General Discussion

Trump claimed during his Tuesday evening declaration that the Venezuelan officials had stolen the oil in question from the US, writing that Maduro’s government needs to “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

Like a number of other oil-producing nations, Venezuela, decades ago, nationalized its oil industry, which is operated by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA.

“Venezuela’s natural resources never belonged to the United States,” David Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an international energy advisory consultancy, told The Washington Post. “While there have been charges of expropriation, which have been arbitrated in an international tribunal, there is no basis for arguing that Venezuela’s oil was stolen from the United States.”