From Venezuela to the New Cuban Oil Crisis
- Languages on a Plate
- 6 hours ago
- 10 min read
As headlines pivot towards the CJNG crisis in Mexico (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación) and the increasingly serious discussion around potential strikes on Iran, the diplomatic turbulence that erupted around the Davos Summit already feels distant. Only weeks ago, Greenland’s sovereignty was the topic du jour in Switzerland, triggering a rare moment of European coordination aimed directly at pushing back against Washington’s foreign policy instincts. That debate may no longer dominate the news cycle, but in the Americas the consequences of recent US actions remain very much alive.
The seizure of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela was not simply another episode in a long-running dispute with Caracas. Removing a sitting head of state from his own country and transferring him to face charges abroad crosses a far more serious threshold. It is also a blunt display of US military reach in the region, a reminder of who can act and who is expected to absorb the consequences. For countries across Latin America, the issue is not sympathy for Caracas, but the acceptance of a method that reduces sovereignty to a conditional privilege. It sends a signal about who is considered untouchable and who is not, and about how power is expected to operate across the hemisphere.
The operation and its implications are multi-faceted. At one level, it plays neatly into long-standing American political reflexes around socialism, authoritarianism and the residues of the Red Scare, where removing a left-wing leader is framed as "moral hygiene". Anti-communist language still carries weight in US domestic politics, particularly when applied to Latin America. At another level, there is the more transactional logic as it also aligns comfortably with Trump-era power politics and the interests of US oil elites. Venezuela holds some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and control over that sector has clear appeal for American oil interests aligned with the current administration. Yet stepping back again, the most consequential layer is not profit alone. It is control over where Venezuelan oil goes, and just as importantly, where it no longer goes.
This brings Cuba, the thorn in the US' side, back into the picture. For years, Venezuela supplied Cuba with oil under preferential agreements developed during the Chávez era, allowing Havana to function despite a US embargo that has existed since 1960 and was formalised in 1962 after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The sanctions regime expanded over decades, most aggressively through the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which penalised third-party engagement with the island nation. Under the Trump administration, the embargo has hardened again. Recent reporting points to US efforts to block fuel shipments to Cuba and to threaten states and companies that provide assistance with punitive tariffs. Cuban officials have consistently described the embargo as a blockade and have framed it in international forums as a form of collective punishment, at times using the language of genocide to describe its impact on civilian life.
Viewed through that lens, the abduction of Maduro and the attempt to control Venezuelan oil appear less like a simple commercial play and more like a deliberate policy to remove potentially hostile "socialist" governments in the Americas. Venezuelan oil underpins Cuba’s electricity grid, transport networks, aviation and tourism economy, all of which rely on imported fuel. The link between the two countries is material and immediate, which is why the Maduro operation cannot be read in isolation. It connects to a wider pattern of "US hemispheric" policy going back to the Monroe Doctrine, where influence in the region is treated as a strategic prerogative.
International Response to the Maduro Abduction
The reaction to the abduction of Nicolás Maduro was almost uniformly critical of US intervention rather than supportive of Maduro himself. Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, led a joint statement with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay rejecting the unilateral seizure as a breach of international law, emphasising that states should not condone a method that undermines sovereignty and regional stability. The countries did not defend Maduro’s leadership; in fact they explicitly noted their disagreement with his legitimacy, but they refused to validate an operation that they view as setting a dangerous precedent. Predictably, Argentina’s Javier Milei stood apart, openly welcoming the action and aligning himself with Washington.
As the consequences of the Maduro operation have merged into the Cuban oil crisis, international focus has shifted towards humanitarian concerns. With Venezuelan oil shipments disrupted and the Trump administration tightening energy pressure on Cuba by moving to block all oil reaching the island, fuel shortages have worsened into what many regional leaders describe as a man-made humanitarian crisis.
Canada has stated it is preparing assistance, with Foreign Minister Anita Anand confirming that they “are preparing a plan to assist” as Havana faces rolling blackouts and mounting strain on public services. Mexico initially went further, dispatching naval vessels carrying essential supplies, but subsequently scaled back its support after yet more tariff threats from Trump targeting countries that continue to trade with Cuba.
