On The Brink

Experts warn that Venezuela is primed for insurgent violence, and that the U.S. has little hope of controlling the fallout of Maduro’s ouster

Hours after executing the raid to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, the heads of the United States government gathered before the press not to exalt democracy or detail their plan for Venezuelan self-determination, but to make clear that they intend to bleed the nation of its oil reserves. 

President Donald Trump is “deadly serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned. The president himself repeatedly told reporters that the South American nation — home to some of the largest oil reserves on the planet — “stole our oil.” 

“We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil,” Trump said. “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”

Trump did not notify Congress of his plans to depose Maduro, but he says he did tip off American oil executives. On Tuesday, Trump announced that Venezuela would be “turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America.” The president also clarified that the seized oil would be “sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” 

The arrangement is unprecedented even in the history of American resource imperialism, and experts warn that the administration’s move to take control of Venezuela’s oil production, seemingly with the intent of keeping the profits, will be incredibly difficult, risks triggering a full internal collapse within Venezuela, and could turn violent. 

“There’s absolutely no doubt this is 100 percent driven by President Trump’s desire that Venezuelan oil is now owned, run — and therefore the profits are controlled — by the White House,” Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, tells Rolling Stone. In Pape’s view, however, “Trump will never control Venezuela’s oil.”  

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The United States does not actually have a legal claim to energy resources under Venezuela. As a matter of international law, a government cannot unilaterally claim ownership over the natural resources of another nation. At the center of Trump’s claims of “theft” are billions in unpaid settlement funds international courts granted to American oil companies after Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, seized assets belonging to foreign oil companies amid a push to fully nationalize the industry in 2007.