US oil plans in Venezuela face a conflictive history and huge investment needs. And Trump signals a détente with Colombia’s Gustavo Petro.
Ignacio Portes & Jorge C. Carrasco
VENEZUELA
How feasible are Trump’s Venezuela oil plans?
As we at The Brazilian Report had warned in recent LatAm Report issues, Donald Trump’s military escalation against Venezuela had been shifting in tone, from anti-drug law enforcement to a strong focus on oil. His administration’s initial moves since Nicolás Maduro’s capture on January 3 suggest that this is likely to continue.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said that reshaping Venezuela’s crude exports would be part of “step one” in the stabilization of the country — taking higher priority than “amnesties,” “reconciliation” and a “transition” to democracy, which would come later in the process.
“We are about to execute a deal to take all the oil that is stuck in Venezuela, that can’t be moved because it’s sanctioned, and sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. That money will be handled in such a way that we will control how it is disbursed so that it benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime,” Rubio said.
Shortly after Rubio met with the press, Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm PDVSA confirmed that “negotiations” to sell oil to the US were underway, “under strictly commercial terms (…) with benefits for both parties.”
According to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, between 30 to 50 million barrels that are currently backed up on onshore facilities and floating tankers could be put onto the market. The barrels were likely bound for China, Russia and other US rivals, but could only be sold through the black-market due to US sanctions.
Hammering home its point about no longer tolerating sales to enemy countries, US Navy SEALs boarded and seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker that was heading from Iran to Venezuela on January 7. The US described the aging tanker as part of a “shadow fleet” that transports oil from sanctioned countries — often changing flags, names and turning off transponders to hide their locations.
👉 Why it matters. Venezuela’s oil industry was developed in partnership with the US, becoming the backbone of multiple economic booms in the 1950s, 1970s and 2000s. After taking power at the end of the 20th century, the Chavista movement kicked the US out of the country’s oil sector, but that conflict took a large toll on the industry: thousands of qualified workers were replaced with regime loyalists, and production dropped from 3 million barrels per year to just 1 million, amid nationalizations and US blockades.
The Trump administration and the Venezuelan opposition see the current moment as a mutually beneficial opportunity: the US can help them achieve regime change in exchange for retaking a strategic industry, whose large room for growth could also bring benefits for the local population.
But reality might not be as straightforward as they hope. Trump’s attack on Venezuela, defying international law to capture its president and take control of its oil, will inevitably spark a global nationalist backlash amid fears of US resource imperialism — particularly when top officials speak about controlling Venezuelan oil “indefinitely.”
Oil nationalism has been central to Venezuelan politics since the 1930s, with local leaders pushing for higher royalties and more benefits until the industry’s ultimate nationalization in 1976. State-owned oil firm PDVSA brought back partnerships with US firms in subsequent decades, until President Hugo Chávez fully broke with the US in the 2000s.
Technical realities will also be a limiting factor, as multiple think tanks and fossil fuel analysts have pointed out.
The rehabilitation of some existing oil fields and pipelines, whose infrastructure has decayed, could add 500,000 barrels per year at a cost of around USD 10 to 20 billion, the Council on Foreign Relations said. But reaching the 3 million barrels of the past might require USD 100 billion or more in long-term investment and could take closer to a decade — a tall order in a politically unstable country.
Still, no country is better positioned than the US to lead the process, given that Texan refineries were “built to handle the heavy and sour crude” typical of the region, which is hard to refine elsewhere. And while Trump won’t be there as president by the time those investments pay off, Venezuelans might be OK with slow progress after years of hurt.
COLOMBIA
The ELN conflict could bring Trump and Petro closer
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Few pairings, however, would seem quite as improbable as that of President Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro.
The two leaders have traded barbs on social media and clashed repeatedly over ideology, migration and the role of the US in Latin America. Yet even before the US military captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, last weekend, Petro had begun signaling an interest in easing tensions with Trump.
Five days before the attack on Caracas, the CIA had struck a port facility in Venezuela’s Alta Guajira region, not far from the Colombian border. But instead of blaming Trump, Petro pointed the finger at Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), an armed group operating on both sides of the border, saying they were provoking the US by processing cocaine in the building.
“We know the ELN uses the facility to turn coca paste into cocaine and take advantage of its location in the sea near Maracaibo. The ELN’s rattling and mental dogmas are opening the door to the invasion of Venezuela,” Petro said.
Trump had a slightly different version of events: while he agreed that the facility he bombed was linked to the drug trade, he said it was run by Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a criminal group linked to Maduro’s government.
Regardless of whose version was accurate, the implications were unmistakable: while Petro maintained his anti-imperialist rhetoric, he and Trump were starting to find a common enemy, as the ELN is also a Venezuelan ally.
👉 Why it matters. For Colombia’s leftist leader, the shift suggested a pragmatic recalibration rather than a change of conviction: an acknowledgment that confrontation with the White House had yielded diminishing returns, and that diplomacy, however uneasy, might better serve Bogotá’s interests.
Petro had initially advocated for including the ELN in his “total peace” initiative, aimed at demobilizing the remaining armed groups that have not buried the hatchet with the Colombian state. But tensions between Petro and the ELN have been growing since Colombia refused to recognize Nicolás Maduro as the winner of Venezuela’s rigged 2024 election.
The guerrilla group attacked a Colombian military base in September 2024 and organized a brutal assault near the Venezuelan border in January 2025, which killed more than 100 and displaced tens of thousands. Opposition leader Álvaro Uribe accused the ELN of perpetrating the massacre on behalf of Caracas to protect their border.
The attacks forced Petro into a tougher stance against the ELN, particularly given the upcoming presidential elections, as Colombians have a mostly favorable opinion of their armed forces and generally disapprove of irregular armed groups.
The Trump-Petro rapprochement was confirmed this week, as the two leaders held a phone call and agreed to meet soon at the White House.
Trump had previously described Petro as a “sick man,” accusing him of allowing cocaine trafficking into the US, and threatening to bomb his country next. Now, he said Petro had explained their past disagreements and that he “appreciated his call and tone, and look[s] forward to meeting him in the near future.”
Shortly after their phone call, Petro told supporters in Colombia’s historic Bolívar square that the far-right had tricked Trump into a conflict with him through its lobbying efforts in Miami. “This bag of lies that they told convinced Trump that I ran a cocaine factory … but Trump is not a fool,” Petro said.
Petro’s team also confirmed an upcoming meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart, Delcy Rodríguez, which puts him closer to a position he has always coveted: mediating between Venezuela and the US.
But while Washington and Bogota are bridging their differences, they are still far from seeing eye to eye, as Trump wants Petro to re-classify the ELN and other armed groups as drug-trafficking organizations, while the Colombian leader continues to see them as political actors despite their differences.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
What nickname did Venezuela go by during its oil-based economic boom in the 1970s?
- Texazuela
- Rockezuela
- Standardzuela
- Saudi Venezuela
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