Venezuela’s Oil: From Strategic Asset to Structural Collapse
To better understand the link between the abduction of Maduro and the new Cuban crisis, we have to properly examine Venezuela’s oil trajectory. On paper, Venezuela holds some of the largest proven oil reserves in the world, alongside significant natural gas, gold and mineral wealth. In purely geological terms, it has the ingredients to be one of the richest countries in the world. The tragedy is that this abundance entrenched dependency. Rather than diversifying, successive governments doubled down on oil as the economic backbone, leaving the wider economy exposed when oil prices turned.
By the late twentieth century, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., better known as PDVSA, the state oil company created after the nationalisation of foreign oil concessions in 1976, had developed into a technically sophisticated operator by regional standards. Nationalisation meant that the Venezuelan state took control of production from multinational oil companies that had previously dominated the sector. PDVSA managed upstream extraction, meaning the exploration and drilling of crude oil from underground reserves, alongside refining and export infrastructure.
Yet the wider economic structure it sustained was inherently fragile. Venezuela evolved into what economists call a "rentier state", where the majority of government income derives from exporting a single raw commodity rather than taxing domestic productivity or developing diversified industry. That model concentrates executive power, reduces incentives for institutional accountability and ties national stability directly to global oil price cycles. When prices rise, the system appears resilient; when they fall, its weaknesses are quickly exposed.
Former president, Hugo Chávez, who was elected in December 1998 and took office in February 1999, entered the presidency with a mandate widely regarded as legitimate. Venezuela’s long-dominant two-party system had, by that point, become associated with corruption scandals, inequality and social unrest following years of austerity and the violent upheaval of the late 1980s. Chávez presented himself as a constitutional reformer who would redirect oil wealth towards social inclusion and national sovereignty. In the early years of his presidency, there was genuine enthusiasm among poorer Venezuelans that petroleum income could be used to reduce entrenched inequality. At the same time, elements of the business class and professional elite grew uneasy.
The first decisive ruptures in Chávez’s relationship with the political and economic establishment came in 2002 and 2003. Sections of the opposition, joined by senior PDVSA managers, organised a strike that aimed both to force Chávez from power and to resist his efforts to bring the oil company under tighter presidential control. Chávez believed that PDVSA had operated with excessive technocratic autonomy and that oil revenue should be directly aligned with his wealth redistribution agenda. The strike paralysed exports and sharply reduced production for months. In response, Chávez dismissed roughly 18,000 employees, including a significant proportion of experienced engineers and managers, and replaced them with individuals aligned with his political movement. Production eventually recovered, but the long-term effects were substantial.
The global oil boom of the mid-2000s initially masked many of these structural weaknesses. Brent crude, the international benchmark price, climbed above $100 per barrel, which bolstered state income. Chávez expanded the "misiones", large-scale social programmes that included subsidised food networks, literacy campaigns and neighbourhood health clinics staffed in part by Cuban doctors. One of the most visible cultural legacies of this period was "El Sistema", the publicly funded music education programme that provided free orchestral training to young Venezuelans. Its flagship ensemble, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, continues to perform internationally and has appeared on major stages, including collaborations with Coldplay in their recent performances at Wembley Stadium.
Venezuela's oil revenue also funded a deliberate regional strategy. Petrocaribe, created by Chávez in 2005, offered Caribbean and Central American states oil on preferential credit terms, allowing governments to defer payment over extended periods and ease immediate fiscal pressure. Cuba was central to this framework, not merely as a beneficiary but as a strategic partner. Venezuelan crude flowed to Havana in exchange for medical brigades, intelligence cooperation and technical expertise. Other countries including Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, among several smaller Caribbean states, joined the arrangement, embedding Venezuelan oil into a broader diplomatic network.
When Nicolás Maduro assumed the presidency in 2013 following Chávez’s death, he did so first as interim leader in his capacity as vice-president, and then after narrowly winning a presidential election in April 2013. The result was contested domestically but recognised internationally at the time. His legitimacy became far more openly disputed after the 2018 presidential election, which opposition parties boycotted and which several Western governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and members of the European Union, criticised as lacking democratic guarantees. In 2019, these governments recognised opposition figure Juan Guaidó as interim president during the height of the constitutional standoff.
Maduro’s Presidency and the Economic Unravelling
When Nicolás Maduro secured the presidency in 2013, he inherited a system already strained by over-reliance on oil revenue and weakened institutional capacity. The true stress test came the following year. In 2014, global oil prices fell sharply, with Brent crude dropping from above $100 per barrel to below $50 within a matter of months. For an economy whose public finances depended overwhelmingly on hydrocarbon exports, the collapse in revenue exposed how little fiscal insulation existed.
