It can be argued that US foreign policy in the Caribbean now exists in two distinct eras – life before and life after January 3, 2026. In specific regard to our neighbour to the West, the US foreign policy posture towards Venezuela has shifted from confrontation over the political aspects of rigged elections and human rights violations against the population, to cooperation on the economic front, primarily in the strategic oil and gas sector.
The line of demarcation has been the forced removal of former President Nicolas Maduro from office, to face charges of narco-trafficking, on that fateful day in January. In Venezuela, we have seen a corresponding shift: from Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez in the few days immediately after, declaring that Nicolas Maduro was still the President of Venezuela, to her pivot and assumption in full flight of the Presidency, accompanied by visits from the Director of the CIA, the US Energy Secretary and constant communication with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. More recently, while attending the United Nations General Debate in New York, the Acting President had what she described as ‘a historic meeting’ with US President Donald Trump. She said the meeting ‘discussed strengthening the bilateral relationship between our countries and advancing a cooperation agenda in strategic areas such as energy, mining, security and other matters of common interest’ (I wonder if she had time to make the seven-mile trip to the Brooklyn prison to see her President).
It will be recalled during the pre-January 3, 2026 era, that on 1 March 2025, a Venezuelan warship entered Guyana’s EEZ and sent threatening communications to the FPSO Prosperity which was operating lawfully within the maritime space of Guyana.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his fleeting visit to Georgetown later that month, was unequivocal in his response during the end-of-visit press conference. Regarding the possibility of an attack from our neighbour to the West, he said that it would be a bad week for the regime (it should be noted that international law would require any such response of collective self-defence to be necessary and proportionate).
The Secretary explained that there will be ‘consequences’ for such an attack, whether on land or offshore and that it would not end well for the regime in Caracas; it would be a ‘big mistake’ for them and the US has a big navy that could get to anywhere in the world. Secretary Rubio was also loud in his praise for the partnership between the US and Guyana.
Alas, those ironclad assurances had come before January 3; fast forward to today and, depending on one’s point of view, things are getting better, or they are getting worse. Venezuela has embarked on a policy of close cooperation with Washington; Ms. Rodriguez, secure in the knowledge that the CIA has her back, has been consolidating her position, replacing Maduro’s Defence Minister and the senior military command in a move that she says would safeguard Venezuela’s ‘sovereignty, peace, stability and territorial integrity’.
The de facto leader of the Venezuela opposition Maria Corina Machado was unceremoniously sidelined by the US, as Acting President Rodriguez was accepted in the role of de facto Head of State. In fairness to the opposition leader, the CIA assessment was that she was incapable of commanding the support of key sectors of the Maduro administration, especially the military. However, even handing over her Nobel Peace Prize to President Donald Trump was not enough to sway the pendulum of support in her favour and she remains largely on the fringe of Venezuelan politics. Meanwhile, apparently emboldened by the support from Washington, Acting President Rodriguez was brazenly walking the corridors of power in New York in September, with her infamous brooch which includes the Essequibo as part of Venezuelan territory.
Perhaps the clearest indicator of a new dispensation in US-Venezuela relations has come in an agreement signed in August between the two sides, deemed by President Trump to be the ‘biggest oil deal in world history’. In his assessment, the deal would pass ownership to the US of a third of the second-biggest private Venezuelan oil firm, NABEP. But there are conflicting signals: Ms. Rodriguez says that under the arrangement, Venezuela would preserve ‘ownership and sovereignty’ of its resources; yet, the alternative view is that the US would gain 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil during the 25-year span of the agreement.
More objective analysis reveals ‘[T]he US’s oil deal with Venezuela faces multiple legal and logistical problems, including questions about whether it can be implemented’ (The Guardian 26 September, 2026). And yet, after an underwhelming meeting of Big Oil executives convened by President Trump in January 2026, during which Exxon CEO Darren Woods told President Trump ‘that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current state’, companies like Chevron and Eni more recently have been lining up to expand both exploration and production in Venezuela.
While the shift in the outlook of US oil companies towards Venezuela throughout the year has been, in a word, “remarkable”, the Trump administration continues to end up on the wrong side of history in its relations with other high-profile international partners. An inexplicable trade war has broken out with Canada, its trusted partner to the north, with the Trump administration repeating ad nauseam the falsehood that higher tariffs are paid by exporting countries; they are in fact paid by US importers, who invariably pass them on in higher prices to the US consumers.
Other major trading partners like the EU and India have sought to consolidate their trading arrangements among themselves, pivoting away from the US market in more mutually beneficial trade arrangements.
