Expressing an opinion without context distorts reality, feeds misinformation, and fragments communication by stripping a fact or a statement of the circumstances that give it meaning.
When judgments are rushed while ignoring the setting, the background, or the intentions behind a situation, the fallout is felt on both the individual and collective level, in more ways than one.
With that in mind, any genuine grasp of the significance of the Venezuela–United States binational oil agreement calls for context—namely, a look back at the country’s recent history. Barely ten years ago, Venezuela was setting the regional standard on social indicators.
Documented sources show that in 2012 Venezuela paid the highest wages in Latin America (a minimum salary of US $476, plus $34 in food benefits, for a total of $510), and in 2014 the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s databases ranked Venezuela as the country with the greatest social equality in Latin America, as measured by the Gini Coefficient.
That model of social welfare, however, became the target of a protracted asymmetric aggression and a multidimensional hybrid war.
So what changed from 2015 onward?
The turning point in this destabilization campaign originated within the legislature itself. The National Assembly elected in 2015 became the political actor that surrendered part of Venezuela’s sovereignty, openly championing a siege against its own territory.
From that very chamber, the United States was asked to intervene militarily, coup attempts were backed, and incursions by foreign mercenaries were made possible.
This opposition faction likewise enabled the stripping of the Republic’s strategic assets abroad, from the confiscation of US-based Venezuelan oil subsidiary CITGO to the freezing of state funds worth millions.
The perfect storm: economic siege and cognitive warfare
The current crisis did not erupt overnight; it was a meticulously engineered process of suffocation. Its formal starting point dates back to 2015, when Venezuela’s designation as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” [by the Obama administration] flung open the floodgates to an unprecedented multidimensional siege.
Financial weaponization: Commercial persecution and sanctions drove a collapse of more than 98 percent in foreign-currency income. Venezuela went from taking in $39.639 billion in foreign currency in 2014 to a mere $743 million by 2020.
The invasion of minds: In parallel with the material collapse, the country became the laboratory of an intense cognitive war. Mass media and social networks were and still are being used to try to break the population’s psychological resistance, fracture national unity, sow informational chaos, and attempt to provoke a fratricidal civil war.
The events of January 3, 2026 marked a turning point in contemporary history, laying bare the rawness of international relations—where interests trump loyalties and strategic resources dictate everything.
International law is dead
The multilateral institutions created after World War II are now hollow structures, powerless to restrain the unilateral actions of global powers. We live in an era where the raw “law of the jungle” is once again being imposed.
The mirror of Gaza: The global passivity and total ineffectiveness of the United Nations in the face of the devastation of the war in Gaza showed that international treaties and human rights resolutions are applied only when they do not collide with the interests of the most powerful.
Kidnapping as doctrine: The abduction of President Nicolás Maduro on sovereign territory by foreign forces violated every diplomatic immunity and rule of international law. Yet the absence of global sanctions or unanimous condemnation consolidates such acts as valid precedents in the new world order.
The normalization of outrage: Earlier cases, such as the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by drone in 2020, had already signaled that national sovereignty is an obsolete concept whenever a military superpower decides to ignore it. Firepower and technological advantage have entirely replaced international tribunals.
After January 3, 2026: The 3 possible scenarios for Venezuela
Scenario A: Total capitulation (handing over the government)
This entails yielding completely to the demands of the United States government and the radical opposition sectors.
The outcome: This path would mean the immediate end of the Bolivarian Revolution project, the repeal of the 1999 Constitution, and the persecution of its social and political movements. It would carry a very high probability of triggering a civil war.
Scenario B: Open military resistance
This path envisions activating national defense in the face of a direct offensive by United States military forces. However, in the twenty-first century the nature of conflict has changed dramatically: modern warfare in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) no longer requires the deployment of soldiers on the ground.
Venezuela has been preparing under the doctrine of the “war of the entire people,” but with a vision of resistance against a prolonged territorial occupation by a foreign military force. The current conflict in the Middle East tells us that asymmetric warfare today also depends primarily on technology.