Oil output, which had averaged around 2.5 million barrels per day in the early 2010s, entered sustained decline during Maduro’s tenure. By 2018 and 2019 production had fallen below 1 million barrels per day. The contraction reflected cumulative structural weaknesses: politicised management within PDVSA, years of deferred maintenance, underinvestment in infrastructure and the accelerating departure of skilled engineers en masse. As output fell, so did the resources available to repair and modernise facilities, locking the sector into a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
From 2017 onwards, US sanctions targeting Venezuela’s financial system and later its oil exports compounded these pressures. Introduced in response to alleged democratic backsliding, human rights concerns and the disputed 2018 election, the measures restricted access to international credit, complicated shipping and insurance arrangements and narrowed export channels.
The social consequences have been profound. Hyperinflation has accelerated dramatically, peaking in 2018. The Venezuelan currency, the bolívar, lost credibility as a stable store of value, pushing much of the economy towards informal dollarisation. Public hospitals struggled with shortages of medicines and equipment. Electricity and water interruptions became frequent in major cities. Food insecurity rose sharply. From 2015 up to now, nearly eight million Venezuelans have left the country, primarily for Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru and Chile. Their arrival placed pressure on host states’ labour markets and public services, reshaping political debates across South America.
What Now for Venezuela and Cuba?
In the weeks since Nicolás Maduro was taken to New York to face charges, there has been no obvious fracturing of the governing apparatus in Caracas. Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice formally designated Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president in early January 2026 to maintain administrative continuity, and she was sworn in soon afterwards. Rodríguez has emphasised continuity with Maduro’s political project while navigating a complex diplomatic environment with Washington, balancing survival and external engagement.
Rodríguez’ interim government has focused on sanctions navigation and alternative trade partnerships, reaffirming strategic ties with Russia, China and Iran and pursuing selective licensing arrangements designed to keep oil exports flowing under the constraints of US restrictions. At the same time, high-level visits by senior US diplomatic and military officials suggest sustained engagement between Washington and the leadership in Caracas, particularly on security and energy issues.
Control over Venezuela’s oil industry remains the linchpin of its future. Whoever ultimately governs PDVSA, its export routes and the allocation of its revenue will shape not only Caracas’ fiscal prospects, but also regional alignments. There is speculation that US-linked firms and investors could position themselves for greater access to Venezuelan petroleum infrastructure if clearer legal frameworks emerge and political conditions allow for it.
This could lead to further destabilisation of the region. For decades, Venezuela has claimed sovereignty over the Essequibo region of neighbouring Guyana, an area rich in offshore oil discoveries that now powers Guyana’s booming petroleum industry. The territorial row predates the current crisis, but tensions have escalated in recent years. Although most of the wold currently agree with Guyana's borders, it is plausible that any US involvement in Venezuela’s energy sector could make that dispute more sensitive, especially if companies seek access to adjacent reserves.
As for Cuba, the shifting geopolitical landscape has accelerated the island’s turn towards alternative energy in an effort to reduce its dependence on imported oil. With Venezuelan shipments constrained and wider sanctions pressure limiting access to fuel, Cuba has endured rolling blackouts and severe shortages affecting transport, aviation and daily life. A report in The Guardian this week describes how solar panels are appearing on rooftops across Cuba at speed as households and institutions attempt to cope with the blackouts. It also notes that the Cuban state has received significant solar infrastructure support from China, including large-scale panel installations designed to stabilise the national grid. According to the report, these new Chinese-backed solar projects are expected to account for around 20% of Cuba’s electricity generation once fully operational. If realised, it would reduce the island’s dependence on imported oil and weaken the leverage traditionally exercised through fuel supply constraints.
All things considered, the recent crises in Venezuela and Cuba underline the question of sovereignty in the region and the West’s general unease with Trump-era policies. With Washington placing new blocks on Venezuelan oil and tighter energy pressure on Cuba, its direct neighbours, Canada and Mexico, have pushed back on the idea that external coercion should define regional affairs. While both have taken a step back in terms of direct aid to Cuba, both of them are moving forwards with policies that seek to disentangle themselves from the US. All of this raises profound questions about the future of the Americas, whether states will continue with the status quo or whether they will seek to reassert their sovereignty in the face of an ever-more assertive US foreign policy rooted in a modern interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.