"The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) categorically rejects this latest and serious transfer of national assets carried out by the illegitimate and illegal triumvirate that holds de facto power in Venezuela.
Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the transfer of 17 strategic oil fields with approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. According to the list that has circulated, not all of these are exclusively virgin fields. The agreement provides for new developments in fields where oil reserves have already been proven and where operational knowledge has been accumulated over decades.
This is neither a minor agreement nor a simple commercial transaction. We are witnessing the transfer of a significant portion of the nation’s primary wealth under conditions unknown to the country and regarding which there has been neither the necessary public debate nor the parliamentary oversight established in Articles 150 and 187 of the Constitution.
Once again, fundamental matters of Venezuelan political and economic life are announced from the White House, and Miraflores simply goes along with it.
According to reports that have circulated following Donald Trump’s announcement, the U.S. Department of War would have a direct stake in these oil projects through companies linked to their development.
This fact reveals with absolute clarity the nature of the new relationship that is being imposed on Venezuela. We are not dealing with converging interests between two countries negotiating on terms of equality and mutual respect. We are dealing with a U.S. policy aimed at securing its own energy, economic, and strategic interests through increasing control over Venezuelan resources.
Trump himself, who has described the agreement as “a gift,” has made it clear that he intends to use Venezuelan crude oil to meet U.S. energy needs, including the replenishment of its strategic reserves. Thus, Venezuelan oil—the heritage of our people—will end up fueling the U.S. economic and military machine.
Venezuelan oil is becoming a strategic resource in the service of U.S. imperialism’s global supremacist ambitions, underpinning its warmongering plans and the terrorist expansionism of Israeli Zionism.
Delcy Rodríguez claims that national sovereignty has been preserved. However, her invalid amendment to the Organic Law on Hydrocarbons proves exactly the opposite.
The reform pushed by the triumvirate opens the door for transnational corporations not only to have operational control over strategic oil projects but also to participate directly in fundamental decision-making regarding the exploitation of the nation’s resources.
Added to this is an unprecedented dismantling of the tax system. The new legislation eliminates and relaxes a series of tax obligations and reduces the financial commitments of private companies that will participate in the oil business.
While the Venezuelan people are subjected to meager wages, deteriorating public services, and growing difficulties in meeting their basic needs, transnational capital is offered extraordinarily favorable conditions to appropriate an ever-increasing share of the nation’s oil wealth.
The situation is particularly shameful for those who, for years, built their political discourse around the defense of national sovereignty and the denunciation of U.S. imperialism. The triumvirate has ended up subordinating national economic policy to the needs of its own political survival. Today, they act as the White House’s lackeys.
They can no longer accuse those of us who denounce this reality of playing into the hands of imperialism. Today, the White House has become a central hub for fundamental decisions regarding Venezuela’s political and economic life, while the illegitimate triumvirate carries out and ensures its agenda.
The PCV reminds the triumvirate that Article 138 of the Constitution of the Republic establishes with absolute clarity that “any usurped authority is ineffective and its acts are null and void.”
Those who exercise power without due constitutional legitimacy cannot, with impunity, compromise the nation’s assets or mortgage the future of the Venezuelan people.
The PCV condemns this savage plundering, now presented with technocratic rhetoric intended to give a false appearance of rationality and legality to the brazen looting of the national heritage.
For years, the authoritarian leadership of the PSUV used criminal sanctions and the blockade as mechanisms to operate in secrecy, evade controls, and enable the illegal enrichment of privileged sectors at the expense of the suffering of millions of Venezuelans. Now it seeks to use the rhetoric of “pragmatism” to justify a new phase of surrender.
The Venezuelan people cannot accept that the national crisis be used as an excuse to hand over the country’s strategic resources to foreign corporations.
Venezuela’s recovery demands transparency, sovereignty, democratic control, and popular participation. It demands the restoration of institutional frameworks, the full reinstatement of the Constitution, and the return to the Venezuelan people of their right to decide the fate of their resources.
In the face of plunder, surrender, and subordination, the PCV reaffirms its commitment to the consistent defense of national sovereignty, democratic rights, and the interests of the working class and the people. This historic moment demands that we move forward with the broadest possible popular, patriotic, democratic, and anti-imperialist unity.
No to the surrender of Venezuelan oil!
For the restoration of constitutional order and the full sovereignty of the Venezuelan people!".
