Business & Economics
Washington Courts Big Oil for Post-Maduro Venezuela Rebuild
Within 48 hours of Nicolás Maduro’s 4 Jan 2026 capture, Energy Secretary Chris Wright scheduled 5-7 Jan meetings with Chevron, ConocoPhillips and others in Miami to hash out a U.S.–subsidised plan to pour roughly $100 billion into restarting Venezuela’s shattered oil sector.
Focusing Facts
- On 6 Jan, Trump told NBC the venture could be operational in “less than 18 months” and that firms would be “reimbursed by us or through revenue.”
- Industry analysts peg the cost of restoring Venezuela’s output at about $10 billion per year over the next decade (~$100 billion total).
- Chevron is currently the only oil supermajor still active in Venezuela after years of sanctions and divestment.
Context
Great-power tussles over Caribbean oil have echoes of the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary era, when Washington justified multiple interventions—e.g., the 1915 occupation of Haiti—to keep European creditors out of its ‘backyard.’ This 2026 gambit also rhymes with the 1953 Anglo-American coup in Iran that traded regime change for resource leverage. The long arc shows two converging trends: (1) the U.S. re-asserting Monroe Doctrine prerogatives to deny China, Russia and Iran strategic footholds in Latin America, and (2) hydrocarbons remaining a tool of statecraft even as talk of energy transition grows. If successful, control over the world’s largest crude reserves could lock in U.S. pricing power and hem in Beijing’s energy security for a generation; if it stalls, Washington may repeat the quagmires of Iraq 2003 or Libya 2011. Either way, this moment signals that, a century after Standard Oil’s heyday, barrels—real or stranded—still shape the geopolitical chessboard.
Perspectives
Business and financial press
e.g., Bloomberg, Fortune — Report the Venezuela plan as a capital-intensive, decade-long gamble that oil companies will only consider once governance and legal guarantees are in place. Because their audience is investors, they foreground cost, timelines and boardroom caution, giving little space to humanitarian or geopolitical arguments that lack immediate market impact.
Pro-Trump right-leaning commentary outlets
e.g., 100 Percent Fed Up, Washington Examiner — Celebrate the operation as the most "America-First" move yet, claiming it will starve China of energy, secure U.S. dominance and prove Trump is "playing to win." Partisan enthusiasm leads them to gloss over legal questions, civilian risks and the possibility of a prolonged occupation, framing every outcome as a zero-sum U.S. victory.
International media wary of U.S. motives
e.g., Al Arabiya, ING Think — Highlight that Washington aims to control Venezuelan oil exports indefinitely, a move that unsettles energy markets and raises accusations of neo-imperial resource grab. Catering to audiences historically skeptical of U.S. hegemony, they accentuate the ‘control’ narrative, which may overstate U.S. leverage and downplay internal Venezuelan dynamics.