A Façade of Deception at a Trumpian Scale
Do you remember the Cartel of the Suns and Tren del Aragua? These two Venezuelan “drug cartels” were designated by President Trump as foreign terrorist organizations in mid-November 2025. However, the Cartel of the Suns seems to have only existed in the fabricated narratives of CIA and DEA agents.
Despite this, Washington continued to assert that President Nicolás Maduro was the imaginary cartel’s leader. The U.S. government, however, offered no evidence to support this claim—because it simply didn’t exist. In fact, the Department of Justice quietly acknowledged that the cartel was a fiction.
By that time, the designation had achieved its purpose. Both “cartels” dominated media headlines, with outlets amplifying calls for another U.S. military intervention. Small speed boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, including fishing vessels, suddenly found themselves targeted by U.S. airstrikes, which continues to this day.
Then, on January 3, the U.S. launched its military action. Following Maduro’s abduction, references to the Cartel de los Soles were swiftly expunged from the indictment against Maduro after his arrest in New York. The narrative of Venezuela as a crucial hub for global narcotics suddenly disappeared from political and media discourse, just as quickly as it had arisen.
Mission accomplished.
This past Wednesday (Sept 16), Trump made the surprising move of removing Venezuela from the U.S. list of countries that are allegedly failing to confront drug trafficking, despite the new Delcy Rodriguez government being led by three individuals heavily implicated in running the fictitious cartel (Delcy, her brother Jorge, and Diosdado Cabello).
According to the Spanish news agency EFE (translation provided here):
Trump decided to remove the Caribbean nation from a list that still includes Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, and Colombia, as stated in the ‘Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2027’, published this Wednesday by the State Department.
The list consists of countries that, in the last 12 months, have “demonstrably failed” to comply with their “obligations arising from international agreements to combat drug trafficking,” as well as with the requirements mandated by U.S. law.
The timing of this decision is noteworthy, occurring just two weeks after the Trump administration finalized what many are calling a historic oil “deal” with the U.S.-imposed Delcy Rodriguez government of Venezuela. Announced by Trump on August 30, this agreement grants a U.S.-led company 100-year concessions over 17 oilfields, which represent over a fifth of Venezuela’s claimed reserves.
Trump described the agreement as the “biggest oil deal in world history,” while Delcy Rodriguez claimed it would attract over $100 billion in investment to Venezuela. However, neither government has provided clear details about how this arrangement will function or where the new investments will originate. The role of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Venezuela’s state-owned oil company—currently under sanctions—remains uncertain.
The Potential Return of Exxon
As many may recall, in the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s abduction, Trump invited several oil industry executives to the White House, effectively urging them to invest in Venezuela. The response was less than encouraging; Exxon Mobil CEO Darren W. Woods remarked on the current state of Venezuela as “uninvestable.” The full quote:
We have had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine that re-entering a third time would require significant changes from what we have historically witnessed and what currently exists. Today, it is uninvestable.
Trump’s initial reaction was to threaten to exclude Exxon from the spoils of conquest. However, nearly nine months later, Exxon seems eager to participate, even as Venezuela’s oil production stagnates at around 1.1 million barrels per day (see table below for production figures from the first eight months of 2026).
La producción de Venezuela se ha estancado en los últimos meses. pic.twitter.com/CT2yGCOBQP
— Francisco J. Monaldi (@fmonaldi) September 17, 2026
According to Reuters:
Exxon is in negotiations to return to Venezuela, showing interest in the sizable Petromonagas heavy oil project located in the Orinoco Belt, where the U.S. energy giant previously held a stake. The company is also interested in areas within the adjacent Carabobo block, as per sources familiar with the situation.
A potential reentry by Exxon would mark a significant turnaround for the company, which exited the OPEC nation nearly twenty years ago due to nationalization disputes initiated by former President Hugo Chavez’s government.
ExxonMobil held discussions this week with Venezuela’s government regarding a possible return as the Texas oil giant explores the prospect of following U.S. rivals back into the country, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves https://t.co/NO4xyugNPz
— Francisco J. Monaldi (@fmonaldi) September 16, 2026
Another company eyeing the Venezuelan market is Continental Resources. Founded by billionaire fracking tycoon Harold Hamm, a staunch Trump supporter since the 2016 election, Continental signed a memorandum of understanding with PDVSA to operate and develop the Ayacucho 2 area in the productive Orinoco oil belt, which is Venezuela’s primary output region.
