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| Thema des Tages: Die SPD muss mit ihrem radikalen, «woken» Teil brechen. Nur so sie kann Deutschland voranbringen |
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| Es rumpelt ordentlich in der Partei |
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| Für die CDU ist die Migrationsfrage kaum verhandelbar |
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| Nur noch dem Namen nach eine «grosse Koalition» |
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In der Anfrage der Union an die Bundesregierung geht es darum, wie viel Geld Nichtregierungsorganisationen vom Staat erhalten. Darunter die «Omas gegen Rechts» oder das Recherchenetzwerk «Correctiv».
Wie steht es um die politische Ausrichtung von staatlich geförderten Organisationen? Zu diesem Thema haben die Unionsparteien CDU und CSU der Bundesregierung zwei Tage vor der Bundestagswahl eine Anfrage gestellt, die am Montag publiziert wurde. Auf 32 Seiten listet die Union 551 Fragen auf. Sie befassen sich unter anderem mit der Initiative «Omas gegen Rechts» oder dem Recherchenetzwerk «Correctiv»
Electoral conditions within Venezuela have not been fulfilled, Trump arguedUS President Donald Trump has revoked the oil concessions granted to Venezuela by his predecessor, Joseph Biden, due to non-compliance with electoral conditions and lack of cooperation in the process of deporting “violent criminals,” it was announced in Washington DC. This decision impacts Chevron's operations in Venezuela, which were authorized by Biden in 2022.
Trump accuses the Chavista regime of President Nicolás Maduro of failing to meet agreed-upon conditions and not picking up Venezuelan irregular migrants. The “oil transaction agreement” is linked to ”electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been fulfilled by the regime of (President Nicolás) Maduro“, wrote the Republican president in his social network Truth Social, to add that ”therefore, I order that the ineffective and unfulfilled Biden Concession Agreement be rescinded as of the March 1 renewal option.”
Washington does not recognize Maduro's reelection for a third term (2025-2031) and supports the exiled Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims victory in the July 28, 2024, elections. He attended Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.
Venezuelan Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said the measure was “harmful and inexplicable” since it could have significant macroeconomic consequences for the South American country, affecting income flow and exchange rates. “We categorically reject this type of action publicly requested by the country's extremist and failed opposition,” Rodríguez said in a statement. She then quoted Uruguayan independence hero José Gervasio Artigas: “Let us expect nothing but from ourselves.”
In the meantime, experts suggest waiting for the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to rule on the matter by March 1. Biden reimposed most of the sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gas in April 2024 after Maduro reneged on his electoral commitments, but maintained individual licenses to some oil companies such as US Chevron, Spain's Repsol, or France's Maurel & Prom.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration sent Richard Grenell to Caracas. He came back with six US nationals formerly held by the Bolivarian regime, in addition to a promise - according to Washington - that Venezuelan irregular migrants expelled by the United States would be welcomed back to their country.
An oil refinery on Lake Maracaibo in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Photographer: BloombergPresident Donald Trump said he plans to revoke Chevron Corp.’s oil license to operate in Venezuela, threatening to torpedo the nation’s slow economic recovery.
The US president referred to a concession agreement from November 2022, which would match the date that Chevron was granted a license to produce and sell oil in Venezuela despite sanctions against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Under the terms of the license, Chevron would have a six-month wind-down period to exit Venezuela.
“We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement,” Trump wrote in a social media post. He cited the electoral conditions in Venezuela and the country’s failure to take back migrants from the US as quickly as it promised.
The move represents an intensification of US restrictions on the South American nation after Maduro’s contested reelection and a sweeping crackdown on his opponents. And Trump is promising to hit where it hurts most: the economy, at a time when almost 80% of citizens say they feel frustrated and disappointed following Maduro’s inauguration last month, according to pollster Meganalisis.
“The United States government has made a harmful and inexplicable decision to announce sanctions against the American company Chevron,” Venezuela Vice President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez said in a statement. Instead of hurting the Venezuelan people, the move is causing “damage to the US, its people and its companies.”
