Trump Shields Venezuelan Oil Revenues After Majors Call Country ‘Uninvestable’

Washington’s attempt to escrow a foreign nation’s oil revenue echoes the 2003 U.S.–run Development Fund for Iraq and, further back, the 1953 Anglo-American orchestration of Iran’s oil nationalization reversal. In each case a security-cum-economic intervention was cloaked in language of “protecting” assets for the target population while smoothing the path for Western capital. Today’s order fits a century-long tug-of-war between resource nationalism and external corporate control: Chávez’s 2006 contract rewrites forced majors out; Trump now dangles re-entry if they accept U.S., not Venezuelan, oversight. Whether this matters in 2126 may hinge less on the barrels in the Orinoco than on the precedent of a hegemon asserting custodial rights over another state’s commodities—an approach that may accelerate the existing trend toward de-dollarization and diversified energy supply as global demand gradually pivots away from oil.