan oil

The sanctions come a day after Washington imposed sanctions on a separate Venezuelan company it says assembled drones designed by Iran.

In recent months, the Trump administration has cited several motives for ratcheting up pressure against Venezuela, ranging from immigration to Maduro’s contested election in 2024.

Trump, for instance, has framed the pressure campaign as a means of stemming the trade of illegal drugs, despite Venezuela exporting virtually none of the administration’s main target, fentanyl.

Critics have also accused Washington of seeking to topple Maduro’s government to take control of the country’s vast oil reserves.

Trump officials have fuelled those suspicions with remarks seeming to assert ownership over Venezuela’s oil.

On December 17, a day after Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, his top adviser, Stephen Miller, claimed that the US “created the oil industry in Venezuela”.

He suggested that the oil was stolen from the US when Venezuela nationalised its petroleum industry, starting in 1976.

That process accelerated after the 1998 election of socialist President Hugo Chavez, who reasserted state control over Venezuela’s oil sector, ultimately leading to the seizure of foreign assets in 2007.

That “tyrannical expropriation” scheme, Miller alleged, “was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property”.

Still, one major US oil company, Chevron, continues to operate in the country.

Trump has echoed Miller’s claims, writing online that the US “will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets”.

He added that all of those assets “must be returned to the United States, IMMEDIATELY”.

Military build-up in the Caribbean

In recent months, the Trump administration has tightened its focus on Venezuela’s oil industry, taking a series of military actions against tankers.

On December 10, the administration seized its first tanker, the Skipper, followed by a second seizure 10 days later.

The US military has reportedly been pursuing a third tanker as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean.

The attacks on the oil tankers come several months after the US began surging aircraft, warships and other military assets to the Caribbean region along Venezuela’s coast.

Since September 2, the US military has conducted dozens of bombing campaigns against alleged drug-smuggling boats in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, in what rights groups call extrajudicial killings.

More than 100 people have been killed, and the administration has offered scant legal justification for the attacks.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that the US had struck a “dock area” in Venezuela he claimed was used to load the alleged drug boats.

The dock bombing is believed to be the first of its kind on Venezuelan soil, though Trump has long threatened to begin attacking land-based targets.

While the administration has not officially revealed which agency was behind the dock strike, US media has widely reported it was conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Caracas, December 30, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly bombed a target inside Venezuelan territory.

According to CNN, citing “sources familiar with the matter,” the CIA carried out a drone strike against a “remote dock on the Venezuelan.” US officials allegedly believed the facility was being used for drug storage and shipping.

There was reportedly no one present on site during the attack, which is only specified to have taken place “earlier this month.” A New York Times report, likewise relying on anonymous sources, presented similar claims and added that the strike took place last Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump first alluded to a purported strike inside Venezuelan territory during an interview on Friday, claiming that US forces had destroyed a “big facility where ships come from” two days earlier. 

Trump elaborated on a Monday press conference, adding that the site was along the Venezuelan shore and that there was a “big explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”

US agencies have not confirmed the attack, with the CIA, the White House and the Pentagon refusing comment. Analysts relying on open source data tracked no signs of an explosion on the Venezuelan coast in recent days.

For its part, Venezuelan authorities have not released any statements on the matter.

If confirmed, the land strikes would mark a significant escalation in the US’ military campaign against Venezuela. Since August, the Trump administration has amassed the largest build-up in decades in the Caribbean and launched dozens of strikes against small boats accused of narcotics trafficking, killing over 100 civilians in the process.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to bomb purported drug targets inside Venezuelan territory while escalating regime change threats against the Nicolás Maduro government. The White House allegedly approved lethal CIA operations in the country in October.

Despite recurrent “narcoterrorism” accusations against Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials, Washington has not provided court-tested evidence to back the claims. Specialized agencies have consistently shown Venezuela to play a marginal role in global drug trafficking.

In recent weeks, Trump has turned his discourse toward Venezuelan oil, claiming that the Caribbean nation had “stolen” oil rights from US corporations during nationalization processes in the 2000s and 1970s. 

The US president ordered a naval blockade against Venezuelan oil exports, with US forces seizing two oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude in international waters earlier this month. A third vessel reportedly refused to be boarded and headed toward the Atlantic Ocean. According to Reuters, US forces have been ordered to enforce a “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil in the next two months in order to exacerbate the South American country’s economic struggles. 

A group of UN experts issued a statement on December 24 condemning the US’ maritime blockade as “violating fundamental rules of international law.”

“The illegal use of force, and threats to use further force at sea and on land, gravely endanger the human right to life and other rights in Venezuela and the region,” the experts affirmed, while urging UN member-states to take measures to stop the blockade and the vessel bombings.

The attempted blockade builds on widespread US economic sanctions, particularly targeting the Venezuelan oil industry, the country’s most important revenue source. US coercive measures have been classified as “collective punishment” and found responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths.

For its part, the Maduro government has condemned US “acts of piracy” in capturing oil tankers and blasted the Trump administration’s actions as blatant attempts to seize Venezuela’s natural resources.

Caracas has received diplomatic backing from its main allies, with China and Russia both condemning Washington’s military escalations as violations of international law. However, a recent UN Security Council meeting convened by Venezuela produced no resolutions.

This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gomez would have imagined a year ago.

Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants in the United States would have thought. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their US dream.

Gomez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter and smiled for her in-laws. Hard as she tried, though, she could not ignore the main challenges facing returning migrants: unemployment and poverty.

“We had a modest dinner, not quite what we’d hoped for, but at least we had food on the table,” Gomez said of the lasagne-like dish she shared with her partner and in-laws instead of the traditional Christmas dish of stuffed corn dough hallacas. “Making hallacas here is a bit expensive, and since we’re unemployed, we couldn’t afford to make them.”

