My Marina Wide
HOUSTON/BEIJING, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Global oil prices fell on Wednesday as China denounced the United States as a bully after President Donald Trump’s administration said it had persuaded Venezuela to divert supplies from Beijing and import up to $2 billion of embargoed crude.
The deal was in line with Trump’s stated goal of controlling the South American OPEC member’s vast oil reserves after ousting its leader Nicolas Maduro who had long been cast as a drug-trafficking dictator with ties to Washington’s enemies.
Maduro’s Socialist Party allies remain in power in Venezuela, where interim President Delcy Rodriguez is walking a fine line between denouncing his “kidnapping” and initiating cooperation with the United States under explicit threats from Trump.
TRUMP: OIL MONEY ‘WILL BE COLLECTED BY ME’
He said the United States would refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of crude oil stuck in Venezuela under a US blockade as the first step in his plan to revive a sector that has been in decline despite being on top of the world’s largest reserves.
“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure that it is used for the benefit of the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump posted on Tuesday.
Venezuela has not confirmed the agreement.
Raw material prices fell around 1.0% on world markets due to an increase in anticipated supplies.
The deal may initially require cargo going to Venezuela’s top buyer China to change as Caracas looks to unload millions of barrels stranded in tankers and storage.
“The blatant use of force by the United States against Venezuela and its demand for ‘America First’ when Venezuela disposes of its own oil resources are typical acts of bullying,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning during a press conference.
“These actions seriously violate international law, seriously violate the sovereignty of Venezuela, and seriously damage the rights of the Venezuelan people.”
China, Russia and Venezuela’s leftist allies all denounced the US raid to capture Maduro over the weekend, which was Washington’s biggest such intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama to topple Manuel Noriega.
Washington’s allies are also very uneasy because of the extraordinary precedent of the kidnapping of a foreign head of state, with Trump making a large number of threats of further action – from Mexico to Greenland – to further the interests of the United States.
TWENTY DIE DURING THE CAPTURE OF MADURO
Some details are still sketchy about how US Special Forces entered Caracas by helicopter under cover of darkness on Saturday, cut through Maduro’s security cordon and abducted him at the door of a safe room, with no loss of US life.
Venezuela has not confirmed its total losses, although the army published a list of 23 of its dead and ally Cuba said 32 members of its military and intelligence services had died. The United States estimates around 75 fatalities, the Washington Post reported.
Maduro, 63, who has ruled Venezuela since the 2013 death of his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chavez, pleaded not guilty Monday to narcotics charges in a Manhattan court where he was shackled at the ankles and dressed in orange and beige prison garb.
Trump appears to be calculating that it is better for stability in Venezuela to work with Maduro’s senior allies for now. He is emphasizing the revival of the oil sector with the help of American firms as the priority, not the release of political prisoners or a new vote for a democratic transition.
THE VENEZUELA OPPOSITION KEPT WAITING
Venezuela’s leading anti-Maduro figure, Maria Corina Machado, who went undercover to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in October, wants to return home where she says the opposition will easily win a free vote.
But she is also taking care not to antagonize Trump, saying that she would like to personally give him the Nobel prize that he had wanted and that he dedicated to him at the time. She says she is fully in line with his aspirations to make Venezuela a key US ally and America’s energy center.
Banned from running in a 2024 election, Machado’s ally Edmundo Gonzalez won overwhelmingly, according to the opposition, the United States and several election observers.
While working with Rodriguez and other key Venezuelan officials, the United States warned that they must cooperate or risk sharing Maduro’s fate.
Hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who controls security forces accused of widespread rights abuses, is under particular scrutiny, sources told Reuters.
The United States is also closely following Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who, like Cabello, is under indictment for drug trafficking in the United States and has a multi-million dollar bounty on his head.
Rodriguez herself is under US sanctions, with her foreign financial assets identified as potential leverage, said one source briefed on the US administration’s thinking.
The United States is also pressuring Venezuela’s interim government to expel official advisers from China, Russia, Cuba and Iran, the New York Times reported.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus worldwide; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Ros Russell)
