Yves here. This post has the interesting tidbit that the Trump Administration is trying to use threat display against Venezuela while seeking a “deal”. The problem is that Trump used that strategy against India with his 50% tariffs as secondary sanctions and it backfired. Trump has made aggressive noises before with no real follow-through, notably with Greenland, so he might turn his chaos generation elsewhere and trust that memory-like-goldfish Americans won’t pay much attention to what happened in the end with Venezuela. Recall Trump has had to do the same with the Houthis (well save occasional bombings to try to restore our manhood), who are a much more serious challenge to our perceived interest.
Note that the piece hints is what Trump really wants is “access” to Venezuela’s oil and minerals.
By Elias Ferrer, the director of a research advisory in Caracas, Venezuela focusing on the country’s oil and gas sector, Orinoco Research. Originally published at OilPrice
- Trump threatened Venezuela and sent Navy, Air Force, and special forces to the Caribbean.
- Despite the hard line, both sides appear open to talks.
- Chevron’s waiver keeps some U.S. barrels flowing, but sanctions push ~85% of Venezuela’s oil to China at a discount.
In a recent post on Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela to take back ‘prisoners and people from mental institutions,’ or else ‘the price you will pay will be incalculable.’ This was announced right when the U.S. military was deploying an array of Navy and Air Force units in the Eastern Caribbean, and even elite Special Operations forces, making the threat real.
The deployment is accompanied by a key narrative element. Since late July, administration officials have been promoting the idea that Venezuela is ruled by a ‘criminal organisation’ known as the ‘Cartel de los Soles’, with Nicolás Maduro at its head. Many analysts are thus seeing through the ‘counter-narcotics’ rhetoric, concluding that this is a campaign to drive Maduro out of power.
The U.S. military has since bombed and destroyed three boats, alleged to be carrying drugs from Venezuela—although the statement on the third strike shied away from mentioning the country, given rising questions over the legality of such actions. In any case, while the Navy surrounds Venezuela’s coasts, destroying speedboats could be equivalent to shooting in the air during a heist.
At Guacamaya we recently published articles finding that the ‘Cartel de los Soles’ story is no more than a political narrative, ignoring the realities of drug trafficking, and that it is being promoted by certain political and economic interests to push for regime change in Venezuela. Others have also analysed how the use of the terms ‘Tren de Aragua’ and ‘Cartel de los Soles’ has risen and fallen based on their political convenience.
President Trump’s messaging has consistently focused on fentanyl—which causes 70% of overdose deaths in the United States—instead of Colombian cocaine. And in any case, just 5% of the latter transits through Venezuela, according to none other than the DEA. What Venezuela does indeed have is 300 billion barrels of oil, 220 trillion cubic feet of gas, and significant deposits of gold, iron, tin, bauxite, coltan, and rare minerals. Meanwhile, Caracas has been a close ally of Havana, meaning it is in the sights of South Florida’s Cuban-American political community, with Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio at its head.
Are we then to expect a further escalation of conflict between the United States and Venezuela? How likely is it that there will be an all-out war? Or are the two sides ready to negotiate? Then, what would either of these options mean for energy markets?
Actually, there are some signals that both the White House and the Palace of Miraflores are open to talk. The Truth Social post creates a doubt. One can understand that it refers to President Trump’s claim that Maduro purposefully sent thousands of criminals into the United States. But if Venezuela accepts all deportees, would regime change plans be shelved?
Soon after the publication, on the very same day, Reuters said that it had seen a letter in which Maduro offered Trump to engage in direct talks via Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell. The letter’s date was September 6, probably reflecting that some officials tried to hide it.
A key question remains. The United States is already sending two flights full of Venezuelan migrants home every week. By mid-September, this means 54 flights and 10,000 deportees, according to a source in the State Department with information on the matter. So, is the solution as simple as ramping up the pace of deportation flights?
Likewise, regarding drug trafficking, would it be enough for Maduro to commit to combating the transit of cocaine? If Trump only worries about fentanyl, eradicating it will be all the easier.
Besides immigration and drug trafficking—real and alleged—energy is the key topic in discussions between Washington, DC and Caracas. If they go back to the negotiation table, one can be sure that oil and gas will be on the agenda.