Gomez, her two sons and her partner returned to the city of Maracay on October 27 after crossing the US-Mexico border to Texas, where they were quickly swept up by US Border Patrol amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. They were deported to Mexico, from where they began the dangerous journey back to Venezuela.

They crossed Central America by bus, but once in Panama, the family could not afford to continue to Colombia via boat in the Caribbean. Instead, they took the cheaper route along the Pacific’s choppy waters, sitting on top of sloshing petrol tanks in a cargo boat for several hours and then transferring to a fast boat until reaching a jungled area of Colombia. They spent about two weeks there until they were wired money to make it to the border with Venezuela.

Gomez was among the more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who left their home country in the last decade, when its economy came undone as a result of a drop in oil prices, corruption and mismanagement. She lived in Colombia and Peru for years before setting her sights on the US with hopes of building a new life.

Steady deportations

Trump’s second term has dashed the hopes of many like Gomez.

As of September, more than 14,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, had returned to South America since Trump moved to limit migration to the US, according to figures from Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. In addition, Venezuelans were steadily deported to their home country this year after President Nicolas Maduro, under pressure from the White House, did away with his longstanding policy of not accepting deportees from the US.

Immigrants arrived regularly at the airport outside the capital, Caracas, on flights operated by a US government contractor or Venezuela’s state-owned airline. More than 13,000 migrants returned this year on the chartered flights.

Gomez’s return to Venezuela also allowed her to see the now 20-year-old daughter she left behind when she fled the country’s complex crisis. They talked and drank beer during the holiday, knowing it might be the last time they shared a drink for a while – Gomez’s daughter will migrate to Brazil next month.

Gomez is hoping to make hallacas for New Year’s Eve and is also hoping for a job. But her prayers for next year are mostly for good health.

“I ask God for many things, first and foremost life and health, so we can continue enjoying our family,” she said.

Caracas, December 15, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan Armed Forces reiterated their commitment to defend the Caribbean nation’s airspace amid an escalating US military buildup and provocations.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino issued a statement Sunday to mark the 47th anniversary of the Venezuelan Integral Airspace Defense Command (CODAI), hailing the system’s “effective and immediate” response capabilities against “imperialist threats.”

“With its modern radars, missile systems and surface-to-air artillery, CODAI has become the vanguard of the country’s defense,” Padrino wrote on social media. The defense minister went on to highlight CODAI’s “technological independence.”

Padrino’s comments occurred amid a large-scale US military buildup in the Caribbean in a self-declared anti-narcotics mission. The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes against purported drug targets inside Venezuelan territory.

After moving their largest US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to the region in November, US forces have likewise ramped up warplane deployments to bases in Puerto Rico. According to reports, the US Navy moved six EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets to the island’s Roosevelt Roads naval station.

Designed by Boeing, the EA-18G Growlers have advanced capabilities to disrupt and deceive enemy military electronic systems, including air defenses.

Open-access flight tracking websites have shown EA-18G Growlers operating in the Caribbean in recent days.  On Tuesday, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets flew for 40 minutes close to the Gulf of Venezuela in the country’s west. Analysts argued that the warplanes could have been mapping air defense systems spotted in the region days before.

On Friday night, social media users watching flight trackers reported that a Growler, codenamed GRIZZLY2, and a Super Hornet, codenamed RHINO61, were flying over Venezuela’s Los Roques archipelago and continental mainland, respectively. However, the false positions were a consequence of trackers such as Flight Radar 24 extrapolating an aircraft’s position for a limited time after losing signal on the basis of the last measured position and speed.

The Venezuelan government and armed forces have consistently denounced the US military maneuvers, accusing Washington of attempting to fabricate a false flag incident to justify an open conflict.

The US’ increased military activity has also affected commercial aviation. On Sunday, JetBlue denounced that an airplane on a Curaçao-New York had to halt its ascent due to the presence of a US Air Force refueling tanker in its path. Curaçao is 40 miles away from Venezuela’s coast.

US authorities have also issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) urging extra caution to planes flying in Venezuela’s Flight Information Region (FIR). For his part, Trump wrote on social media that Venezuela’s airspace should be “considered closed.”

International airlines flying to and from Caracas have suspended their services. Venezuelan companies continue to offer connections to regional destinations including Panama City, Bogotá and Santo Domingo.

ALBA alliance condemns US threats

Amidst the ongoing US military threats and buildup, the Nicolás Maduro government has received diplomatic backing from its main allies. Last week, the Venezuelan leader held phone calls with his Russian, Iranian and Brazilian counterparts to discuss bilateral relations and the threats to peace in the region.

On Sunday, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) held a virtual summit and issued a statement condemning the Trump administration’s declared intentions to enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the hemisphere.

The regional body likewise condemned recent US hostile actions, including the seizure of a tanker carrying Venezuelan crude last week. The US Treasury Department followed by imposing new sanctions, blacklisting shipping companies allegedly involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.

Venezuela’s state oil company denounced a cyberattack targeting its operational capabilities but stated that its effects had been minimized. According to Bloomberg, the reported attack caused loading delays in Venezuela’s main oil terminal.

The White House has justified its military buildup and coercive measures escalation with “narcoterrorism” charges against Maduro and other top Venezuelan officials. However, US agencies have not provided court-tested evidence to back the claims, while reports from specialized agencies have shown Venezuela to play a marginal role in global drug trafficking.

International leaders and foreign policy analysts have stated that Washington’s ultimate goal is regime change to seize control of Venezuela’s natural resources.

Edited by Cira Pascual Marquina in Caracas.