The United States seems to be set to control the Venezuelan oil trade indefinitely, as President Donald Trump and his administration gave the clearest indication on Wednesday.
Trump, in an interview with the New York Times, said on Wednesday evening that he expected the United States would be running Venezuela and extracting oil from its huge reserves for years. He also insisted that the interim government of the country, all former loyalists to the now-imprisoned Nicolás Maduro, is “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.”
When asked how long Washington will directly oversee the administration in Caracas, Trump replied: “Only time will tell.”
“We will rebuild it in a very profitable way. We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need,” he added.
Trump did not provide a precise timeline for ending the oversight of Venezuela, stating it would be “much longer” than a year.
The Trump administration’s stance on Venezuela
The world was stunned on Saturday when the US Special Forces raided the Caracas compound housing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, leading to his ‘capture’. Since then, Maduro’s deputy Delcy Rodriguez has been installed as the interim President, while Donald Trump has said that she “now works for the US”.
Trump said Tuesday evening that Venezuela would relinquish as much as 50 million barrels of its oil for the US to sell, valued at about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
Apart from Trump, US energy secretary Chris Wright made the clearest statement yet on Washington’s strategy to bring Venezuelan crude to market and manage its most valuable resource.
“We’re just going to get that crude moving again and sell it,” Wright said. “We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela – first this backed-up stored oil and then indefinitely going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela,” Bloomberg quoted Wright as saying.
The plan comes as the Trump administration is selectively rolling back sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector as part of the effort, the Energy Department said.
Chevron is the only US major operating in Venezuela, working under a special license from Washington. Exxon and ConocoPhillips previously operated inside the country but left after their assets were nationalised by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in the mid-2000s.
Earlier, US forces seized two more sanctioned oil tankers, including one flying a Russian flag, as the Trump administration pushes to control all exports of Venezuelan crude. One was seized in the Atlantic Ocean south of Iceland, and the other was apprehended in the Caribbean region.
