On the 3rd of January 2026, a 150-strong armada of the U.S. military’s aerial assets – which included helicopters, aircraft and drones – swooped through Venezuela’s skies pummelling various defensive positions manned by the country’s military as well as security advisors from close ally Cuba before zeroing in on a safe house within the country’s largest airbase wherein President Nicolás Maduro and his wife First Lady Cilia Flores were being protected. Both individuals were detained by and spirited to the U.S. Navy’s amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Iwo Jima wherein they were read their rights, arrested on charges of being engaged in a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy targeting the U.S. as well as for being partnered with criminal cartels designated by the U.S. government as terrorist groups and subsequently arraigned in a court in New York.

Almost immediately afterwards and in a sign that 2026 will be yet another very complicated and transformative year for the U.S.’ geopolitical play with potentially decades of impact, the underpinning narrative around the arrests almost instantly shifted to conversations around Venezuela’s largest export commodity: oil.

In the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that the U.S. is in charge in Venezuela and will be taking over the country’s oil industry. As the earlier article¹ about Venezuela’s standoff versus the U.S. government highlighted, the country’s oil infrastructure is significantly dilapidated due to lack of personnel as well as cash crunches. In an interview on the 5th of January, President Trump stated that the U.S. government would pay U.S. oil companies to accomplish this monumental task within 18 months², who would then go on to presumably reap the benefits and eventually replenish the expense borne by the American taxpayer. To simply maintain Venezuela’s production capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd), an estimated expenditure of $53 billion³ would be required over the next 15 years. Lifting production capacity beyond 1.4 million bpd would require sustained spending of $8-9 billon per year from 2026 (on top of maintenance capital) and an investment of $183 billion from 2026 through 2040 might restore crude production to the 1990s highs of 3 million bpd. Given the low price of crude oil and increased oil availability further depressing prices, experts believe⁴ that U.S. oil companies are likely to have little to no interest in this matter.

However, a key point against the idea is, of course, Venezuela’s steadfast refusal to cede any control of its oil industry to the U.S. On the 6th of January, President Trump claimed⁵ that $2 billion worth of Venezuelan crude oil (around 30 to 50 million barrels) – mostly stored aboard tankers near Venezuela’s shores or in storage tanks – will be handed over to the U.S., sold at market price and used at his discretion: a claim which Venezuela’s government didn’t confirm. Instead, Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez changed rhetoric from a relatively conciliatory tone in the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture on the 3rd to much harsher language within hours⁶ by declaring, “Never again will we be slaves, never again will we be a colony of any empire. We’re ready to defend Venezuela.” Orders were then issued⁷ on the 6th of January to arrest any individual in Venezuela who backed the U.S. operation.

U.S. oil industry executives have remained neutral in their messaging over the matter and for good reason: Venezuela – a country with a near-unbroken history of electoral dominance by left-wing ideology since the 1940s – had nationalized foreign-owned energy assets in two prominent waves: once in the 1970s under President Carlos Andrés Pérez and then in the 2000s under President Hugo Chavez. It is intuitively implausible to assume that the prevalent political ideology within the country will change by the mere removal of a single individual, likely prompting Trump’s refusal to back Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who escaped Venezuela to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in December. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect within the country,” Trump said in a White House press briefing on the 3rd of January.

What ostensibly could have tided over any prospect of fallout from other nations over President Maduro’s capture and the U.S.’ oft-repeated designs over Venezuela’s resources would have been to assuage concerns about foreign investments in Venezuela. Two nations, in particular, are of importance here: Russia and China.

Russia, a long-time ally of Venezuela, had extended nearly $17 billion in loans since 2006 through 2019 for the purchase of Russian armaments and the funding of oil industry projects. Dividends paid out from crude oil sales in this period and asset rights transfers – including a 49% stake in a Citgo refinery in Texas – is estimated⁸ to have reduced the outstanding loan amount to around $3 billion by 2019. While some reports in the recent past indicate that Russia hasn’t been happy with the quality of work done in equipment maintenance and spending on social programs by PDVSA – Venezuela’s state-owned oil producer – over paying dividends owed, its state-owned entities have focused on maintaining existing oil assets, extending joint venture operations, and providing technical assistance since 2019, with potential asset exposure running well over $5 billion.

China is estimated to have a significantly larger exposure to Venezuela’s debt and is its single largest creditor. Decades of trade partnership between the two countries have delivered more than $100 billion⁹ in financing promises from China in exchange for Venezuelan oil, of which all but $10-12 billion had been paid down in the present. China remains the largest importer of Venezuelan oil, which accounts for over 80% of Venezuela’s crude exports and for about 4% of its annual crude oil imports in 2025.

Until recently, U.S.-Russia tensions over U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war were potentially drawing down on account of Trump’s aggressive push for an end to the war while U.S.-China tensions in the midst of tariff hikes and technology export restrictions were also seemingly drawing down with a pause on tariffs and a prolonged discussion on ending them as well as an agreement to permit exports of AI-capable chips after a surcharge payment to the U.S. government. As 2025 ended, however, tensions have been ratcheted up again: Ukraine – with European support – balked at ending the war while China ramped up rhetoric over Taiwan’s continued independence and Japan’s support to Taiwan. On the 4th of January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in an interview¹⁰, “What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States” and named Russia, China and Iran as the adversaries. With renewed intensification of Russia’s war with Ukraine and a sale of over $12 billion of arms to Taiwan by the U.S., Venezuela – and the prospect of substantial strategic energy assets lost – becomes yet another potentially deadly tipping point in U.S. relations relative to these two countries.

