The latter statement seems to flatter both cynics and partisans again.
To all, it is clear that such an assessment offers a single-motive story in a world that has become stubbornly multi-causal. However, when you see Venezuela as an oil price to be taken, indicating that it is possible to switch on and pump into the global market on command, most show a total misunderstanding of both the operation and the commodity. Where people are going totally wrong is looking at the country’s perceived crude oil reserves, but as is normal in international media, forgetting that the country’s crude is not a light, sweet windfall waiting behind a palace gate. For real oil market pundits, it is known that Venezuelan crude is among the heaviest, even extra-heavy, crudes on earth. It is chained to diluent constraints, upgrading bottlenecks and a degraded infrastructure, while also having to deal with a political economy that has repelled capital for a generation. Even if you are one of the most optimistic scenario planners in the world, taking the potential post-crisis conditions as very positive, it still needs to be realized that meaningful incremental barrels would take years to be produced and reach markets. To have a transformative effect, it will take more than a decade for volumes to be available.
The latter is not denying the importance of oil at all. When looking at a petro-state holding the world’s most extensive resource base, it is essential. Analysis should, however, show that it also means the causal arrows point in different directions. Taking a non-oil view, the “unexpected strike” by the US military, driven by the Trump doctrine’s transactional strategic considerations, is a clear display of coercive statecraft. It has been framed around narcotics and “narco-terror” accusations, addressing also regional signaling, sanctions enforcement, and domestic politics, while having crude oil in sight as a secondary prize. It is NOT the primary trigger, in other words, not war for oil, but a war that happens to land on oil.
Let's look at the facts as they unfolded. US President Donald Trump openly has stated that a “large-scale” US action in Venezuela has happened, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now going to face US charges. The latter actions have, without delay, resulted in immediate regional and legal condemnation. Non-Trump ally and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have reiterated that it is an “unacceptable line” and urged a UN response. Government officials from Venezuela briefly closed and reopened their border with Brazil. Another Maduro ally and Russian partner, Cuba, also has denounced the US moves. Cuba, without any doubt, is in the crosshairs of Washington, while being very dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies.
It matters to take these reactions into account, as they reflect the actual terrain: legitimacy, precedent, and deterrence. At present, the situation is, however, diffuse, as the law is one front; the message is another. International experts are already questioning the legality of any action under the UN Charter absent self-defense or Security Council authorization. The USA doesn’t have any of them. Keep in mind that legal vulnerability is a fundamental point of discussion in the coming weeks or months. By signaling a willingness to use force unilaterally in the Western Hemisphere, Washington is stepping into uncharted territory. Some have already made links to Panama 1989. It also shows that the Trump Administration is willingly stepping into a great-power competition that is increasingly about who gets to rewrite norms first.
The timing of the current action, or the motive behind it, is clearly based on the scaffolding the US has been building. The latter is not oil, as shown by the tightening of US sanctions enforcement, the movement of naval and enforcement capacity, and, even more crucially, the use of the language of criminality rather than regime change. At the end of 2025, Venezuelan production and exports were already under pressure due to the intensification of US sanctions enforcement. It should be understood that the Trump Administration already was squeezing the system that “war for oil” proponents claim it wants to expand.
The simplicity of the current media stories pushed should now be ended, as US actions contradict it all. As was already indicated in the Iraq war, if you want more oil, remove sanctions and support shipping. In the Venezuelan case, the US constricted exports, limited shipping, and forced production shut-ins through storage and logistics constraints. Market analysis had already reported the latter for weeks: PDVSA was reportedly shutting wells in parts of the Orinoco Belt because storage was full and exports could not move fast enough, with Orinoco output dropping sharply in late December. These conditions are not the right ones to be used when looking for a near-term oil windfall; they are the conditions of coercion.
Taking all this into account, a much stronger argument can be made with the theory that the strike aims to reshape the political balance quickly. By removing leadership, fracturing elite cohesion, and forcing a transition, there will be a possible power vacuum or change. Oil volumes or production futures can be used as the main lever for reconstruction. Venezuela’s situation makes it very clear that oil will not be the immediate payoff, but only a possible medium-term stabilizer. It seems that the advisors or analysts in the offices of Trump, JD Vance, and Hegseth believe that they can produce a post-Maduro settlement. In that case, oil becomes the tool to finance the state, repay external creditors, and, in line with MAGA’s migration rhetoric, reduce the latter’s pressure by restoring basic economic functioning. Overall, it is a well-known and widely used playbook in resource states. Still, this doesn’t make it a “war for oil” in the mechanical sense; popular commentary is wrong.
