The winners in Trump’s Venezuela

Higher oil prices and a post-Maduro political reset are pushing U.S. energy firms to reconsider Venezuela

Photo by Margioni BERMÚDEZ / AFP via Getty Images

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U.S. control over Venezuela can perhaps be summarized best by what the White House’s chief energy adviser signed in a guestbook shortly after landing in Caracas’ main international airport last month: “Drill baby drill!”

As Jarrod Agen, the executive director of the Trump administration’s National Energy Dominance Council, put it to Politico, his gesture showcased the “massive change” underway in Venezuela, a South American nation with one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Nearly six months after President Donald Trump ousted its dictator Nicolás Maduro, the interim government has relaxed longstanding financial restrictions to open Venezuela for foreign investment. 

The lightning U.S. military intervention yielded an outcome that isn’t so much regime change as it is a cosmetic makeover with most of the regime’s underlying political and security apparatus still intact. The Trump administration is calling the shots in........

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