Energy Secretary Chris Wright informed NBC News in an interview this week that Venezuela’s oil revenue will not be deposited in an account in Qatar.
Wright said to NBC News on Thursday, “An account was set up in Qatar, controlled by the U.S. government the whole time, to land that money in and then send the money from there down to Venezuela.”
The energy secretary stated, “Now we have an account at the U.S. Treasury. The money won’t go to Qatar anymore.”
The Trump administration has seized authority of Venezuela’s oil sales, capturing former President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid last month. Wright visited Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy Rodríguez, in Venezuela this week, marking the top-ranking U.S. official’s visit to the country in decades.
Wright reported to NBC News that revenue from Venezuelan oil sales generates up to $1 billion. He added that the U.S. has short-term agreements to sell another $5 billion of the country’s crude over the next few months. He said the oil has so far gone to U.S. refineries and Europe.
Wright indicated that the U.S. deposited the initial $500 million of oil sales in the Qatar account after transferring the funds back to Venezuela. Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the transparency and legality of the arrangement.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., initiated legislation on Thursday that instructs the Government Accountability Office to conduct an independent audit of the Qatar account.
Wright reported that the U.S. deposited the initial sales in Qatar, due to the fact that the funds are at risk of being withdrawn by creditors of Venezuela. Caracas experiences tens of billions of dollars in the greatest claims from defaulting on its sovereign debt and nationalizing the assets of oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.
Wright said, “Since Venezuela has so many creditors and they owe a lot of money, we had some risk if we put it into a U.S. bank account set up quickly, that creditors could freeze that money. We want those creditors ultimately to get their money back, but that money urgently needs to get to Venezuela.”
The U.S. is further confronted with the fact that it does not recognize the government headed by Rodriguez. The National Assembly, led by the opposition, was recognized by President Donald Trump in 2019 in the first term.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 28 that Washington must find a solution to resolve the problem of government recognition for the funds to be deposited in the U.S.
Rubio stated, “You have to recognize a government, but we don’t recognize this government. We recognize the 2015 National Assembly, so we have to find some creative way legally to meet that standard.”
Scott Anderson, an international law expert who previously served with the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad under President Barack Obama, said that Venezuelan oil revenue deposited in the U.S. would be under the control of the opposition National Assembly because of Trump’s recognition.
However, this raises concerns about which government the U.S. will ultimately recognize and when. Wright informed NBC that the possibility of elections and a change of power in Venezuela is very likely to occur under Trump’s term.
He added that the U.S. government would stop monitoring the domestic affairs of Venezuela at that time.
Wright further added, “It is a question of a process to get there. Ultimately, what the long-term political leadership in Venezuela is going to be, it’s going to be up to Venezuela.”
