LondonFirst payment to the new “mandatary” of Venezuela. Donald Trump assured late Tuesday that the Caribbean country will send the United States “between 30 and 50 million barrels” of high-quality oil. If we take into account the current prices of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the reference crude oil in the United States, the volume could reach a value of more than 2.8 billion dollars, according to the Bloomberg agency.
“This oil will be sold at market price, and this money will be under my control, as President of the United States of America, to ensure that it is used for the benefit of the people of Venezuela and the United States. I have asked the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, to execute this plan immediately. The oil will be transported in storage vessels and taken directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The attitude of the President of the United States is not far from that displayed by Hugo Chávez during his years in power, when he walked around Caracas, pointed out buildings and decreed their immediate expropriation. In this case, it is a confiscation under threat of further military interventions.
Trump’s announcement is a new addition to the statements he made to NBC News in a telephone interview on Monday: “Having an oil-producing Venezuela is good for the United States because it keeps the price down.” According to data from the Organization of the Producing Countries (OPEC), Venezuela produced in 2024 (the latest year for which there is data) just under one million barrels per day. At the peak of its production, in the mid-1990s, it extracted almost four times as much: between 3 and 3.5 million.
Representatives of major US oil companies plan to meet with the Trump administration this week, CBS has reported. In this sense, the president of the United States suggested on Tuesday morning that the United States could subsidize oil companies to invest in Venezuela, with the aim of taking advantage of its enormous crude oil reserves, the largest in the world, calculated according to OPEC at 303 billion barrels.
In the same interview with NBC, Trump claimed that the country’s oil industry could have new operations “up and running” within 18 months. “I think we can do it in less time, but it’s going to cost a lot of money. It’s going to take a huge amount of money and the oil companies are going to spend it, and then we’re going to pay them back, or through revenue.”
On the other hand, different analysts consulted by the BBC say that Trump’s plans will not have a significant impact on the global supply (and therefore on the price) of oil.
Impact for China
The delivery of between 30 and 50 million barrels from Venezuela to the United States would divert supplies from China, according to information from the Reuters agency. The imposition on the new government in Caracas is a clear signal of the intentions of the Republican administration, which wants Venezuela to open up to US oil companies to avoid further military interventions. In return, it is a provocation to China.
In fact, in the last few hours, the American government would have communicated to the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, that the country will have to break relations with China, and also with Russia, Iran and Cuba, as part of a series of demands before extracting and marketing more oil, according to officials quoted by the ABC chain. After breaking “economic ties” with these countries, Caracas should also agree to partner exclusively with the United States in oil production and favor them when it comes to exporting crude oil.
Also according to ABC, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a private briefing on Monday that, without selling its oil reserves, Venezuela has a couple of weeks left to become financially insolvent.
According to the same Reuters agency, Venezuela has millions of barrels of oil loaded on oil tankers and in storage tanks that it has not been able to send to Beijing due to the export embargo imposed by the White House since mid-December. The Asian country has been the main buyer of Caracas in the last decade, and especially since the United States imposed sanctions on companies involved in the oil trade with the government of Nicolás Maduro.
