February 4, 2026 | The Dispatch
Why Is the Trump Administration Wiring Venezuelan Oil Revenue to Qatar?
The emirate is not a neutral player, nor is it aligned with Washington.
February 4, 2026 | The Dispatch
Why Is the Trump Administration Wiring Venezuelan Oil Revenue to Qatar?
The emirate is not a neutral player, nor is it aligned with Washington.
Excerpt
The Trump administration hasn’t been shy about its plans to control Venezuela’s oil industry “indefinitely” since the U.S. captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in early January. Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but decades under socialist rule left production wanting. Western energy companies, boxed out of Venezuela when Maduro’s predecessor nationalized the country’s oil industry, say Caracas owes them billions of dollars.
“We are running the oil in Venezuela,” President Trump said on January 23.
Much has been made of the Trump administration’s moves to rehabilitate Venezuela’s oil industry, including the decision last week to begin rolling back sanctions. Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez subsequently signed a law opening the country’s oil sector to privatization. Yet for all the buzz, there have been only whispers about the role played by a third country: Qatar.
Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security and foreign policy.