Washington's century lease for Venezuela oil is an imperial decree

By Alma Cordero · August 28, 2026

A Century Lease on a Nation’s Spine

The moment Washington begins to talk about “stakes” in another sovereign nation’s oil fields, you know what it means: they are not talking about energy security; they are talking about ownership. This isn't diplomacy; this is the oldest hustle in the playbook—the promise of modernization and revenue exchange for a permanent carve-up of national wealth. The reports detailing US negotiations with Venezuela’s interim administration over leases up to a century long confirm it: America is preparing to claim a massive, predatory stake in 90 billion barrels of proven reserves, nearly a third of the world's largest oil pool.

The details are sickeningly specific. MercoPress confirms that talks involve a dozen fields across the Orinoco Belt and Lake Maracaibo regions. The proposed mechanism is textbook colonial extraction: cede control to us, and in return, we promise private companies—often American ones—will modernize and generate "higher revenues" for you. This narrative of benefit-for-sacrifice has been used against every working person who ever stood on the wrong side of a border fence or an empty factory floor. The opposition is right to call it what it is: a rapacious land grab, as one unnamed figure told The Guardian.

When "Free Trade" Means Total Control

Of course, the official line will be that this is purely about global energy stability. They will argue—and their most capable advocates are quite good at this—that given rising petrol prices and the need to replenish reserves ahead of elections, the US government has a vital interest in securing these resources for its own citizens. They will claim they are simply providing necessary infrastructure investment where the current regime cannot manage it.

But that argument is built on nothing but historical arrogance. The moment you frame this as an economic necessity, you forget who wrote the rules of global commerce and who benefits from them. You ignore the fact that the very act of negotiating these deals—spearheaded by figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and acting president Delcy Rodríguez—is predicated on a legal framework (the hydrocarbons law reform) passed less than a month after Maduro's capture. It is an unconstitutional deal, as Ricardo Hausmann pointed out on X. This isn't market efficiency; it’s the imposition of power dressed up in the language of finance.

The Echo of Opium and Empire

This pattern—using economic necessity or perceived commercial rights to force a sovereign nation into making resource concessions against its own stated laws—is not new. It is, in fact, cyclical. I am thinking of the First Opium War. In that era, the British government supported merchants’ demands for compensation after China seized private opium stocks, insisting on principles of "free trade" and equal diplomatic recognition regardless of local law.

The mechanism here is identical: a powerful external force uses its economic weight (or threat thereof) to override national sovereignty and claim long-term access rights over essential resources. The US administration’s desire for “US dominance over Venezuelan oil reserves,” as Gregory Brew observed, allows them to regard these assets as their own—a source from which they can draw, excluding competitors like China or Russia. This is the 21st-century adaptation of the Monroe Doctrine: keep other powers out, and claim the resources for yourself.

The Price of American Interest

The true cost of this deal isn't measured in barrels; it’s measured in self-determination. To hand over a nation's oil wealth to Washington via century-long leases is not an investment—it is surrender. It is the ultimate betrayal of the people who actually work that land, the workers whose livelihoods and dignity are tied up in the physical reality of this country.

The history books show us nothing truly unprecedented when it comes to resource extraction by foreign powers. What we see here is merely a continuation of the same pattern: the powerful defining "free trade" as anything that benefits their own strategic interests, regardless of who lives on the ground or what laws govern them. The American government does not negotiate with sovereign nations; it negotiates with captured assets.

The people of Venezuela deserve to write their own economic future, one built by themselves, for themselves. Any deal structured around a century-long lease and guaranteed US access is nothing more than an imperial decree, confirming that the border remains less a line on a map and more a permanent wound upon the global economy.

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WTI crude oil price. Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).

Washington's century lease for Venezuela oil is an imperial decree

A Century Lease on a Nation’s Spine

When "Free Trade" Means Total Control

The Echo of Opium and Empire

The Price of American Interest

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