The sanctions waiver for Chevron to continue operating in Venezuela is still active. Local sources estimate that it is shipping an average of 80,000 barrels per day to the United States, well below a high of 300,000 bpd last year, under the previous license.
The main argument behind the special authorisation is that the corporation needs to recoup its debts. But this results in an awkward favouritism. On one hand, other oil firms in the U.S. and Europe are wondering what the argument is for leaving them out. Simultaneously, there are various types of creditors of Venezuela, including bondholders and arbitration award claimants. The first group are owed $70 billion—not including bonds held by Venezuelan entities—while the second are requesting at least $23 billion. Both are mostly comprised of U.S. and European companies and financial institutions.
Another argument is that the Chevron license will allow the United States to keep a foothold in Venezuela and combat Beijing’s influence in the region. But the current sanctions framework is resulting in China taking 85% of oil exports, at a discount. We are also seeing private Chinese companies sign contracts to extract crude, including China Concord Petroleum, Anhui Guangda Mining Investment, and Kerui Petroleum; all while North American and European investors are barred by the Department of the Treasury’s sanctions.
Iran’s dark fleet is also back, providing much-needed diluents, after having stayed out of the picture while Chevron and other Western companies had licenses until late May this year. Historically, the U.S. and Venezuela had a symbiotic relationship; the first sold light petroleum products to make the second’s extra-heavy crude exportable, which then ended up in the Gulf Coast refineries.
The still active Chevron license leaves an open question mark. Is the White House gearing up to escalate tensions, and risk losing its last foothold in Venezuela? Or, perhaps, will it use negotiations to expand its economic beachhead and demand better conditions for American businesses? President Trump has already sought to extract deals for critical minerals and energy with countries like Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Whatever they do, and the AWACs and other intel planes that just flew in make it probable that they will act, will be in concert with European troop movement into Moldova to present Russia with a dilemma whether to act in Venezuela or Transnistria or both.
Opening up the new weapons proving ground, as they have, at this time gives them options but with serious overheads.
There is a checkmate move for Russia in Moldova, that is the re-unification of R of Moldova with Romania. Third time lucky?! By historical rights, when the two Germanies re-unified, R of Moldova should have rejoined Romania.
But nobody in Europe and Brussels wants to talk nationalism. As for the Romanian elites on boths sides of River Prut, they are sold out either to the west or to Moscow.
I would imagine that the Maduro gov’t knows just who they are dealing with. A deranged pathological liar. I would assume every leader in the world knows trump is a liar who is always looking for a bribe of some kind. I would assume they all are treating him like a person trying to pick up the clean side of a turd. They should all assume he is in the process of lying to them, waiting on the first opportunity to steal anything he can get his hands on.
Aren’t we all just hoping and waiting for this orange puss-bucket of a president to just keel over?
If chevron is pumping money into their economy, maybe they are biding time while the barrels flow, while getting ready for the storm they hope doesn’t come, but with trumps dishonesty and treachery everywhere else… they must assume he has no boundries,morals, or shame.
He may run this country into the ground…. like he ran his business into bankruptcy…. but you know trump is just planning to cash in and walk away from the mess he leaves. That is his modus operandi.
I think what trump deserves is for his name to go down in history by being replaced in everyday language. Like when someone totally screws something up, or exemplifies the most depraved, utterly incompetent acts of stupidity… or something… we should call it “being trumped” or trumping or getting trumped. The trump card will be like saying go to jail… do not pass go.
His is a name that should go down in infamy.
Like a pedophile, a molester….. a trumper or some such.
“Aren’t we all just hoping and waiting for this orange puss-bucket of a president to just keel over?”
Q: Do you think anything would fundamentally change if this happened?
This comment may be cathartic, but it does not help us at all in understanding the situation between the US and Venezuela and our long-standing, bipartisan desire to regime-change it back to its proper role as faithful subject. It just dumps on Trump, and while he deserves it, he is not the cause of our problems, but the result. If *his* name deserves to go down in infamy, then surely there are many others who are much more responsible for digging the hole we find ourselves in today. Trump is a tool (in several senses of that word). Let’s try to uncover the interests using this tool and maybe reserve some of our approbation for them as well.
