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Trump says he wants to free up Venezuelan oil flow. What was blocking it?

Trump says he wants to free up Venezuelan oil flow. What was blocking it?

United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to free up the flow of Venezuelan oil to benefit Venezuelans after US forces abducted President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas. “We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said at a media briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida hours after Maduro was seized on Saturday. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.” Then, on Tuesday, the US president said he wanted to use proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States”. Rubio has echoed Trump in his comments in recent days. But what has been holding back the flow of Venezuelan oil, preventing the country from attracting investments and driving the country into poverty? A key reason is one that Trump and Rubio have been silent about: Washington’s own efforts to strangle Venezuela’s oil industry and economy through sanctions, which also have set off a refugee crisis. What has Trump said about Venezuelan oil? In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US. Trump wrote: “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Advertisement Trump added that he had directed his energy secretary, Chris Wright, to execute the plan “immediately”. “It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote. During the news conference on Saturday, Trump said US oil companies would fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”. Earlier Trump had accused Venezuela in a Truth Social post of “stealing” US oil, land and other assets and using that oil to fund crime, “terrorism” and human trafficking. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller has made similar claims in recent days. What does it mean for the US to take Venezuelan oil? Oil is trading at roughly $56 per barrel. Based on this price, 30 million barrels of oil would be worth $1.68bn and 50 million barrels of oil would be worth $2.8bn. “Trump’s statement about oil in Venezuela is beyond an act of war; it is an act of colonisation. That is also illegal based on the UN Charter,” Vijay Prashad, the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research based in Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa, told Al Jazeera. Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US involvement in Venezuela was “less about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela’s oil deposits”. “This [oil] is the number one target. Trump is not content with just allowing US oil firms to get concessions but to ‘run’ the country, which entails absolute and indefinite control over Venezuela’s resources.” According to the website of the US Energy Information Administration, the US consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2023. What has Rubio said about Venezuelan oil? In an interview on the NBC TV network’s Meet the Press programme that aired on Sunday, Rubio said: “We are at war against drug trafficking organisations. That’s not a war against Venezuela.” “No more drug trafficking … and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefitting the people of Venezuela or, frankly, benefitting the United States and the region,” Rubio said. Rubio said in the interview that since 2014, about eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, which he attributed to theft and corruption by Maduro and his allies. According to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from May, nearly 7.9 million people have indeed left Venezuela. But he was silent on the US’s own role in creating that crisis. Advertisement What are the US sanctions against Venezuela’s oil? Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in 1976 under then-President Carlos Andres Perez during an oil boom. He established the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) to control all oil resources. Venezuela continued to be a major oil exporter to the US for some years, supplying 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After President Hugo Chavez took office in 1998, he nationalised all oil assets, seized foreign-owned assets, restructured the PDVSA and prioritised using oil revenue for social programmes in Venezuela. From 2003 to 2007, Venezuela under Chavez managed to cut its poverty rate in half – from 57 percent to 27.5 percent. Extreme poverty fell even more sharply, by 70 percent. But exports declined, and government authorities were accused of mismanagement. The US first imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil in retaliation for nationalising US oil assets in 2005. Under US sanctions, many senior Venezuelan government officials and companies have been barred from accessing any property or financial assets held in the US. They cannot access US bank accounts, sell property or access their money if it passes through the US financial system. Critically, any US companies or citizens doing business with any sanctioned individual or company will be penalised and risk becoming subject to enforcement actions. Maduro took over as president in 2013 after Chavez’s death. In 2017, Trump, during his first term in office, imposed more sanctions and tightened them again in 2019. This further restricted sales to the US and access for Venezuelan companies to the global financial system. As a result, oil exports to the US nearly stopped, and Venezuela shifted its trade mainly to China with some sales to India and Cuba. Last month, the Trump administration imposed yet more

Do Russia and China pose a national security threat to the US in Greenland?

Do Russia and China pose a national security threat to the US in Greenland?