To address Venezuela's crude oil position or power interests, we have to deep-dive into the facts on the ground, its reality at present, not its reserve headlines. Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt is, on the one hand, a geological marvel but, commercially, an absolute nightmare. A large share of its output is heavy to extra-heavy crude that often requires blending with lighter hydrocarbons (diluents). At present, due to factors such as sanctions restrictions, tightened shipping insurance, and traders' fear of secondary exposure, these barrels are stranded rather than discounted. The total Venezuelan crude oil and market system is not merely under-capitalized; it is also under-integrated.
So-called ‘returns’ of Venezuelan crude, as shown by export rebounds in 2024–2025, were not a reality. Most of the export surge (900,000 bpd) occurred in periods of workaround trading. Real levels, however, were far below historical potential. At the end of 2025, due to increased enforcement pressure, the trend also clearly reversed again.
A second hard truth is Venezuela’s capital-intensive incremental barrels. It is always strange to hear media sources and politicians say that “Venezuela has the most oil, almost as if that were a switch. Reality is the opposite. Any Orinoco production at scale requires steady investment in field operations, including steam and diluent supply chains and critical infrastructure. At the same time, but very necessary, Orinoco crude operations will need upgraders that convert extra-heavy crude into synthetic crude suitable for broader refinery slates. Analysts understand that if there is a significant lack of upgraders, very heavy oil shipped will be at a steep discount (if you can), or you need to blend it with already scarce light crude and naphtha. Both options are currently and in the immediate future constrained. Politicians and analysts also need to understand that 2026 is no longer 2010. At that time, global majors were comfortable taking on long-cycle political risk for heavy-oil projects. Growing ESG regulations and sustainability policies are constraining new long-term investments, especially when combined with reputational exposure.
Last but not least, “war for oil” advocates routinely ignore the time constant. If there is a compliant government in place, linked to Washington, facts on the ground will stay the same. The Maduro-Chávez inheritance will still be an oil sector with degraded equipment, skills flight, procurement constraints, and a shadow trading ecosystem. To reverse all of this, military options are irrelevant; you will need a legal and financial process. To attract interest, investment, and long-term commitments from international partners, the sector needs contracts that can withstand a change of government and a credible rule of law. It will also need a sanctions architecture that investors believe will not snap back with the next election cycle in Washington.
The current analysis should look much more at the sanctions licensing story than the crude reserve story. With all its force, the USA has used general licenses and enforcement cycles, all meant to hurt or as a throttle on Venezuelan flows. In the last period, the official OFAC framework and general license architecture have shown that access is political and reversible. The prime example of the latter is Chevron’s authorizations and wind-down changes, all showing that even limited commercial re-entry can be turned into a bargaining chip. It all depends on or is directly linked to Trump’s political objectives.
The main question to be answered now is: if oil is not the near-term payoff, why are the media and politicians still reaching for the “war for oil” line? It seems in line with history, while Venezuela also seems to sit in the mental map as a lost prize. For Trump and others, it also looks as if having access and control could solve high prices. The latter is wrong; we are no longer in the oil market of the Iraq era. At the same time, mainly also due to the shale oil revolution and renewables, the USA is not energy-starved in the same way. Global supply risk is distributed across multiple theatres. It also needs to be recognized that, even in a world of tight spare capacity, the fastest barrels still come from short-cycle producers and OPEC policy choices. The Venezuelan option is not one of these; it is still an extra-heavy frontier that needs massive rebuilding.
The main critical point to understand here is that Venezuela is a slow barrel. It is not only heavy but time-consuming, which makes it strategically relevant. Not as most now push tactically decisive. If Trump and his backers wanted to immediately depress gasoline prices, it would have been much more prudent and efficient to seek accommodation, not escalation. By loosening sanctions, more exports would flow in the months. At present, the USA has overthrown a regime, which could and will trigger months of legal disputes, instability risk, and regional backlash.
Without any question, Washington is currently prioritizing other objectives, as shown by the strike. The main one is deterrence and domestic signaling. The Trump Administration is signaling a muscular demonstration that it can still impose outcomes in its hemisphere. The other one has been criminal justice framing, as shown by the capture of Maduro. The latter is now being framed as “liberation” but as law enforcement at scale.
The third objective is sanctions credibility. The moves by Washington should be seen as a signal that evasion networks, tanker workarounds, and regional complicity will not be tolerated. Last but not least, migration and stability pressure objective. In recent years, Venezuela’s economic collapse and regime instability have pushed millions up north, into the USA. The current actions are a show of willingness by the US administration to act decisively, but also maybe recklessly.