2025 Proven oil reserves- the Top 5 nation states:
Venezuela: 303 Billions bbl
Saudi Arabia 258 Billions bbl
Iran 208 Billions bbl
Canada 170 Billions bbl
Iraq 145 Billions
My search led in with Bill Gates’ Bing chat gpt unsolicited information:
“Proven Oil Reserves 2025
The global amount of proven oil reserves is projected to cover only 14 years of oil supply at the current extraction rates. This shortfall is expected to be addressed by new oil discoveries and the development of new oil projects. However, the capital needed to meet continuously increasing oil demand is likely to be unavailable, leading to potential service price increases and limited innovation to sustain high emissions from oil. ” from Global Firepower, according to Chatgpt.
Quite a list. The US does not seem to ascribe to the , ‘catch more bees with honey’ M.O.
BTW, USA is number 10 on the list with 38 billions bbls . US uses 19.5 million bbls PER DAY.
Are we not just nibbling around the edges in our re-arrangement of the deck chairs of Our Titanic, Spaceship Earth?
So just dropping the sanctions against Venezuelan oil is too complicated?
But the article doesn’t make clear to me what advantages that brings to the US?
Why does the US want some of that oil?
The drug angle I’ve read numerous places is an easy way that Trump can put all sorts of sanctions and restrictions on other countries that have nothing to do with drugs.
Trump could order a decapitation strike on Venezuela’s leadership but then what? The US has nowhere near the number of troops needed to occupy that country much less to fight down a rebellion. Trump could hope that a puppet government could be formed but as Maduro has armed much of the population, they could never leave their bunkers. So maybe Trump is using the same ploy with North Korea in his first term – to offer Maduro some sort of deal after a series of wild threats. Getting that country’s oil out onto the world market should help reign in prices but if Trump demands that the Venezuelans kick out the Chinese first, that is not going to happen. I think the that this is all one big bluff for Trump to get himself some sort of win on the board.
I doubt it was all Venezuela, but what was discovered about the scenes that used to be shown of thousands of people (who all happened to have the money for a journey at the same time) herding toward the southern border?
Oil prices are going down. Roughly $62 barrel.
Flooding the market with more oil would drive it down and basically ruin the US oil industry.
If it’s to try and destroy Russia they will have to deal with the Middle East which also needs a certain price to keep their economies afloat. They will cut output to raise prices. The US has more to lose with the oil price game.
Just thinking of the top 3 countries that are the subject of so much conversation:
The price is a point of threat to all of them. All with as much to lose in one way or the other.
Here’s some more speculation that what Trump seeks is a deal, not an invasion. It says he is tight with Chevron and not so much with the hostile to Venezuela Exxon.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/09/20/are-trump-and-maduro-secretly-friends-smoke-mirrors-in-47s-win-win-game-in-venezuela/
I can believe that Exxon and chevron are capable of playing 4 d chess.
About those little boats that are getting blown up, a fellow reader recently commented that while island touristing on the coast of Venezuela, the captain let slip that the boats that ferried tourists about were sometimes used in the “export” business.
Say we blow up a boat carrying Chinese nationals on vacation…
Or make a slight mistake and blow up a Colombian boat carrying US nationals on vacation….
It’s hard to take the article seriously, as it assumes there is a there there to Trump’s stated policies. I am sure the Chinese and Russians are counseling—keep them talking and thinking a deal is around the corner. They’ll get bored soon and flit off to bother someone else.
Look at the US deals with its vassals—they change daily sometimes hourly until unilaterally abrogated a few days! Maduro is a smart politician; certainly, he knows this.
Also, the US now follows the Israeli script of occasionally bombing the negotiating team—no high-level negotiations ever! From agreement-incapable to negotiating-incapable.
I have seen reports of Chinese and Russian military transfers to Venezuela, but they are scant on details. The risk of US over-reach – clear in Ukraine – leading to collapse is growing, and Venezuela is a flashpoint if hypersonic missiles are in the mix.
Every lie has a bitter taste of truth. While the increased US military presence in the Caribbean raises the possibility of a limited kinetic attack against Venezuela, the prospects for negotiations to reduce or eliminate China and Russia’s influence over Maduro’s government are not insignificant. Such measures may be complementary in many cases, becoming more profound or limited in order to draw Venezuela into a scenario of “understanding.” However, Trump seems to be fishing in troubled waters. Perhaps a sign of weakness or an internal conspiracy is all he needs to put his foot on the accelerator.