US President Donald Trump’s aide Stephen Miller has described the nationalization of the South American country’s oil industry as “theft” and suggested that Venezuela’s oil belongs to Washington.
Miller’s comments Wednesday cast further doubt on the Trump administration’s assertion that drug smuggling is the main cause of tensions with Venezuela.
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“The sweat, ingenuity, and toil of Americans created Venezuela’s oil industry,” Miller, acting White House chief of staff, said in a social media post.
“That tyrannical expropriation was the largest theft of American wealth and property on record. Those looted assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our cities with murderers, mercenaries, and drugs.”
Although American and British companies were involved in early oil exploration in Venezuela, the fuel belongs to the Latin American country under the international law principle of perpetual sovereignty over natural resources.
Venezuela nationalized its oil sector in 1976 and placed it under the control of state-owned PDVSA.
Then, in 2007, the late left-wing President Hugo Chavez nationalized Venezuela’s remaining foreign oil projects, effectively expelling U.S. oil giants such as ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.
U.S. companies filed legal challenges to contest the expropriation process, and in 2014, the World Bank Court of Arbitration ordered Venezuela to pay ExxonMobil $1.6 billion. Legal proceedings are still ongoing.
The United States imposed sanctions on PDVSA in 2019 during the Trump administration.
But since returning to power for a second term in January, President Trump has stepped up his “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela.
Late Tuesday, President Trump announced the blockade of a Venezuelan oil tanker, calling it “sanctioned.” In a Truth Social post on the matter, President Trump echoed Miller’s claim that Venezuelans stole oil from the United States.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada in South American history,” Trump wrote.
“It will be even bigger and the impact for them will be unlike anything they have ever seen before, until they return to the United States all the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.”
The blockade is part of Trump’s increasingly confrontational approach to Venezuela and leftist President Nicolas Maduro, who served as vice president under the late Chavez government.
Last week, the U.S. military, which has amassed military assets near Venezuela, seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, an action Caracas denounced as “international piracy.”
Since September, the United States has also bombed ships it claims are drug ships near the South American country in the Caribbean, a dangerous operation many legal experts call a violation of domestic and international law.
On Tuesday, the publication Vanity Fair quoted White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as saying the US ship attack was aimed at overthrowing Venezuela’s president, who is facing accusations of human rights abuses.
Wiles told the magazine that Trump “is going to keep blowing up boats until Maduro screams ‘uncle’.”
The Trump administration has also taken some actions against the Maduro regime itself. In November, the administration designated the Cartel de los Soles as a “foreign terrorist organization,” but the term does not refer to an organized group.
Rather, it is a reference to allegations of corruption within the Venezuelan government and military.
However, there is no evidence to support claims that President Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel or that Venezuela is a major source of drugs destined for the United States.
Nevertheless, President Trump said on Tuesday that he would designate the “Venezuela regime” as a “foreign terrorist organization” for “theft of our (U.S.) assets.”
Another complaint raised by Mr. Trump and his aides is the unsubstantiated claim that Maduro has deliberately been sending criminals and gang members into the United States over the past several years.
But Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, considered the world’s largest, are a particular point of contention.
On Wednesday, news publication Politico reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Trump administration is approaching private oil companies to see if they would be interested in returning to Venezuela if President Maduro is ousted from power.
“Engagement with the industry has begun regarding the possibility of re-entering Venezuela,” one of the anonymous sources told Politico.
“But frankly, given the low oil prices and the globally attractive sector, there is not a lot of interest from the industry.”
But prominent Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Colina Machado has vowed to privatize the country’s oil sector and open it to investment if Maduro loses power. She won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year.
