Trump's Venezuela pitch to oil execs has 'a lot of challenges' to overcome: analysis
A plan for the United States to control oil refineries in Venezuela has "a lot of challenges" to overcome, according to gas and oil industry insiders.
One anonymous inside in touch with White House officials, when speaking to CNN, suggested Donald Trump's plan is far from "reality" and will likely face more problems than the administration is prepared for.
The unnamed source said, "The United States will have a lot of challenges thinking that they’re just going to bring US companies down into Venezuela and they’re going to operate and turn this around. That’s not reality." Insiders were just as perplexed by the plan as Democratic Party lawmakers, with one saying the administration's plan is unlike anything they had seen before.
Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury said, "I have never in my entire life in public service and as a former (Office of Management and Budget) employee, ever heard of anything like this." Even former diplomats are puzzled by the plan for Venezuela.
One anonymous source shared, "The US Treasury is not set up to handle commercial transactions like this. The Treasury takes in receipts from people who pay taxes, tariffs and fees."
"They take in money in a way that is consistent with its legally authorized mission and then it disperses those in a way which is governed by law."
Part of the problem lay in assurances to the private sector from the administration, which a former senior sanctions policy advisor to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets believes will derail Trump's Venezuelan oil plans.
Roxanna Vigil said, "Right now, the private sector has nothing official to go on to have any sort of assurance, or any sort of confidence that whatever is going to happen, how is it going to be authorized based on US sanctions."
"My biggest concern related to all of this is how are the Venezuelan people going to benefit? Because the most vulnerable player in all of this and the one that so far has had the least say is the Venezuelan people."
An unnamed administration official says previous experiences with oil in Venezuela may have put off some companies. Hugo Chavez nationalized oil companies in 2007 and subsequently seized their assets. This is a move some in the industry have not forgotten.
The insider said, "“It’s not clear yet what we we’ll offer them to spend the billions needed to rebuild the infrastructure, and it’s clearly a risk."