Donald Trump’s administration has made billions of dollars in revenue from Venezuelan oil sales this year, but it’s proving tricky to work out where that money has gone.
The US took control of Venezuela’s oil exports earlier this year after the military operation resulting in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro.
Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez was installed as leader, and the US suspended some sanctions on Venezuela with Trump saying they would help “fix” Venezuela’s oil infrastructure to “start making money for the country.”
As a result, experts had hoped to see the stricken Venezuelan economy recover this year.
READ NEXT: Donald Trump ‘will not block Tate brothers being extradited to UK’
But, six months on from the US taking control of Venezuela’s oil exports, there is little evidence of any economic boost for the South American nation.
The Financial Times estimates that the US has collected more than $13bn in revenues from Venezuelan oil sales in 2026.
However, there have been mixed messages from Washington about where this money has gone or what it has been used for.
Initially, Trump said the revenues would be “controlled by me,” and an executive order from January said the US government would hold the money in a “custodial and governmental capacity.”
Since then, the Department of Energy has said the funds will be ” disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people” whilst US officials have said control of the oil funds has been used to exert leverage over Rodríguez.
The need for the funds has become more desperate following the devastating earthquakes that hit Venezuela in June.
At a hearing this week, Republican member María Elvira Salazar called for reports on the funds to be made public because of “the importance of transparency over where the money is going”.
And despite the lifting of sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry, the first-quarter growth rate of 2.5 per cent was the lowest in nearly five years.
Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, told the FT: “Venezuela likely did not grow more rapidly despite increased oil revenues in the first quarter because the US didn’t transfer to the Venezuelan government the totality of its increased oil revenues.”