NEW DELHI: The Trump administration plans to control future sales of Venezuelan oil and hold the proceeds in US accounts, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, making the clearest statement yet on Washington’s strategy to bring the impoverished nation’s crude to market and control its most valuable resource.
Wright, who spoke at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. conference in Miami Wednesday, said initially the barrels would come from crude Venezuela is holding in storage, which has been filling up amid the US blockade and threatening to force some production offline.
“We’re just going to get that crude moving again and sell it,” Wright said. “We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela – first this backed-up stored oil and then indefinitely going forward we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela.”
The plan comes as the Trump administration is pushing for US energy companies to rebuild Venezuela’s decaying oil infrastructure and revive its flagging production. The US is also selectively rolling back sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector as part of the effort, the Energy Department said.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday evening that Venezuela would relinquish as much as 50 million barrels of its oil for the US to sell, valued at about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
500% tariff on India: US President Donald Trump has “greenlit” the bipartisan Russia Sanctions Bill, which could be used to penalise Moscow’s trading partners, including India, China and Brazil, over their purchase of Russian oil, said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent defence hawk.
If passed, the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions bill would authorise the US President to levy up to 500 per cent tariffs on nations that knowingly purchase Russian oil or uranium and “fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine”. The hard-hitting sanctions package is meant to economically cripple Moscow as the Trump administration continues to negotiate a deal to end the war that began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Graham said he met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, during which the President extended his support to the bill that has been in the works for months. The development was also confirmed by a White House official while talking to the Associated Press.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent,” Graham said in a statement.
Graham said there could be a vote as early as next week, although it’s unclear how likely that will be. The Senate is poised to take up a scaled-back government funding package next week that the House is currently considering, if the House passes it. The following week is a Senate recess timed to Martin Luther King Jr Day.
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