Trump threatens Cuba to ‘make a deal, before it is too late’ –

Following Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump vowed to secure access for US companies to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Chevron is currently the only US firm licensed to operate in Venezuela, through a sanctions exemption.

The White House said Saturday Trump had signed an emergency executive order protecting US-held revenues derived from sales of Venezuelan oil, to prevent them from being seized by courts or creditors.

At a White House meeting on Friday, Trump pressed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela’s reserves, but was met with a cautious reception.

ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods dismissed the country as “uninvestable” without sweeping reforms.

Experts say Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is creaky after years of mismanagement and sanctions.

Trump said foreign firms had enjoyed no meaningful protections under Maduro, “but now you have total security. It’s a whole different Venezuela.”

He stressed that the companies would deal only with Washington, not Caracas, when exploiting Venezuela’s oil resources.

Washington has maintained maritime pressure on oil tankers in the Caribbean, where it seized a fifth tanker carrying Venezuelan crude on Friday. Trump said that oil would be sold.

A sustained increase in Venezuelan oil production would take “months to years,” Latin America specialist Orlando J. Perez, of the University of North Texas at Dallas, told AFP.

“It requires legal clarity on who can sign contracts, predictable sanctions relief, credible security conditions for firms, and major capital/technical inputs in a degraded sector.”

France24 report

Trump tells Cuba to ‘make a deal, before it is too late’

Donald Trump has urged Cuba to “make a deal” or face consequences, warning that the flow of Venezuelan oil and money would now stop.

The Trump administration’s tactic of confiscating sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers has already begun to worsen a fuel and electricity crisis in Cuba.