Rafael Ramírez, who once ran Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and served as the country’s Oil Minister, is speaking out against a newly reported oil agreement between Venezuela and the United States. In an interview, he argued that the deal—negotiated under President Delcy Rodríguez’s administration—has been kept almost entirely secret from the public and from Venezuela’s National Assembly, the body that, under the country’s constitution, is supposed to debate matters of national interest like oil policy.
Ramírez says his concern isn’t that Venezuela would sell oil to American buyers, something the country has done for decades. Instead, he worries about who would control that trade going forward. He claims the arrangement could sideline longtime partners China and Russia while ceding effective control over Venezuela’s crude production to Washington for as long as a century.
The deal comes as the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)—the agency that enforces American sanctions—continues to restrict how Venezuela can sell its oil and access the resulting revenue. Ramírez suggests the government is trading away sovereignty over the country’s most valuable resource in exchange for political survival, turning Venezuela’s energy wealth into what he calls foreign spoils.
Want the full story, including Ramírez’s detailed take on the secrecy surrounding the negotiations? Check out the original report at El Tiempo.
Source: Exclusivo | Habla el ex 'zar del petróleo' en Venezuela: 'El problema no es enviar petróleo a EE. UU.' (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: roger4336, BY-SA 2.0 (via Openverse).