According to an FT article:
Hamm stated on Wednesday that Continental Resources had signed a memorandum of understanding to develop an oilfield in Venezuela’s prolific Orinoco oil belt in collaboration with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
“I believe this could spark the energy renaissance that Venezuela desperately needs,” Hamm articulated at the G20 energy ministers’ summit in Houston. “We envision this not only bringing production back to its previous peak but actually surpassing it.”
The deal represents the latest contract signed by a Western oil producer aiming to commence operations in Venezuela as Washington tightens its grasp over the sector following the U.S. military’s capture of President Nicolás Maduro in January.
Hamm has been diversifying globally. In August, he shared with the FT that Continental is leading a multibillion-dollar drilling initiative in one of the world’s largest shale basins located in Argentina.
So, what exactly has changed?
It’s challenging to discern, given the lack of clarity surrounding the deal. One thing is certain: the projected $100 billion investment will not come from the government’s coffers—Venezuela’s finances are already depleted, while Trump has promised that rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry will not burden U.S. taxpayers.
The oil majors might be hesitant to invest additional capital into Venezuela. Tomás Pueyo notes:
For these firms to allocate that level of funding, they need assurances of long-term oil extraction rights without the threat of nationalization impacting their investments again.
This will only materialize if the U.S. can guarantee the rights of American oil companies in Venezuela for the forthcoming decades.
And that’s a significant “IF,” especially considering how disproportionate the current deal appears. So, where will the funding originate? According to Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez, it gets “really interesting and murky”:
The $100 billion investment will come from a Barbados-based company established just a few years ago. It is owned by an individual with a questionable reputation, Alejandro Betancourt, known for securing billions in no-bid contracts from the Chavez administration for extensive electrical plant projects, at least one of which was never completed. He is now offering the U.S. a thirty-five percent stake in his company.
This effectively means that the U.S. Department of War will now hold a thirty-five percent interest in that company, along with the right to purchase twenty percent of the company’s output at cost. That’s the deal.
The White House recently announced that Venezuelan oil will start flowing into U.S. reserves by November (just in time for the elections!). President Trump also indicated that they will replenish the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) with oil from Venezuela, describing it as a “gift”.
Therefore, it appears Venezuela will begin sending 40,000 barrels of oil to the U.S. at cost, leading to roughly $500 million in annual losses for Venezuela.
The SPR is currently at its lowest levels since November 1982. Eric Nuttall, managing director of Ninepoint Partners’ Ninepoint Energy Fund, has warned that the oil market is entering “very dangerous territory.”
Nevertheless, Venezuelan oil is unlikely to be the solution for the SPR’s woes, regardless of how often officials from Trump’s team, FOX News hosts, and MAGA influencers reiterate this. The quality of Venezuelan oil is too acidic and sludgy to be suitable for the SPR, and it risks clogging the reservoir caverns, turning them into vast “tar caves” of unusable sludge.
Additionally, serious doubts remain about whether Venezuela even possesses 65 billion barrels of oil in its reserves. Like numerous oil-producing nations, it allegedly inflated its evaluated proven reserves to 303 billion during the 2000s—a claim now questioned due to a lack of new discoveries.
Kurt Cobb, in an article for Oil Price cross-posted here, highlights that Venezuela’s reported oil reserves are primarily unaudited governmental assertions that overlook economic viability. Much of the oil is heavy crude that demands expensive upgrading, diluents, and elevated prices to produce profitably.
However, many of the concerns regarding costs may diminish significantly if: (a) the U.S. secures Venezuelan oil at a below-market cost, as Rodriguez suggests; and (b) the oil market maintains prices above historical averages for the foreseeable future—an outlook that seems increasingly plausible given the turmoil inflicted on oil infrastructure and supply routes by the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Trumpy scores another own goal. The all-in economic cost of Venezuelan heavy crude is $70 per barrel compared to the 56-year constant dollar average price of global crude at $71 per barrel, subtracting a 15% discount for the low quality of Venezuelan crude, which brings it to about $60 per barrel. In essence, a… pic.twitter.com/qg9uOBzboT
— David Stockman (@DA_Stockman) August 30, 2026
Furthermore, the issue of Venezuela’s deteriorating oil infrastructure needs attention, as highlighted by Health Ranger points out:
[T]he 65 billion barrels of oil cannot be extracted without at least a full decade of infrastructure development in Venezuela and at least $100 billion in investment funds. Additionally, attracting experts able to manage this is challenging, especially when they would need to operate in a region that could be considered a war zone, where local resistance groups continually target them.
