Who Rules Venezuela?

Even before the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife by US forces during the military intervention on January 3, 2026, tensions between Caracas and Washington had been escalating exponentially since December, with oil being one of the main factors in this scenario.

On December 10, 2025, armed US soldiers, part of a team experienced in counterterrorism operations, seized the oil tanker “Skipper,” which was carrying approximately 1.1 million barrels of crude oil. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the value of the seized cargo could reach up to $62 million based on current market prices. The ship had already been targeted by the US government in 2022, when it was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for allegedly financing Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah through oil smuggling on the black market. When asked what he would do with the oil from the largest tanker ever seized by the United States, Trump replied, “We're going to keep it... I think.”

In response to the US interception, Maduro classified the act as piracy and promised that Venezuela would never be a colony again. According to the Venezuelan government, Trump's goals have always been the wealth and resources belonging to the Venezuelan people, to the detriment of issues related to drug trafficking and democracy.

Faced with advances by Venezuela's “ghost fleet,” a term used to refer to vessels associated with the Venezuelan oil sector that use measures such as false flags and deactivation of tracking systems to transport oil illegally, Donald Trump ordered on December 16 the “total and complete blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.” On the social network Truth Social, the U.S. president stated that the Venezuelan coast was surrounded by the largest armada ever seen in the history of South America, further emphasizing that the fleet would grow even larger until the oil, land, and assets that were stolen from the United States were returned.

The executive order issued by the White House on January 9, 2026, determined that Venezuelan government funds and accounts related to the sale of oil and diluents, including the Central Bank of Venezuela and the company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., despite not becoming US assets and remaining the property of Venezuela, are under the custody of the US Department of the Treasury. These funds, referred to by the White House as “Foreign Government Deposit Funds,” will not participate in the financial market or be used for any commercial activity in the United States, but will be held exclusively in a custodial and governmental capacity.

In the document, Trump also states that any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, seizure, or other legal process will be considered null and void, with no funds being transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise moved. The president also intends to retain custody of Venezuelan oil revenues in order to use them in accordance with his security objectives.

The executive order states that its purpose is to ensure political and economic stability in Venezuela, as well as to secure goals that are essential to US foreign policy, including ending the dangerous flow of immigrants and illicit narcotics, promoting protection against malign actors such as Iran and Hezbollah, and bringing peace and prosperity to the Western Hemisphere in general.

More than a month after Nicolás Maduro's capture on January 3, no one knows for sure what the United States intends to do with Venezuela. Donald Trump talks a lot about the country's oil, but little else. The Venezuelan population, the democratic opposition, and most of the US's allies are still waiting for a plan that has yet to arrive.

What exists so far is a pragmatic bet: to work with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's former vice president and current interim president, instead of supporting the opposition that has spent years fighting the regime. María Corina Machado, who handed her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump on January 16, was quickly dismissed on the grounds that she would not have enough support to govern. The decision angered Democrats and Republicans in Congress, but Trump did not budge.

Meanwhile, the situation in Venezuela remains critical. About 700 political prisoners are still behind bars. The regime's apparatus of repression, including the armed militias known as colectivos, continues to operate under the same leadership as always. The U.S. government maintains its travel warning for the country, citing risks of arbitrary detention and torture. None of that has changed.

The three-phase plan that has no deadline

The most comprehensive explanation of the US government's next steps came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement to the Senate in late January. He outlined a three-stage plan: stabilization, recovery, and democratic transition, but declined to give any dates. When pressed, he said only that the country “cannot look the same in three, four, or five months as it does today.” What exactly that means remains unclear.

Most revealingly, the plan does not include any formal role for the Venezuelan opposition or civil society in the negotiations. The agreements being made about the country's future, supposedly for the benefit of Venezuelans, are being made without Venezuelans having a voice.

It's all about oil

The only concrete measure that the Trump administration implemented was control over Venezuela's oil sales. The starting point was a shipment of 50 million barrels, stockpiled in tanks during the US embargo, sold to two large international trading companies for around $500 million. Of the funds generated, $300 million has already been sent to Venezuela; the other $200 million has been held in an account in Qatar, under US supervision.

Trump said the proceeds would be divided between the two countries, but did not explain how. Rubio, in the Senate, praised the fact that Venezuela had resumed purchasing the diluent needed to process its heavy oil from the US, an achievement he presented as a diplomatic victory. The detail that was left out: before the US sanctions, Venezuela already purchased most of this input from the United States. It was the sanctions themselves that forced the country to seek other suppliers, such as Russia and Iran.

The same is true of the discount China received when buying Venezuelan oil, cited by Rubio as evidence of unfair exploitation. This discount existed because US sanctions pushed Venezuelan oil onto the black market. Before that, the US was the main buyer, at market prices. Washington created the problem and now uses it as justification for intervention.

But behind the political improvisation there is a legal logic that is worth understanding. And it is less unprecedented than it seems.

The real problem: debts and creditors

Venezuela owes more than $150 billion to a long list of creditors, including countries such as Russia and China, funds that bought debt securities, and companies that had their property confiscated by the Chavista government. Many already have court rulings against the country in various jurisdictions. If oil money circulated freely through the international financial system, it could be immediately blocked by collection actions, and Venezuela would never be able to use it to rebuild itself.

It was with the intention of circumventing this that Trump signed an executive order on January 9 that makes Venezuelan oil revenues immune from legal proceedings on U.S. territory. The reasoning is the same as that used by the George W. Bush administration in Iraq after the 2003 invasion: to create extraordinary legal protection so that the country could rebuild its economy without every cent generated being immediately disputed in court. In the Iraqi case, the mechanism worked for more than a decade.

The knot that the executive order does not resolve

However, there is one obstacle that no executive order can overcome on its own: claims related to terrorism. A 2002 US law gives victims of terrorist groups the right to seize assets from entities considered accomplices of those groups, and this creates a direct problem for Venezuela.

The Maduro regime has been accused by the US government of having ties to the FARC, the Colombian ELN, and other groups designated as terrorists by the US. US courts have already allowed creditors with judgments against the FARC to freeze assets of the Venezuelan state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), on this basis. To shield oil money from this type of action, the most straightforward solution is simple: keep it out of the United States.

Hence Qatar. The emirate is home to the largest US military base in the Middle East and has already served as a financial intermediary in similar situations, including in 2023, when the Biden administration channeled $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues through it as part of a hostage release agreement, under the direct supervision of the US Treasury. When the US decided to pause the agreement after the Hamas attacks, Qatar cooperated without resistance. The history matters.

A familiar logic, worrying gaps

Seen from this angle, what the Trump administration is doing is not so different from what the US has done before. Protecting sovereign assets from creditors, using trusted intermediaries for politically sensitive transactions, maintaining control over how money is spent—these are all part of a familiar model.

What is missing is what has always been missing: transparency. The mechanism created for Iraq had robust independent audit systems and yet was still the target of accusations of corruption involving billions. The Venezuelan arrangement, so far, provides for nothing equivalent. The only guarantee mentioned by Rubio was a “retrospective audit,” after the money has already been moved. There is also no timetable for elections, no role for the opposition, and no one in the U.S. government has explained when, or if, these extraordinary protections are set to expire.

Maduro's capture was undoubtedly an achievement. What comes next is still being invented as it happens. The fact is that the United States, through its actions of naval blockade, confiscation of transport ships, commercialization of Venezuelan oil, and unauthorized custody of the proceeds from that sale, has committed successive violations of Venezuelan sovereignty and the most basic norms of international law.

Written by: Guilherme Cucco e Mariana Tanouss