Norris R. McDonald | Trump’s barrel-of-a-gun annexation of Venezuela’s oil and gas

“The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” — Simón Bolívar

The American military now controls over $100 billion of Venezuela’s oil and gas following the high-handed capture of President Nicolás Maduro. The interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, surprisingly gave America a 100-year concessions covering 17 Venezuelan oilfields containing roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.

North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), headed by Alejandro Betancourt a figure previously accused of involvement in multimillion-dollar money-laundering and racketeering schemes.

AMERICA’S BARREL-OF-A-GUN ANNEXATION

Alejandro Betancourt López — a notorious billionaire who had faced warrants for arrest for a US$1.2-billion money-laundering international racketeer scheme — was tapped by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to be the frontman for America’s oil grab.

Betancourt is a Venezuelan businessman who co-founded NABEP, and previously faced US, Spanish, and Swiss investigations relating to alleged money laundering and embezzlement involving PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

Under the arrangement, the US military now has a direct 35 per cent stake in Venezuela oil and gas wealth. This is administered by an entity called the ‘Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital’, formed without US Senate or Congressional approval.

The State Department has also abrogated rights to purchase 20 per cent of Venezuelan oil at cost price, alongside preferential access to the remaining 80 per cent production. But because the 100-year concession was negotiated immediately after US Special Forces captured Maduro and signed under the direct influence of a foreign military presence, the agreement sits squarely in a legal minefield regarding the laws of armed conflict and occupation.

AMERICA’S PLUNDER OF VENEZUELA’S NATIONAL WEALTH

In the study of global governance, few principles are as foundational as the doctrine of state immunity. As the seminal works of Caribbean legal expert Professor Sheldon A. McDonald remind us, this core rule of international law acts as a vital shield. It is designed explicitly to protect a government and its assets from forced seizure by aggressive foreign powers. McDonald argues that these strict legal protections are the economic equivalent to the rules of war that protect human lives.

By outlawing imperialist military plunder, state immunity is supposed to prevent the textbook barrel-of-a-gun extortion, where a nation’s oil and gas reserves are seized and liquidated by force during arbitrary military interventions.

Simply put, international law dictates that a foreign country cannot swoop in and steal another nation’s wealth. It clearly established that all states are equal and no single country has the right to dictate other nations political or economic system or the use of its national wealth.

Yet, this progressive legal theory collapsed into a dark reality following the January 2026 abduction of President Nicolás Maduro by American forces. In a stunning display of unilateral military might, the United States shattered the principle of national equality.

In its place, Washington substituted raw imperialist military power for the rule of law.

Today, we are witnessing the economic fallout of this unjust military intervention. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are actively functioning — both de facto and de jure — as the supreme imperialist managers of Venezuela’s petroleum industry and broader commercial landscape.

By dictating the governance, ownership and effective commercial control over Venezuela’s energy reserves, Washington has seemingly brought a once-proud sovereign state completely to heel. This is the quiet execution of the so-called “international rules-based order”, driven entirely by American imperialist power.

Such actions are forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which condemns pillage — plunder that stems from acts of brazen military conquest.

TRUMP, QATAR AND VENEZUELA’S PLUNDERED BILLIONS

And now, god-king Trump, prone to disregarding laws and public morality, has taken egregious plunder to an even higher, shameless level by officially positioning the American military and the country’s foreign service as the unchecked imperial overlords of Venezuela’s oil and gas wealth.

Given this reality, the Trump administration remains strangely silent about $13 billion in oil sales generated since Maduro’s removal in January 2026. According to the Financial Times, all the money from the illegal sale of Venezuelan petroleum was diverted to offshore accounts in Qatar. Only a paltry sum of US$300 million was sent to Venezuela. And given this small amount of money that was accepted, we don’t even know whether it went to pay bribes or not.

As to whether America, as it claims, will get American oil companies to improve Venezuela’s infrastructure is immaterial; this is merely the cynical sharing out of the spoils of plunder.

In the end, the core issue confronting Venezuela is not whether America will help it rehabilitate its energy sector, but how to get back full control over its national oil wealth.

HAS VENEZUELA’S BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION BEEN DEFEATED?

My dear friends, as it regards Venezuela’s long-term future, while future events remain unpredictable, the extent to which the socially transformative Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez movement has been will further help to determine what happens next.

A very positive sign though is that The Washington Post was previously forced to acknowledge that Venezuela’s socialist revolution eliminated homelessness and delivered an improved quality of life, funding over 5.5 million homes for poor families since 2011.

Given the transformative impact on ordinary people’s lives, popular resistance has grown steadily on the ground since the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. Also, what has furthered disturbed the country is interim leader Delcy Rodríguez’s, whether at the barrel of a gun or not, seeming betrayal of the Venezuelan people.

Even the traditional right-wing opposition, historically backed by Washington and led by María Corina Machado, has joined grassroots movements in condemning the American-Venezuelan devilish pact for its complete lack of transparency.

The extent of this political sellout is further exposed by Washington’s sudden silence on a call for new elections and a change of government, now that they have a compliant local proxy who handed over Venezuela’s petroleum wealth.

But, while we live in perilous times, I remain hopeful and confident that the Bolivarian socialist people of Venezuela will continue fighting to achieve true social and economic justice.

That is just the bitta truth.

Norris R. McDonald is an author, economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com or miaminorris@yahoo.com.