As you may already know, the United States decided to intervene militarily in Venezuela on January 3. Some said it was to “save the Venezuelan population”, but we know that what our country needs is oil, Trump said it himself, I am not making anything up. Under the disguise of white saviors, the reality is that we need oil and now, from Caracas, they “assure” that they are going to transfer between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil for sale in U.S. territory. The figure is impressive. And the context, even more so.
The announcement was made by Trump, who now coordinates the Caribbean territory together with Delcy Rodriguez, and the announcement has completely exposed political hypocrisy, a relationship that has been moving for years between moral sanctions and the material need of a country that demands oil. But of course, when oil comes into play, everything else starts to be negotiable, or a reason for military intervention.
Oil and speeches
Venezuela’s structural crisis cannot be ignored. There is an economic, social, and political crisis, and of course there have been years of sanctions that have made it worse. The same sanctions, which by the way, have now been relaxed when Washington has needed energy supply. We already know where this is going.
Oil is the bargaining chip and the lifeboat. According to what has been released by the authorities, it would be high quality crude, compatible with U.S. refineries, and with a key point, the sale would be supervised by U.S. authorities. Daddy is not going to let Venezuela trade on its own. They say it is to guarantee transparency of the transaction, but the reality is that it is an elegant way to control the income of a sovereign country. Trump indicated that the Department of Energy, under the direction of Chris Wright, will be in charge of immediately executing the plan for extraction and transport of the crude to U.S. ports, wow.
A lesson in geopolitics
Despite talk in back rooms about saving the Venezuelan population from a tyrant, the reality is that Venezuela is for Trump a place of oil supply, so much so that they are not even giving the Venezuelan people or government the option to make decisions. Meetings between Trump and oil company representatives will take place at the White House, and there they will decide how to trade oil that is not theirs.
U.S. supervision of revenues is precisely one of the most controversial points. Supervision or guardianship? Here the debate about sovereignty and external control of national resources has also been opened. Anything they are selling to us as normalization is not.
Oil companies watching closely
As expected, the big energy companies have not been slow to show their interest. Chevron or ExxonMobil have been showing interest in returning to Venezuela for some time and now they are more interested than ever.
What does Venezuela have?
Oil. Chavez, the previous leader of the land of Bolivar, warned many years ago about what would happen. When the United States saw its reserves weaken, they would go after Venezuelan lands, because these lands have the largest reserves on the planet. From the outside we see lack of infrastructure and financial isolation of the sector, so something had to be done. How were we going to let Venezuelans trade their own oil?
Opportunity or risk?
What happened this week sets a very important precedent and there are many readings. It starts with attacking the right to sovereignty of a country and ends with wanting to control the gross product of another sovereign country.
If millions of Venezuelan barrels finally enter the U.S. market, the effect will be felt around the world. Some see pragmatism, others see a dangerous precedent that hides an imperialist plan.
Are we improving Venezuela or are we only improving our oil reserves? Stability for the U.S. but not for the Venezuelan people? There are still many questions to be resolved.