IN THE CASE OF VENEZUELA'S OIL, THE THEFT RUNS IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION (U.S.)

By Kat Romenesko

As a retired Reservoir Engineer in the oil and gas industry let me start by saying this plainly, “there is no such thing as stolen U.S. oil in this story."

Oil does not become American property because an American company drills it. It belongs to the country where it sits in the ground. In this case that country was Venezuela. Everything that followed flowed from contracts, leverage, and shifting power, not theft.”

Venezuela was sitting on enormous oil reserves long before it had the money, machinery, engineers,
refineries, pipelines, ships, or global buyers to profit from them. Foreign oil companies - many American and European - arrived offering capital and expertise. They signed concession agreements that allowed them to drill in exchange for fees and taxes. Those contracts strongly favored the companies not because Venezuela was foolish but because it had little leverage and needed development fast.

Oil poured out. Profits poured out faster. Venezuela received revenue but nowhere near the long term value of what left its soil. That imbalance was not criminal. It was capitalism functioning exactly as designed when one side holds the technology and the other needs cash. Over time Venezuelans noticed that tankers were full while communities remained poor.

So Venezuela raised the rent. Taxes increased. Royalties increased. Contracts were rewritten. This was not theft. It was a country renegotiating the terms under which outsiders profited from its resources. By the mid 20th century Venezuela was already reclaiming more control and more revenue step by step and within the law.

In 1976 Venezuela nationalized its oil industry and created PDVSA. This did not mean the United States lost oil it owned. It meant Venezuela formally asserted ownership over its own reserves. Foreign companies could still do business but they no longer owned the ground. This move was neither radical nor unusual. Oil producing nations across the world did the same thing.

Years later under new leadership Venezuela again changed the rules particularly around heavy crude projects. Some foreign companies were pushed into minority roles or forced out. That led to lawsuits. Companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips did not claim Venezuela stole American oil. They claimed Venezuela seized specific physical assets and failed to provide adequate compensation. Those disputes played out in arbitration courts, not through accusations of national theft.

This is where Trump enters once again untethered from history. When he says Venezuela stole U.S. oil, land, and assets he collapses a century of contracts renegotiations nationalization and corporate litigation into a single angry sound bite. The oil was never owned by the United States. American companies were guests operating under agreements that changed as Venezuela’s power changed.

The bitter irony is that if there is a theft story here it runs in the opposite direction. For decades American and European companies extracted enormous wealth from Venezuelan oil at bargain rates while environmental damage and social costs stayed local. Later Venezuelan leaders mismanaged and corrupted the industry devastating their own economy. In every phase ordinary Venezuelans paid the price.

So no Venezuela did not steal U.S. oil. Trump’s claim is not just wrong it is backwards. It rewrites a complex history of foreign extraction national sovereignty and legal disputes into a grievance fantasy where the United States plays the victim. Untethered from reality, as so much in this this administration seems to be.