President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., and he pledged to use proceeds from the sale of this oil “to benefit the people” of both countries.
The White House is organizing a meeting Friday with U.S. oil company executives to discuss Venezuela, which the Trump administration has been pressuring to open its vast-but-struggling oil industry more widely to American investment and know-how. Representatives of Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend the White House meeting, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.
Earlier Tuesday, officials in Caracas announced that at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges. And the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro’s if she does not “do what’s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with U.S. interests, including by granting access to American energy companies.
Rodriguez, delivering an address Tuesday before government agricultural and industrial sector officials, said, “Personally, to those who threaten me: My destiny is not determined by them, but by God.”
Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said overall “dozens” of officers and civilians were killed in the weekend strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a “war crime.” He didn’t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.
In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba’s government had previously confirmed that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government says the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the country’s two main security agencies.
Seven U.S. service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A video tribute to the slain Venezuelan security officials posted to the military’s Instagram account features faces of the fallen over black-and-white videos of soldiers, American aircraft flying over Caracas and armored vehicles destroyed by the blasts. Meanwhile, the streets of Caracas, deserted for days following Maduro’s capture, briefly filled with masses of people waving Venezuelan flags and bouncing to patriotic music at a state-organized display of support for the government.
“Their spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,” the military wrote in an Instagram post. “It reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.”
Questions about the future of Venezuelan oil
With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The U.S. goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Despite Venezuela having the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the U.S. average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October.
The press office for Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s announcement.
ExxonMobil is developing a mammoth offshore oil deposit in the waters off Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor to the east. The company’s major oil discovery in 2015 prompted Venezuela to revive a century-old territorial dispute with Guyana and take steps to annex the remote region known as Essequibo, which comprises about two-thirds of Guyana’s land mass.
The development has also led to wide-ranging accusations from Venezuela’s government, including Rodríguez, against Guyana’s leaders and ExxonMobil. Two years ago, Venezuelan lawmakers even considered banning any future operation in Venezuela of oil companies working in Guyana.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump pushed back against Democratic criticism of this weekend’s military operation, noting that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had also called for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader on drug trafficking charges.
Trump in remarks before a House Republican retreat in Washington grumbled that Democrats were not giving him credit for a successful military operation, even though there was bipartisan agreement that Maduro was not the rightful president of Venezuela.
In 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States, accused in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy. White House officials have noted that Biden’s administration in his final days in office last year raised the award for information leading to Maduro’s arrest after he assumed a third term in office despite evidence suggesting that he lost Venezuela’s most recent election. The Trump administration doubled the award to $50 million in August.
“You know, at some point, they should say, ‘You know, you did a great job. Thank you. Congratulations.’ Wouldn’t it be good?” Trump said. “I would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different. But if they did a good job, I’d be happy for the country. They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years.”
What US opinion polls show
Americans are split about the capture of Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure.
Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.
Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom on Monday. U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday in a raid on a compound where they were surrounded by Cuban guards.
In the days since Maduro’s ouster, Trump and top administration officials have raised anxiety around the globe that the operation could mark the beginning of a more expansionist U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The president in recent days has renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
Colombia responds to Trump
Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said Tuesday she’ll meet with the U.S. Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States.
On Sunday, Trump said he wasn’t ruling out an attack on Colombia and described its president, who’s been an outspoken critic of the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela, as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”
Villavicencio said she’s hoping to strengthen relations with the United States and improve cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.
“It is necessary for the Trump administration to know in more detail about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking,” she said.
Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom on Tuesday joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland’s sovereignty. The island is a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.
“Greenland belongs to its people,” the statement said. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
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