Besides economic warfare, traditional warfare has seen similar flip-flops: in the war in the Ukraine, for which Kyiv had traditionally relied on material and diplomatic support from the US and the NATO countries, they now face a shift in US policy towards support for the aggressor. In this regard, President Trump has blamed President Zelenskyy for the war (which “would never have started if President Trump was in the White House”), has said that any settlement of the conflict would involve a cession of territory by Ukraine to the aggressor – this must be music to Venezuela’s ears – and more recently has called for regime change in Kyiv and the replacement of President Zelenskyy.
The most recent volte-face was manifested in an arrangement based on a US Presidential Executive Order to waive sanctions on Russia, following on a deal to bring about 1.8 million tonnes of Russian diesel into the global markets. While the thinking behind this latter move was to drive global energy prices down, some observers have expressed surprise about concluding such a deal while reports indicate that Russia is feeding intelligence to Iran, to be used to attack US positions in the Middle East; the skeptics have even questioned whether an Executive Order can nullify sanctions imposed by the US Congress.
Here at home, Guyana has been busy aligning itself with the policy objectives of Washington. From taking an equivocal position on whether US military attacks off the coast of Venezuela are in compliance with international law; reserving its position on a CARICOM statement on Cuba, notwithstanding that the statement was based on principle and contained nothing that Guyana had not supported in the past; partnering with the US and other selected countries in the Shield of the Americas; and absenting itself from a Cuban-sponsored vote in the UN General Assembly – all these positions could, in a sense, be explained by the fact that we have chosen to put all our territorial security eggs vis-à-vis Venezuela, into one US basket.
It can be said that the conduct of foreign policy in general and that of the US in particular is based on two premises: countries have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests; and secondly, with specific regard to the current Trump administration, how transactional it is in the conduct of its international affairs. I submit that these two ideas are at the core of some of the shifts in US foreign policy towards Venezuela, Ukraine and latterly Russia, in the area of securing long-term guarantees in the energy sector.
In so far as energy security is the permanent interest at stake, the fact that Venezuela’s oil reserves amount to 17% of the world’s total supply and that it is best suited to US refineries in the Gulf states, makes it more attractive than Guyana’s much smaller reserves (11 billion barrels); it does not help either that Guyana’s crude is of the light sweet variety and is found in ultra-deep water.
As if this were not enough, Exxon already estimates that new oil reserves in Trinidad and Tobago match Guyana’s 11 billion barrels. In fact, word is that Exxon wants to repeat its Guyana success in Trinidad and Tobago, with initial exploration projected for 2027/2028.
It is apposite to recall the justification given by Acting President Rodriguez for the purge she has orchestrated in the Venezuelan military hierarchy, that is, to safeguard Venezuela’s ‘sovereignty, peace, stability and territorial integrity’; that is doublespeak for the pursuit of their illegal claim to the Essequibo. This statement needs to be juxtaposed with her readout of her New York meeting with President Trump, which she said covered ‘other matters of common interest’. The question therefore arises, did those other matters include the territorial controversy, Venezuela’s illegal claim to the Essequibo, the ongoing litigation at the ICJ, and Caracas’ long-preferred option of bilateral negotiation as the means of settlement of the dispute?
In so far as the over-arching permanent interest for the US is securing long-term supplies of energy, if it is the case that reliance on Venezuela and latterly, Trinidad and Tobago, is more of a “sure thing” than Guyana’s relatively smaller reserves, should we anticipate that Guyana could conceivably be at the receiving end of another Ukraine-type “switch up?” Could US support shift from the aggressed to the aggressor, in much the same way as how a transaction to procure Russian supplies of diesel is now more important than solidarity and support for Kiev, inclusive of territorial concessions? Is it not conceivable that Venezuela could solicit the support of the US to get Guyana to abandon the ICJ litigation and choose bilateral negotiation, in exchange for fulfilling its contractual obligations to allow the US access to its oil wealth?
If permanent interests are as real and permanent as they seem, it is quite possible that those interests would continue in post-Trump America. Venezuela would therefore continue in the longer term to be the preferred partner to fulfill US energy needs.
It is submitted that US energy security does not have to come at the expense of Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Securing supplies of oil for the US and getting a binding third party resolution to the territorial dispute are not mutually exclusive. Going forward, Guyana would benefit greatly from being armed with a diplomatic “win” from the ICJ in its quiver, to counter much of the lies and propaganda that have been peddled to the international community, and crystallise the support for its principled position among the UN membership.
While we stay the course at the ICJ, one would hope that in our private conversations with the hierarchy in the Trump administration, Guyana has quietly been promoting the merits of a multilateral solution at the ICJ. The US’s role could better be served at the bilateral level by bringing its political clout in the Hemisphere to bear, in getting the parties to “work the problem” and dial back aggression. The US should urge respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, international law and the binding character of ICJ decisions as set out in Article 94 of the Charter. That ought to strike a chord in Caracas – after all, Venezuela is a key member in New York of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter.
Discussion