In all, crude oil or “Oil” returns only as a second-order instrument. The total strategy could be to decapitate leadership, impose a transitional arrangement, then use oil-sector normalization as an instrument to stabilize the country. It is also used to reward cooperating elites. Overall fits how sanctions have functioned: as levers of force to change political behavior. Current US messy optics are not an issue, at least in Washington; they are meant to be shocking or to reorder calculations across the region.
Looking at the above as the strategy in place, the “war for oil” critique still misses something important. If it is a war for oil, Washington is assumed to be acting irrationally because it overestimates Venezuela’s short-term oil value. At the same time, a more damning critique also exists: the US may be acting dangerously even though it understands the realities of oil. The main risk is not that Orinoco oil will not be flowing soon, but that the Trump Administration is willing to destabilize a state, violate legal norms, and provoke regional backlash for political and symbolic goals. If that is the case, it can be argued that it cannot justify the blowback with a fantasy about future oil recovery. Reality now indicates that the oil narrative has become a post-hoc rationalization. It is selling chaos as a strategy. What Washington doesn’t realize, maybe, primarily as the barrels will NOT flow, is that it has put itself in a corner as a great power, capturing a head of state without UN authorization. Even for anti-Maduro leaders, this should be worrying, even in Venezuela, in the coming years.
When addressing the war-for-oil story, another technical reason is that refining fails all: refining. Venezuelan crude is heavy and sulfurous; it is best processed in complex refineries with coking capacity, which are historically in the US Gulf Coast and in parts of Asia. In the last few years, however, refinery configurations have shifted, while environmental constraints have tightened. Global markets for heavy sour crudes are no longer unlimited sponges. Commodity markets are not as political as Trump may expect. Heavy crude discounts can widen dramatically when demand for resid and bunker components fall. The same happens when refineries take maintenance, or when competing heavy barrels (Canada, Mexico, Iraq) move in. The latter situation means that monetization of Venezuelan crude will not be frictionless as some indicated before, crude quality matters, as the market is not simply “short oil. At present, or mostly, you could say the market is short of the right barrels, of the right quality, at the right time.
None of this absolves Maduro’s Venezuela, nor does it deny that petroleum is the country’s central economic bloodstream. It simply restores proportion. A serious energy analysis says: Venezuela’s oil is strategically essential but operationally slow; heavy and extra-heavy crude is a complex project, not a quick fix; and the most significant near-term market impact of a US strike is more likely to be disruption than supply relief.
For shipping and energy markets, the main issue in the coming period will be risk premium. Any military escalation in a petrostate directly impacts the global catalogue of supply threats. The latter is even in play if everyone knows that the threatened barrels are not necessarily large immediately. The US moves have added to the uncertainty over sanctions and distorted trade flows. If this episode produces prolonged instability, those constraints harden.
For the medium term, analysts and investors will be looking at governance. Traders, shippers, investors, and operators will ask questions, such as “can any post-strike arrangement credibly restore contractual stability, protect assets, and make licenses durable?” Parties will also be worried about the possibility that Venezuela will become another case where oil is promised as salvation, but politics makes it unrealizable. In all of these cases, especially related to legal issues, money or capital will be very timid. The reality of the US move could be that the “oil prize” stays underground. The strike ordered by Trump could have achieved nothing beyond a precedent.
There is an overall uncomfortable truth at play. Both camps could be wrong. Oil is not the trigger for US action, but it is now almost clear that Washington could still be reckless. The Trump Administration is currently playing with regional order and legality. At the same time, escalation ladders are used for objectives that are ultimately political rather than energy economics. When looking at it as an outsider, it is a feeble justification for lighthearted military action to want the heaviest crude on earth.
To be the “Devil’s Advocate”, it would be very ironic to see that the more the world’s energy transition proceeds, the less attractive Venezuela’s barrel becomes. The country’s crudes will be facing complex upgrading and high emissions intensity, leading to rising carbon scrutiny, financing constraints, and potentially border-carbon measures. When considering potential stranded assets, Orinoco would be a prime example, as the window to monetize it on a scale is not infinite. In the coming decades or years, it will be closing. The oil fantasy is possibly very outdated.
If we are looking for global energy stability, Venezuela still has a role to play. The latter will not be pushed or supported by raids and speeches. The country will need a patient reconstruction of institutions, along with transparent contracting and predictable sanctions regimes. If not, investors can't price the risks. Any other actions will be only theatre. Global oil markets or Latin America all know that theatre is not suitable for oil.