Weekly Report - 10 September 2026 (WR-26-36)

Venezuela maintains “control and ownership” over its subsoil oil reserves. This was the message the hydrocarbons minister, Paula Henao, was at pains to convey during an interview on the local television channel Venevisión this week, following a wave of criticism of the recent oil agreement struck with the US [WR-26-35]. The controversy further ignited after President Donald Trump baldly stated in a social media post that the US controlled 17 oilfields in Venezuela, containing 65bn barrels of proven oil reserves, and that this was a “Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States”. Even the opposition, which has long been beholden to Washington, looked askance at the arrangement. Its most visible figurehead, María Corina Machado, struggled to frame a diplomatic response that contained her scepticism about the implications for Venezuela’s sovereignty over its most precious resource.