Chevron is the only US oil major left in Venezuela and serves as a vital lifeline, having helped tame runaway inflation in recent years. The company’s oil production, which is operated through joint ventures with state-controlled Petroleos de Venezuela SA, totaled more than 200,000 barrels a day as of mid-2024. It accounts for about 20% of the oil-rich nation’s production and has helped boost overall output above 1 million barrels a day.
“We are aware of today’s announcement and are considering its implications,” Chevron spokesperson Bill Turenne said by email. “Chevron conducts its business in Venezuela in compliance with all laws and regulations, including the sanctions framework provided by US government.”
The US government has allowed a few other oil majors to keep buying and producing Venezuelan crude, including Reliance Industries Ltd. of India, Repsol SA of Spain and France’s Maurel & Prom. Trump’s pronouncement raises questions about their ability to continue their operations.
If Trump actually follows through — and isn’t just using the threat as a negotiation tactic — it could cut Venezuela’s overall production by 100,000 barrels per day, said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. And other foreign oil producers may follow suit.
“Venezuela might see its revenues decrease by the void of barrels sold at US refineries at market price rerouting to the Asia market with discount,” he said. “But it could compensate this by taking all of Chevron’s shares of their production.”
Trump has been telegraphing the revocation of the license for weeks, with both the president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicating Chevron’s operating license was under review.
It also dovetails with his repeated, confident assertions that the US is so rich in oil and gas bounty that it doesn’t need to rely on foreign supplies, whether from North American allies or Venezuela. The president has promised to “drill, baby, drill” and entice oil companies to tap more of what he calls the “liquid gold” under US soil.
Yet oil exports from Venezuela have been seen as helping blunt the potential impact of Trump’s promised tariffs on Canadian and Mexican crude, currently on hold until early March. And even without immediate new levies on Canadian crude, removing Venezuelan supplies could act to boost domestic energy costs, running counter to the president’s bid to tame inflation and pare fuel prices.
The US imports about 250,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude, mostly for refineries on the Gulf Coast. Valero Energy Corp., the third-biggest US fuelmaker, was the top user of Venezuelan oil at the end of 2024, followed by Chevron, which uses the crude in its own refineries as well as sells it to others.
“They seek to harm the Venezuelan people but they are harming the US, its people and its companies,” Rodriguez said in statement.
By granting the waiver to Chevron in 2022, then-US President Joe Biden sought to pressure Maduro into democratic reforms and increase the flow of oil to US refineries at a time when US gas prices were at record highs.
Chevron — having endured political convulsions, military coups, civil unrest and economic collapse in its century-long history in Venezuela — is a little more shielded.
It removed its Venezuelan assets from its reserves given the uncertainties around the sanctions waiver. That means the country’s production doesn’t contribute to earnings and is not included in the company’s financial forecasts.
Its shares fell less than 1% in New York after Trump’s post.
Meanwhile, dollar bonds from Venezuela and its state-oil company fell to the day’s low on the announcement, according to indicative pricing data collected by Bloomberg.
Chevron’s JVs are estimated to have contributed some $4 billion in tax payments over the past two years, representing about a quarter of the regime’s total revenue over the same period, according to Ecoanalítica, a Caracas-based consultancy. They have been a driving force behind the uplift in Venezuela’s economy, which is, is on track to grow 9% this year.
Canceling the license may prove more complicated for Trump than first thought.
Operational control over Chevron’s joint ventures is likely to pass to PDVSA, which in turn could flow revenues back to Maduro.
Further, the dollars Chevron generates from rising oil production stay within Venezuela and mostly get reinvested in local currency through private banks, which then lend to local companies to boost the economy — all out of the clutches of Maduro’s government.
An end to this source of private revenue may see inflation return, which could increase migration over the long-run.
Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado — who Maduro banned from running in last year’s election — is scheduled to appear Wednesday on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast.
“I never bought into the idea of Maduro becoming Trump’s best friend,” said Alejandro Arreaza, an economist at Barclays in New York. “The American government is using a good-cop-bad-cop strategy and now the bad cop is coming out to ratchet up pressure.”
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Chevron Is Essential to Venezuela’s Economy — and Trump Knows It Venezuela, PDVSA Bonds Slide on Trump Reversing Oil Concessions |
(Updates with comments from Venezuela’s government and Chevron starting in paragraph 5
