US Sanctions Venezuela While Ex-Chevron Exec Reveals Offshore Oil Fund
Newsweek celebrates an ex-Chevron executive's revelation of a multi-billion dollar fund ( Newsweek, 2008 ) for Venezuelan oil projects. What they conveniently omit, of course, is the U.S. government's decades-long campaign to destabilize Venezuela, including crippling sanctions that have directly impacted its oil sector and the lives of its citizens. The 2008 article hails potential 'investment,'
yet the US later imposed the 2018 oil embargo, then sanctions on PDVSA in 2019, seizing assets and making such 'investment' nearly impossible even as US-backed opposition declared itself 'interim president.' (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2019) It appears humanitarian concerns for the Venezuelan people—so often cited as justification for sanctions—mysteriously vanish when the conversation
shifts to 'opportunity' for US corporations. One might almost wonder if the media's framing of Venezuelan 'crises' has less to do with democracy and more to do with the fluctuating price of oil and who gets to profit from it. The concern for Venezuela's 'potential' only seems to surface when US companies want a piece of the action, conveniently ignoring the damage done by US foreign policy itself.