President Donald Trump has repeatedly talked about how much oil America will gain as a result of deposing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro — but experts have said he doesn’t have a clear grasp on what he’s talking about, Notus reported on Friday.
Trump’s Venezuela operation captured Maduro, a socialist autocrat who has been wanted for years under U.S. law and has refused to honor the results of elections voting him out of office, although at least for the time being, his allies still control the country. But Trump has claimed Venezuela will be handing over up to 50 million barrels of oil.
“President Donald Trump said his administration is ‘devising a formula’ to divide Venezuela’s oil revenues between the United States, oil companies and the Venezuelan people — an early, vague indication of the administration’s plan to take over the nation’s resources,” said the report. So far, Trump officials have only said “that the U.S. will control the funds in U.S.-controlled bank accounts — claims that experts and oil analysts say are legally and practically questionable.”
“It won’t be so much of a formula, it’s going to be what they need,” Trump said to oil executives gathered at the White House. “We’re going to take care of what they need. There’ll be plenty left over. We’re going to have a lot of money left over, and the money left over is going to the United States of America, and the oil companies are going to be very happy.”
Aside from skepticism about Venezuelan investment voiced by oil executives, Trump’s idea doesn’t make a lot of sense, experts told the outlet — and in all likelihood the money Trump’s talking about will just be controlled by PVDSA, the state-run oil producer in Venezuela.
Commodities analyst Homayoun Falakshahi, who works at the firm Kpler, told the site, “It’s a bit of a misunderstanding in the sense that the administration, from the officials, keep saying they are controlling the oil and that this is American money. It’s not the case. At the end of the day the oil belongs to the state of Venezuela, and the cargoes that will be shipped to the U.S. will be sold to U.S. buyers by PVDSA. I fail to understand how the money actually ends up in the U.S.”
All of this comes amid ongoing tension and controversy about how much military action and occupation Trump plans to undertake in Venezuela, and as a bipartisan resolution in the Senate forced Trump to scale back his offensive plans.
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