On 28 August, US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Venezuela aimed at securing US majority control of over 65 billion barrels worth of proven oil reserves. The agreement, described by Trump as the ‘biggest oil deal in world history’, comes eight months after the US kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and marks the latest escalation of US imperialism’s attack on Venezuelan sovereignty and, in particular, on the Bolivarian Revolution’s 27-year struggle for socialism. As Trump triumphantly told the United Nations in September, ‘To the victor belongs the spoils’. LUCINDA JULES reports.
Since 3 January Venezuela has been living with the gun of US imperialism to its head. The US has already seized control over Venezuela’s oil sector, controlling all oil sales and revenue via the US Treasury Department. The Trump administration demanded serious changes to legislation to pave the way for this deal, changes which Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, has conceded. Earlier this year, the 2001 Hydrocarbon Law, which gave the Venezuelan state a leading role in the energy sector, was overhauled with the help of US officials and oil executives. The CEO of Chevron, Venezuela’s largest foreign oil producer, praised the law’s ‘improved terms’ which granted ‘strong legal protections’ for foreign corporate investors. Revolutionaries from the grassroots media collective, Tatuy TV, have denounced the deal as creating the ‘best possible conditions for capital’ and leaving Venezuela with ‘completely compromised sovereignty’. Other Chavista groups organised in the Popular Anti Imperialist Front have rallied against this imperialist plundering.
Though the full details remain murky, Trump boasted that ‘this deal secures our energy dominance for the next century – all at zero cost to the United States’. A memo from Washington claims the deal will give the US Department of War a free 35% equity stake in a relatively unknown Venezuelan private oil company, North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), claiming NABEP has secured 100-year concessions from the Venezuelan state. NABEP is owned by Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan oil mogul currently under investigation for overseeing the embezzlement of billions of dollars from Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA). He was arrested in London in 2025 under an international warrant from Switzerland for money laundering. Ahead of the agreement with NABEP, the US closed its criminal investigation into Betancourt. Rodriguez says the concessions are only for 25 years, and that Venezuela will collect $200bn in royalties and taxes as a result. Trump claims that the US Department of State will receive 20% of NABEP’s offtake from 17 oil fields earmarked for development and will have veto power over appointing NABEP’s board, a majority of whom must be US citizens.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on the planet, and this deal would see nearly one fifth of them in the hands of the US, more than doubling its current reserves. US imperialism is desperate to mitigate skyrocketing gas prices resulting from the war against Iran. However oil analysts estimate it will take a decade and $180bn just to build up the productive forces required to extract the oil, let alone to refine it and deliver it to the market.
The agreement has seen industry giants like Chevron, Repsol, and Shell strike new deals to assert control of various oil fields. Italian oil company Eni will become the exclusive operator of the Junín-5 block oil field, formerly operated under a joint-venture model with PDVSA majority ownership. This will hinder PDVSA’s ability to produce oil as a public asset, which has been its role since the Chavez government took control of it in 2004. Sanctions barring enterprises from China, Iran, and Russia from dealing in Venezuela’s oil economy remain in place, exposing US imperialism’s determination to assert political and economic dominance in Latin America while excluding its most influential competitors. While China is demanding that its existing interests are guaranteed under the deal, NABEP is set to take over five oil fields previously operated by Chinese firms.
The deal has been forced upon the Bolivarian Revolution at a desperate time. The country’s National Electric System has been decimated by US sanctions; after the 24 June earthquake, blackouts occurred across the country including in Caracas. The disaster killed nearly 1,500 people; in response, the US refused to lift a single one of the 1,088 sanctions or release any of the $20bn worth of frozen overseas funds and assets. Since 1998, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution has sought to control Venezuela’s oil wealth, channeling vast revenues into poverty busting social programmes and fostering regional co-operation in opposition to imperialism. The US is exploiting every opportunity to extract concessions, punishing the Bolivarian Revolution for daring to chart its own path.
As communists in Britain, we must maintain our solidarity with the forces of the Bolivarian Revolution and especially with the grassroots communes, who stand in the frontline of defending the interests of the Venezuelan working class and advancing the development of socialism in Venezuela. We demand an end to all sanctions and imperialist aggression. Imperialist hands off Venezuela!
FROM ONE THIEF TO ANOTHER – Britain transfers Venezuelan gold to United States
Since 2018, Britain has refused to recognise Venezuelan election results, using this as a pretext to freeze 31 tonnes of Venezuela’s gold bullion in the Bank of England. Despite a legal challenge, Britain’s Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to release the gold to Venezuela, even during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Venezuela requested it be handed to the UN for the purchase of medical aid. Responding to this imperialist piracy, the RCG has consistently rallied with our allies in the Anti-Fascist International outside the Bank of England and campaigned for the release of the gold as part of lifting all sanctions against Venezuela. Now Britain appears set to release the gold in response to June’s devastating double earthquake, in an arrangement agreed by the Venezuelan government that will reportedly see the bullion actually handed over directly to the US Treasury Department. Handing Venezuela’s gold from one imperialist master to another is no victory – return the gold to Venezuela NOW!