While Russia, China and potentially even Venezuela could count on assistance from a certain number of nations – including each other – the U.S. has taken an interesting turn of events with respect to its European compatriots. In the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture, President Trump reiterated that Greenland, a semi-autonomous island region of fellow NATO member Denmark, will be annexed by the U.S. over national security concerns¹¹ by contending that Russian and Chinese ships are “all over the place” while all that Denmark has done for security recently is add “one more dog sled” (a reference to the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit). Shortly before Christmas, he also appointed a special envoy, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, with the mandate to make Greenland a part of the U.S.

Given that the U.S. is already positioned to explore deeper security operations as needed simply by virtue of being a founding member of NATO, this argument falls somewhat flat. Analysts surmise that the true reason for this demand, once again, is oil: in 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated¹² that around 17.5 billion undiscovered barrels of oil and 147 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are contained in Greenland’s offshore area. On the 5th of January, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told the media that he did not rule out future military actions in Greenland¹³ and questions the validity of Denmark’s claims on Greenland. The next day, a joint public statement by the leaders of seven European countries – the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark – asserted that security in the Arctic is a collective effort without explicitly referencing U.S. claims. On the same day, the White House’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that acquiring Greenland ‌is a national security priority and that utilising the ‌U.S. military is ‍always an option at the President’s disposal.

While the prospect of increased availability of crude from Venezuela has currently helped slightly lower the price of crude oil, there is presently no visibility as to whether Venezuela would be willing to comply. As it stands, supply from outside of Venezuela is plentiful. On a long-term note, though, U.S. government actions outline an uncomfortable and unavoidable geopolitical truth for Europe’s powers-that-be.

The seizing of Russian-flagged tanker “Marinera” – formerly known as the Guyanese-flagged “Bella-1” – after two weeks of pursuit by U.S. forces on the 7th of January over charges of avoiding U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, despite a formal request by the Russian government to stop the pursuit and the presence of a Russian submarine in the vicinity will likely only add fuel to embers steadily burning brighter. With increasing seizures of “shadow tankers” potentially linked to either China or Russia and Europe being the launching pad of U.S. actions, the U.S.’ European allies find themselves in a potentially unpleasant position: they remain heavily dependent on the U.S. for territorial security (seemingly has taken for granted for decades) while also facing demands for territorial handovers from the U.S. Meanwhile, their deep association with the U.S. – which they’re loathe to forswear – emplaces them well within the crosshairs of any eventual retaliation from aggrieved parties.

Perhaps the most ambitious action NATO’s European members had undertaken in recent memory was to seek to project power via Ukraine against an ostensibly hegemonic Russia despite not having nearly enough resources to do so. The key assumption powering this projection was that U.S. allyship and cooperation is secure and available without constraint or cost. As U.S. actions in Latin America, the Atlantic and now Europe are beginning to foreshadow, this assumption was deeply flawed: Europe is yoked to the U.S. and not the other way around. Arguably, it hasn’t been the other way around since the Second World War ended.

Ideally, Europe must introspect as to whether this appearance of power is worth the risk and cost to itself. The successful testing of naked U.S. unilateralism by President Trump now lays a very strong precedent for subsequent administrations to inevitably expand upon. Given that there hasn’t been much by way of a resolute response from Europe’s current crop of leaders, perhaps “appearance” is presently preferable over the “reality” that Europe’s fadeout from global relevance will continue whilst other powers around the world will grow and carve out increasingly complex geopolitical alignments. As these alignments grow and shift, so will the flow of power, influence and capital.

Footnotes:

1. “U.S. versus Venezuela: The Oil Angle”, Leverage Shares, 9 December 2025
2. “Trump says the U.S. government may reimburse oil companies for rebuilding Venezuela’s infrastructure”, NBC News, 6 January 2026
3. “Rystad Energy estimates $30-35bn of early foreign capital is needed to make Venezuela oil recovery viable”, Energy Voice, 6 January 2026
4. “Fact-checking Trump on promised US oil company investment in Venezuela”, Al Jazeera, 7 January 2026
5. “Venezuela ‘turning over’ $2bn in oil to US, Trump says, in move that could cut supply to China”, The Guardian, 7 January 2026
6. ““We Will Never Again Be Slaves”: Speech by Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez”, CounterCurrents, 5 January 2026
7. “Venezuela orders that supporters of US military operation be arrested”, Buenos Aires Herald, 6 January 2026
8. “Protecting Russian assets in Venezuela”, OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 6 February 2019
9. “China Needed Oil. Venezuela Needed Cash. Their Deal Faces a Turning Point.”, New York Times, 5 January 2026
10. “Rubio says the U.S. doesn’t need Venezuelan oil but seeks to deny adversaries control over it—and doesn’t rule out occupying the country”, Fortune, 4 January 2026
11. “Why does Trump want Greenland so badly, and what could it mean for Europe?”, Euronews, 5 January 2026
12. “Will Greenland Ditching Oil Reshape Arctic Climate Politics?”, Earth.org, 26 July 2021
13. “‘We set the terms and conditions’: Stephen Miller asserts US authority over Venezuela”, Politico, 5 January 2026