Trump’s assista: Venezuela’s oil belongs to the United States
Steven Miller, one of Trump’s top aides, called the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry “theft” and claims that the oil of this South American coury belongs to Washington.
According to Isna, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller claimed that the United States “created the oil industry in Venezuela.”
Miller’s commes raise further questions about the Trump administration’s claim that drug trafficking is a major source of tension with Venezuela.
“The sweat, ingenuity and toil of Americans created Venezuela’s oil industry,” Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a social media post. Its brutal expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These looted assets were then used to finance terrorism and flood our streets with murderers, mercenaries and drugs!”
While American and British companies were involved in early oil discoveries in Venezuela, the fuel belongs to the Latin American coury under the principle of permane sovereigy over natural resources in iernational law.
Venezuela nationalized its oil sector in 1976 and placed it under the corol of the state-owned company PDVSA.
Later, in 2007, the late leftist Preside Hugo Chávez nationalized the remaining foreign oil projects in Venezuela, effectively ousting US oil gias such as ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.
US companies moued legal challenges to fight the expropriation process, and in 2014, a World Bank arbitration tribunal ordered Venezuela to pay ExxonMobil $1.6 billion. Legal proceedings are still ongoing.
The United States imposed sanctions on PDVSA in 2019, during Trump’s first term.
But since returning to power for a second term in January, Trump has stepped up his “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela.
Late Tuesday, Trump announced a blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers, describing them as “sanctioned.” In a social media post on the matter, Trump echoed Miller’s claims that Venezuelans stole oil from the United States. “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest naval fleet in South American history,” Trump wrote. “This fleet will get bigger and they will get a shock the likes of which they have never seen before – uil they return to the United States of America all the oil, land and other assets they have already stolen from us.”
The blockade is part of Trump’s increasingly confroational approach to Venezuela and its leftist preside, Nicolas Maduro, who served as vice preside under the late Chavez.
Last week, the US military – which has been amassing military assets near Venezuela – seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in what Caracas called “iernational piracy”.
Since September, the United States has also been bombing ships near the South American coury in the Caribbean Sea that it says are drug boats, in a deadly campaign that many legal experts say violates domestic and iernational law.
On Tuesday, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was quoted by Vanity Fair as saying that the U.S. boat attacks were aimed at toppling Venezuela’s preside, who faces accusations of human rights abuses.
Wiles reportedly told the magazine that Trump “was to keep blowing up boats uil Maduro yells ‘uncle’.”
Another complai that Trump and his aides have raised is the baseless claim that Maduro has deliberately se criminals and gang members to the United States in rece years.
But Venezuela’s massive oil reserves — believed to be the world’s largest — have been particularly coeious.
On Wednesday, the Politico News outlet reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Trump administration has reached out to private oil companies to ask if they would be ierested in returning to Venezuela if Maduro is ousted from power.
“There have been coacts with the industry about the poteial to re-eer Venezuela,” an unnamed source told Politico. “But to be honest, with lower oil prices and more attractive oil fields globally, there is not much ierest from the industry.”
However, María Corina Machado, the face of Venezuela’s opposition, has promised to privatize the coury’s oil sector and open it up to investme if Maduro loses power. He received the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year.
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