A massive oil deal was inked in Caracas on Wednesday, handing a US-led company 100-year control over 17 Venezuelan oilfields. The move quickly stirred controversy, with critics blasting it as a modern form of colonialism.
This agreement involves an estimated 65 billion barrels of crude, more than a fifth of Venezuela's proven reserves. Both US President Donald Trump and interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez hailed the deal as historic. Trump even dubbed it "the biggest oil deal in world history."
Rodríguez claimed the agreement would bring in $100 billion (£74 billion) in investment, alongside over $200 billion in tax revenue. But not everyone is celebrating. Elliott Abrams, Trump's former special representative for Venezuela and Iran, criticized the deal sharply. "This is a terrible deal, " he said, accusing Rodríguez of giving away national assets. she was merely bending to Washington's will.
The White House laid out the agreement's framework, which involves the US government partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), Venezuela's second-largest private oil producer. An unusual clause gives the US government "veto power over the appointment of any member of the board of directors, " with a requirement for a majority of Nabep's board to be US citizens.
President Trump had made securing control over Venezuela's oil resources a priority since January, when US troops attempted to oust Nicolás Maduro. Back then, Trump vowed that the United States would "run" Venezuela and manage its oil.
For the US, this deal is a chance to boost oil output outside the Middle East, especially with prices rising amid the US-Iran conflict. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told Fox Business that the pact was "shifting the geopolitical centre of the global energy markets" away from Middle Eastern "choke points" back to the Western Hemisphere.
Abrams acknowledged there is logic to the partnership given the unreliability of Gulf oil supplies. Still, he described the deal's one-sided terms as "a kind of fever dream of what colonialism looks like." The White House also claimed the agreement "re-established the Monroe Doctrine, " a 19th Century policy asserting US influence in South America, by "purging foreign malign influence from our backyard and ensuring American dominance in our hemisphere is never again questioned."
While officials assure mutual benefit, the deal faces hurdles and unanswered questions. Trump foresees profits in two or three years, but energy experts warn it could take a decade given the state of Venezuela's oil sector.
Luis Pacheco, from the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston, told BBC Mundo that Venezuela needs about $100 billion in investments over eight years just to reach production levels from 30 years ago. Pacheco questioned who would manage these resources, given the country's history of oil wealth mismanagement.
The deal has also angered Venezuela's opposition, who accuse Rodríguez of heading the same regime as Maduro. They see Washington's quick shift to working with Maduro's former vice-president as a betrayal, especially after the Trump administration had previously condemned Maduro's government as a corrupt drug cartel and deployed a large armada around Venezuela.
Venezuelan economist Ricardo Hausmann directed comments at US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on social media, saying, "You chose to use the power of the United States not to liberate Venezuelans, but to ally yourself with our oppressors." He condemned the move as "an asset seizure, an unconstitutional agreement with an illegitimate and oppressive government, " arguing that constitutional order should be restored first.
The absence of an impending election or a clear plan for one strikes many opponents as a deep betrayal. Across the political spectrum, many Venezuelan socialists view the deal as capitulation.
After nearly three decades opposing Washington's influence, they feel Rodríguez has handed the country's most valuable asset to an old enemy. Rafael Ramírez, who once led the state-run energy firm PDVSA and served as oil minister under former President Hugo Chávez, said the deal "hands over [the oil] and opens the doors to a new colonialism of the United States."
This latest pact contrasts sharply with Chávez's actions in early 2008, when he seized assets from companies like ExxonMobil in the Orinoco River Belt. Chávez, during his Sunday TV show Aló Presidente from former ExxonMobil oilfields, had declared, "We have the reins in our hands and we won't ever let them go again, " criticizing past governments for making Venezuela "a nation of gringos."