US President Donald Trump sees Greenland as a United States national security priority to deter Washington’s “adversaries in the Arctic region”, according to a White House statement released on Tuesday. The statement came days after Trump told reporters that the US needs Greenland from a national security perspective because it is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships”. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Here’s what you need to know about what Trump said, whether Russia and China are present in Greenland, and whether they do pose a threat to American security. What has Trump recently said about Greenland? “Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on January 4. The White House statement on Tuesday fleshed out further details on how the US would go about its acquisition of Greenland. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal,” the White House statement says. Over the course of his second term, Trump has talked about wanting Greenland for national security reasons multiple times. “We need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it,” he said in March. Since 1979, Greenland has been a self-governing territory of Denmark, and since 2009, it has had the right to declare independence through a referendum. Advertisement Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire to take control of the island, which hosts a US military base. He first voiced this desire in 2019, during his first term as US president. As a response, leaders from Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale. They have made it clear that they are especially not interested in becoming part of the US. On January 4, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, “It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing to take over Greenland.” “The US has no right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom,” she said, alluding to the Faroe Islands, which, like Greenland, are also a Danish territory. “I would therefore strongly urge the US to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have very clearly said that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said. US special forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during an operation in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on January 3. Hours later, Katie Miller, the wife of close Trump aide and US Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, posted a photo on X showing the US flag imposed on the map of Greenland. Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen hit back in an X post, writing, “Relations between nations and peoples are built on mutual respect and international law – not on symbolic gestures that disregard our status and our rights.” Why does Trump want Greenland so badly? The location and natural resources of the Arctic island make it strategically important for Washington. Greenland is geographically part of North America, located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean. It is home to some 56,000 residents, mostly Indigenous Inuit people. It is the world’s largest island. Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, is closer to New York City  – some 2,900km (1,800 miles) away – than the Danish capital Copenhagen, which is located 3,500km (2,174 miles) to the east. Greenland, a NATO territory through Denmark, is an EU-associated overseas country and territory whose residents remain European Union citizens, having joined the European Community with Denmark in 1973 but having withdrawn in 1985. “It’s really tricky if the United States decides to use military power to take over Greenland. Denmark is a member of NATO; the United States is a member as well. It really calls into question what the purpose of the military alliance is, if that happens,” Melinda Haring, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, told Al Jazeera. Advertisement Greenland offers the shortest route from North America to Europe. This gives the US a strategic upper hand for its military and its ballistic missile early-warning system. The US has expressed interest in expanding its military presence in Greenland by placing radars in the waters connecting Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. These waters are a gateway for Russian and Chinese vessels, which Washington aims to track. The island is also incredibly rich in minerals, including rare earth minerals used in the high-tech industry and in the manufacture of batteries. According to a 2023 survey, 25 of 34 minerals deemed “critical raw materials” by the European Commission were found in Greenland. Greenland does not carry out the extraction of oil and gas, and its mining sector is opposed by its Indigenous population. The island’s economy is largely reliant on its fishing industry. Are Chinese and Russian ships swarming Greenland? However, while Trump has spoken of Russian and Chinese ships around Greenland, currently, facts don’t bear that out. Vessel tracking data from maritime data and intelligence websites such as MarineTraffic do not show the presence of Chinese or Russian ships near Greenland. Are Russia and China a threat to Greenland? The ships’ location aside, Trump’s rhetoric comes amid a heightened scramble for the Arctic. Amid global warming, the vast untapped resources of the Arctic are becoming more accessible. Countries like the US, Canada, China and Russia are now eyeing these resources. “Russia has never threatened anyone in the Arctic, but we will closely follow the developments and mount an appropriate response by increasing our military capability and modernising military infrastructure,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during an address in March 2025 at the International Arctic Forum in the Russian city of Murmansk, the largest city within the Arctic Circle. During this address, Putin said that he believed Trump was serious about taking Greenland and that the US will continue with

Extreme flooding submerges Kosovo cities, villages

Extreme flooding submerges Kosovo cities, villages

NewsFeed Emergency crews in Kosovo carried out a second day of evacuations after the region was devastated by floods. Footage shows people being evacuated from submerged homes as floodwaters slammed several municipalities. Published On 7 Jan 20267 Jan 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Adblock test (Why?)