President of Venezuela's National Assembly, PSUV Deputy Jorge Rodriguez, speaking during a plenary on the parliament floor. Photo: Ultimas Noticias/file photo.
“The phones have not stopped ringing from all over the planet—from traders, countries, buyers, consumers, energy traders—all desperate to replace the role Chevron had been fulfilling here.” This statement was made Thursday, March 6, by Venezuelan National Assembly (AN) President Jorge Rodríguez during a session condemning the Trump administration’s decision to revoke Chevron’s OFAC license to operate in Venezuela.
“And I’ll say more: Petróleos de Venezuela is already in those oil fields. It doesn’t need 30 days to take control and lead the plan that President Nicolás Maduro announced yesterday,” Rodríguez added. “In purely tangible, objective terms, the phones haven’t stopped ringing. US imperialism must still be nursing the wound from the bullet it shot into its own foot.”
Rodríguez explained that revoking Chevron’s license has blocked Venezuela from paying its debt to the company. “As a responsible debtor, we’re now prohibited from settling our outstanding debts with Chevron. Those funds will instead be reinvested into our oil industry to boost daily production. Thank you for that,” he remarked.
“We wanted to pay; they won’t let us. Beyond the absurdity of believing they can halt the momentum of the Bolivarian Revolution—whether economically, commercially, or under the so-called free enterprise touted by global neoliberals—this is nothing but a self-inflicted wound by US imperialism,” he reiterated.
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Simón Bolívar Law
Rodríguez urged Attorney General Tarek William Saab to apply the Liberator Simón Bolívar Organic Law against those who pushed for Chevron’s license revocation. “We demand the attorney general enforce this law so those behind these actions against Venezuela face consequences,” he said.
“They must pay with prison terms, disqualification from office, and asset seizures. Let the full weight of this law and others we’ve enacted fall upon them,” Rodríguez added during debate over a resolution rejecting “the nefarious unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US government against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, backed by the fascist opposition.”
Far-right politician María Corina Machado and the Popular Will party recently celebrated the OFAC license revocation, which had allowed Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela since November 2022.
An Colonial Attack on the Country
AN First Vice President Pedro Infante noted that License 41 permitted Chevron’s joint ventures in Venezuela to produce, extract, and sell oil to the US. “It allowed Venezuela to produce, market, and export oil through Chevron—a critical revenue stream,” he said.
Infante compared the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)—the US Treasury Department agency overseeing sanctions—to the colonial-era Guipuzcoana Company, which monopolized trade in Spanish-controlled Venezuela during the 1700s. “No country grants such licenses freely today, yet the US still treats us with this colonial mindset,” he stated.
(Diario VEA) by Yuleidys Hernández Toledo
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/DZ
