How the “stolen oil” narrative obscures Venezuela’s real history, distorts international law, and threatens U.S. influence in the hemisphere
By Juan Carlos Sosa Azpúrua
I. Introduction: a myth bending strategy
Donald Trump has revived an idea that resonates with the U.S. electorate because of its dramatic simplicity: the belief that Venezuela “stole” oil from the United States. According to this narrative, the Chávez government stripped U.S. sovereignty of its energy assets, justifying retaliation today.
The storyline works well during campaign season: it offers clear villains, wounded national pride and the promise of restitution. But it rests on a fabrication.
Venezuela never expropriated oil belonging to the U.S. government. The expropriations undertaken by Hugo Chávez affected private corporations—not Washington—and those companies obtained arbitration awards and settlements worth billions.
Paradoxically, the real economic pillage of the Chavista period did not unfold in the oil sector. It unfolded across the productive fabric of the Venezuelan economy.
II. Venezuela’s oil history contradicts the claim of sovereign theft
From the very first hydrocarbons law, Venezuela retained ownership of the subsoil. Foreign companies operated through concessions and commercial contracts. They never held sovereign ownership of oil reserves.
When Venezuela nationalized its industry in 1975, the process was orderly, compensated, and contract-driven. Exxon, Mobil, Shell and others exited under payment and negotiation—not seizure.
Nothing resembling theft occurred.
III. PDVSA and CITGO: cooperation, not dispossession
The integration of PDVSA into the U.S. market through CITGO strengthened both countries:
– Venezuela secured a stable outlet for heavy crude;
– U.S. refiners gained reliable, profitable volumes.
It was a commercial alliance, not a national loss.
IV. The 1990 Oil Opening: the blueprint of an emerging oil power
The Oil Opening of 1990, conceived and led intellectually by Andrés Sosa Pietri—then president of PDVSA and the foremost architect of a national energy strategy designed to turn Venezuela into a genuine twenty-first-century oil power—launched the most ambitious modernization cycle in Venezuelan oil history.
The legal foundation traces back to 1975, when Sosa Pietri, as a senator, drafted Article 5 of the Hydrocarbons Nationalization Law, preserving state ownership of the resource while explicitly enabling private participation under contractual control and international arbitration.
The result was a regional anomaly:
alliances with ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Total, Statoil and Petrobras;
state-of-the-art technology in the Orinoco Belt;
and unprecedented foreign direct investment.
Venezuela was moving confidently toward the center of hemispheric energy gravity.
V. 2007: the Chávez rupture
The process broke in 2007 when Hugo Chávez forced companies to migrate to majority-state joint ventures.
Some negotiated.
Others left.
All activated the legal mechanisms written precisely for such disputes.
The story belongs to courtrooms—not slogans.
VI. International arbitration dismantles the theft narrative
The affected firms brought their claims before international tribunals such as ICSID.
The outcomes speak clearly:
- ConocoPhillips received arbitral awards approaching USD 8.5 billion;
- ExxonMobil secured substantial compensation after extended litigation;
- other firms negotiated bilateral settlements.
If Venezuela had “stolen U.S. state assets,” these results would be impossible.
International law worked as designed.
VII. Where actual theft occurred: across Venezuela’s non-oil economy
While U.S. political rhetoric obsesses over a fictitious “oil theft,” the real dispossession unfolded far from the oil fields.
Chavismo confiscated—with no compensation, no arbitration, and no rule of law—a vast portion of Venezuela’s non-oil productive economy: agriculture, manufacturing, heavy industry, logistics and commerce.
Among the most emblematic cases: Agroisleña, Sidor, Éxito, Constructora Nacional de Válvulas C.A., agricultural estates, manufacturing chains, regional banks and logistical networks—all seized by force, without payment to owners.
That was the actual assault:
the systematic destruction of the country’s productive base.
VIII. Venezuela’s oil collapse: the treasure that never existed
The country’s oil sector has disintegrated:
production has collapsed,
PDVSA’s infrastructure is obsolete,
and the technical workforce has evaporated.
There is no prize to recover—only ruins.
IX. The U.S. vacuum and the rise of rival powers
While Washington debates ghosts, China, Russia and Iran are building real power: refineries, debts, supply chains and export routes.
The vacuum was not seized by Caracas—it was surrendered by the United States.
X. The strategic lesson Trump misses
Trump prescribes force.
Venezuela shows the cost of force without strategy:
it isolates the United States, weakens legitimacy, and yields the field to competitors.
Rebuilding influence requires institutions, not intimidation.
XI. Conclusion
The electoral narrative of “stolen oil” satisfies domestic passion but collapses under evidence. Venezuela never expropriated the U.S. state. Oil disputes were resolved through law, not national humiliation.
The nation that was pillaged was Venezuela itself: its industries destroyed, its private property erased, its economy consumed from within.
If Washington seeks to regain influence, it must first regain accuracy—distinguishing between what was taken, and by whom.
Everything else is political noise.
“Vincit qui se vincit”—victory belongs to the one who conquers himself.
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