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The US has said it will not renew Chevron’s oil licence in Venezuela, as Donald Trump’s administration hardens its stance towards President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government.
The decision, announced by the US state department on Tuesday, follows conflicting messages from senior figures in the Trump administration over Venezuela policy and efforts by the US to secure the release of Americans detained there.
“This is the last hurrah here,” Tammy Bruce, the state department spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday.
“We are going to continue to deny any funding of the Maduro regime that it uses to oppress the Venezuelan people.”
The state department’s comments come after uncertainty over the fate of the licence. Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions whose brief includes Venezuela, last week flew to Antigua to secure the release of a US hostage from Caracas. On his return, he predicted in an interview that Trump would announce an extension of the licence as part of a broader deal with Maduro.
But the following day, secretary of state Marco Rubio announced there would be no extension and Chevron’s “pro-Maduro Biden oil license” would expire as scheduled on May 27.
“There’s this tug of war between the two sides in Trumpland,” said a former official who served in the first Trump administration and follows Latin America.
Chevron, which has a formidable lobbying operation in Washington, is the only US oil major to have retained a presence in Venezuela after Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez tightened the screws on foreign companies.
The company now produces more than a quarter of the country’s oil and argues that forcing it out of the South American country, which has the world’s biggest proven reserves, will benefit China, one of Maduro’s important allies.
Investors holding Venezuelan government debt have been unsettled by the confusion over the licence but prices on the secondary market have been broadly unaffected by its imminent expiry.
“A lot of investors think that sooner or later the US administration needs to engage with the Venezuelan government,” said one person holding Venezuelan debt.
Rubio’s commitment to tough sanctions on Venezuela to force Maduro from power mirrors his position on Cuba and dates back to his time as a senator from Florida, a state with a large population of Latin Americans seeking refuge from repressive governments.
The Trump administration would allow Chevron to maintain its facilities in the country for future use under a more limited authorisation, Reuters reported.
A Chevron spokesperson told the Financial Times that its general license in the country expired and “Chevron’s continued presence in Venezuela remains in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including the sanctions framework provided for by the US government”. Earlier on Tuesday, the state department said the license would expire at 11.59pm.
The state department and US treasury department declined to comment.
Venezuela’s main opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, has lobbied Washington for tough measures against Maduro and accuses the oil company of helping to fund his repressive regime with its operations in the country.
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But many believe the administration’s drive to expel illegal immigrants will mean it will need to do a deal with Maduro. “There are 350,000 Venezuelans who have had temporary protected status in the US revoked. How do you get them back to Venezuela if there is no deal with Maduro?” said Tom Shannon, a former top state department official on Latin America.
Maduro has doubled down on his position in Caracas following his claim of victory in last year’s presidential election, which was condemned in the west as a sham.
Having survived US “maximum pressure” sanctions from 2018-2022, he appears better placed to resist this time.
“We have a far smaller economy now than we did 10 years ago,” said one senior business figure in Caracas. “Now we’ve got used to it and the government is closer to Russia and China than it used to be. Maduro won’t have such a big problem surviving US oil sanctions this time.”
