Off the coast of Curacao, a few dozen kilometers from Venezuela, the tanks of an aging refinery still carry the logo of PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, a rusting reminder of the days when the neighboring country was an energy powerhouse. It is over this oil empire, the largest known reserves on the planet, that Washington is now negotiating. The Donald Trump administration is in talks with Venezuela's interim government to take an equity stake in the country's reserves, according to the American site Axios, which says it spoke with two senior White House officials.
A report by Bloomberg, carried by the Brazilian outlet InfoMoney, adds detail to the shape of the deal under discussion. People familiar with the talks, who asked not to be named, say one proposal on the table calls for a 100-year lease of several Venezuelan oil fields. The negotiations are still underway and the terms could change. The White House declined to comment, and Venezuela's Ministry of Information did not respond to a request for comment.
The talks are taking place in a country in the middle of political upheaval. On January 3, a US military operation entered Venezuela and captured President Nicolas Maduro, who was taken to New York, where he remains in custody awaiting trial. In his place, Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro's vice president, took over as interim president, and her government has adopted measures aligned with Washington, such as freeing political dissidents and shipping oil to the United States.
The Donroe Doctrine and oil at the center of the board
According to G1, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is seen as the official who effectively calls the shots in Caracas. The Republican has pushed for closer ties with the interim government mainly because of Venezuela's weight in the oil market, an issue that became even more pressing for the White House after the escalation of the conflict with Iran, which drove up international crude prices, and Tehran's attempts to restrict shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio has said Venezuela would go through three phases after Maduro's removal: economic stabilization, political reorganization and a transition to elections.
A deal of this kind would amount to an almost unprecedented US intervention in another country's economy, but it would align with the so-called Donroe Doctrine, Trump's play on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, aimed at expanding American influence across the Western Hemisphere. Since Maduro's capture, Washington has eased sanctions to allow American oil companies and service providers back into Venezuela, and the president has promised to control Venezuelan oil sales, keeping the proceeds in US bank accounts. So far, the US government has not disclosed how much it has collected from those sales.
While oil moves ahead on the negotiating table, politics lags behind. The Venezuelan opposition and human rights groups have called for faster progress in political negotiations, a demand backed by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the US Congress.
In Curacao, the PDVSA tanks still stand facing the sea, waiting to see whose name will be painted on the steel from now on.