As a result, don’t expect gas prices to decline anytime soon. This is simply smoke and mirrors, as usual.
It’s evident that Trump’s focus lies significantly on the upcoming midterm elections, as noted by Rodriguez. He cautions that the Trump administration’s forceful appropriation of a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves is an act of unprecedented theft compared to the national asset expropriations that took place in post-Soviet Russia:
It appears Trump intends to take immediate action concerning gas prices ahead of the midterms, and he wants to assert that U.S. oil imports from Venezuela will lower prices. So he is pushing for Venezuelan oil to flow into U.S. reserves, positioning this as a strategy for lowering oil prices before the elections. That’s essentially the whole motive. But from Venezuela’s perspective, they are relinquishing 20% of their reserves to a dubious figure.
After the occupation of Iraq, public bidding took place for the rights to its oil. Unlike that transparent process, this deal lacks visibility and scrutiny.
It’s crucial to remember that this isn’t merely confined to Venezuela’s oil. During Congressional testimony, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked that Trump’s model of appropriation applies to “many Venezuelan assets.”
These assets likely include natural gas—Venezuela possesses the largest reserves in Latin America—gold, and rare earth materials. Venezuela not only contains one of the largest undeveloped gold provinces in the Western Hemisphere but also has the highest central bank gold reserves in Latin America (161 tonnes), a portion of which is being moved from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Rep. Casten: “President Trump said…we’re taking in a lot of money, billions of dollars from Venezuela…He seemed to imply that we, the U.S. people, are taking in money to offset those costs. That would suggest flows to U.S. entities.”
Bessent: “This is one of the largest assets… pic.twitter.com/XlHW6Ex5zr
— Bulwark Clips (@BulwarkClips) September 15, 2026
The gold seizure was expected. The U.S. has appropriated gold reserves in every military conflict since 1999 in Yugoslavia.
— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) September 18, 2026
When Bessent states, “WE are taking in a lot of money, billions of dollars from Venezuela,” the reference to “WE” remains vague: does it denote the U.S. government, Trump Inc, or both?
I suspect the latter, especially given the dubious nature of the individuals and companies involved in these operations—such as the Swiss trading firm Trafigura, Dutch multinational Vitol, the aforementioned Alejandro Betancourt, and David Rivera, a former congressman and old housemate of Marco Rubio who was convicted earlier this year of acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
The following excerpt from an insightful Twitter thread captures the sheer audacity of Trump 2.0’s imperial maneuvering in Venezuela:
So, we’ve seized a country’s primary revenue stream at gunpoint, funneled it through a bank in Qatar, and a Citibank account, handed the sales over to two Swiss traders facing federal bribery charges, involved the Pentagon with a man previously implicated in a $1.2 billion PDVSA money-laundering case, all while declaring the entire operation immune from U.S. courts by decree. Okay…
Finally, it’s imperative to remember that Venezuela is merely the first target in this wave of U.S. imperial exploitation. As The Guardian recently reported, U.S. mining, shipping, and real estate firms are eagerly anticipating the opportunity to seize Cuba’s state-owned assets and those left behind by foreign companies that have exited Cuba due to recent U.S. sanctions when the Havana government falls.
Corporate colonialism: The U.S. empire is choking Cuba with an oil blockade and severe sanctions, aiming to overthrow its revolutionary government.
U.S. corporate vultures are already plotting to claim Cuba’s assets.
Billionaire oligarchs who funded Marco Rubio and… pic.twitter.com/Ldhv1kschI
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 17, 2026
As these events unfold, one cannot help but question the sustainability of the United States’ new era of continental exploitation, especially when the only offer to the local populace is to have their most valuable resources seized at gunpoint—a pattern as old as colonialism itself. The only distinction now is that Latin American countries have experienced working with a less predatory partner in China.
Trump 2.0’s exceptionally brazen form of imperialism is likely to incite widespread local resistance, which, in turn, will be met with substantial repression. Local factions will undoubtedly receive backing from Silicon Valley firms like Palantir. However, the U.S. may ultimately need to deploy its own troops, who are unlikely to receive a warm reception.
Many nations in the region, including Cuba and Venezuela, possess dense tropical forests and mountainous landscapes, making them as inhospitable for foreign troops as Vietnam and perfect for guerrilla warfare. To echo the *Health Ranger*, the U.S. must still convince engineers and other specialists to move to what is poised to become a battlefield, where local resistance groups will persistently target them. That scenario is far from appealing.