The invisible offensive: The US attack would not be a conventional invasion, but a surgical, automated campaign concentrated in airspace and cyberspace. AI algorithms would coordinate swarms of autonomous drones, cyberattacks on public utilities, and automated precision bombings, destroying the country’s capabilities remotely.
The outcome: An attempt at resistance would lead to an undeniable military defeat. The human cost would be extremely high, and in material terms it would mean the pulverization of critical infrastructure, resulting in the physical extermination of the nation-state, the absolute subjugation of the territory, and the total loss of our sovereignty.
Scenario C: Asymmetric negotiation
This means acknowledging the tremendous military disadvantage, while using territorial control and the oil resource as indispensable factors to force an international agreement in pursuit of peace and a state of well-being for the people of Venezuela.
The outcome: It is the only path that offers a window for the long-term institutional preservation of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. By sitting down to negotiate under the premise that the West needs a secure and stable oil supply, the government can reach an agreement to safeguard key social achievements, national integrity, and territorial control, and to guarantee the security of popular power and its political organizations, avoiding the total extinction of the nation-state.
The recent oil agreement: a firm path to peace and well-being
Faced with this scenario of coercion, the signing of the recent bilateral oil agreement with the United States represents a historic step toward advancing firmly toward peace, institutional stability, and the well-being of the Venezuelan people.
The agreement is projected to last 25 years, with royalties of 16 percent (at minimum) and an income tax of 34 percent. It stipulates an injection of investments exceeding $100 billion, earmarked for the reactivation of 17 oil fields and for raising national production by more than 1.5 million extra barrels per day beyond what is currently produced.
It is necessary to introduce reference points in this piece to counter misinformation and unfounded criticism:
According to a report by the Tariff Commission of the United States Senate (issued between 1930 and 1931): “…the production cost of a barrel of oil produced in the United States was $1.98, delivered to the Atlantic coast of the Union. And a barrel produced in Maracaibo [western Venezuela], delivered to the very same point, cost a mere 89 cents of a dollar.”
During the 1990s, under the second [Venezuelan] government of Carlos Andrés Pérez and the administration of Rafael Caldera, the Congress of the Republic approved the Strategic Associations of the Orinoco Belt with royalties of just 1 percent.
Far from compromising the nation’s resources, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has emphasized that the subsoil and the reserves remain under the strict ownership and Constitutional control of the Venezuelan State.
The benefits to the country are tangible: the agreement guarantees estimated tax revenue of more than 209 billion dollars in fiscal income for the government, ensuring that every barrel extracted translates directly into funding for areas that are vital to social justice, such as public health, education, wages, and national infrastructure.
The return to Hugo Chávez’s original plan
With this geopolitical strategy, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez continues and picks up the oil policy originally designed by Commander Hugo Chávez.
In his long-term development vision, set out in the Plan Siembra Petrolera (Oil Sowing Plan), Chávez projected a progressive rise in national production until reaching 6 million barrels of oil per day.
The leader of the Bolivarian Revolution always maintained, with pragmatism, that the main natural market for this volume of crude had to be the United States, given the infrastructure characteristics and technical configuration of its refineries.
During his tenure, the government of Hugo Chávez sustained a steady and robust export flow to the US market, regularly surpassing one million barrels per day sold to the US — demonstrating that energy sovereignty and a solid commercial relationship of mutual benefit are not mutually exclusive.
By recovering these guidelines, the national government leaves behind the inertia of unexploited resources. Through contracts grounded in legality and mutual benefit, Venezuelan crude is once again positioning itself in global markets, transforming the country’s energy potential into the definitive engine for the economic recovery and social well-being of the entire population.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is putting Bolivarian thought into practice, specifically the system that Simón Bolívar outlined at the 1819 Congress of Angostura:
“…The fundamental principle of our system depends immediately and exclusively on the equality established and practiced… The most perfect system of government is the one that produces the greatest possible sum of happiness, the greatest sum of social security, and the greatest sum of political stability.”
Francisco Ameliach is a Venezuelan politician, historian, military officer and member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). A former minister under Hugo Chávez, he currently serves as a deputy in the National Assembly, representing the state of Carabobo.
Source: Article on X.
Translated from Spanish by The Assembly Media team.