A new US license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from transactions with China among other countries, which if true, could lead to India purchasing the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year and thus halving its import of Russian oil.
RTdrew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued “Venezuela General License 48” allowing US companies to provide “goods, technology, software, or services for the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas inVenezuela” withtwo strings attached.
The first one is that any contract that their partners enter into will be governed under the laws of the US, which segues into the second oneprohibiting any transactions with Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.
It’s for this reason that RT interpreted the abovementioned license in their tweet as the “US Ban[ning] Venezuelan Oil Producers From Doing Business With Russia & China”.
That’s reasonable since it was explainedherethat the Trump Doctrine isshaped by Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial”, which in its simplest form, seeks to deny strategic resources to US rivals such as the previously described countries.
This is especially the case as regards China, the US’ systemic rival, but Trump earlier sent mixed signals.
He recentlywelcomedChinese investment in Venezuela’s energy industry, but in retrospect, that might have just been for the sake of managing the Sino-US rivalry amidst their ongoing trade talks.
Trump wants a deal with Xi, which might become much more difficult for his counterpart to agree to if he openly declares his intent for the US to deny China continued access to Venezuela’s strategic resources. It therefore makes sense for the US to quietly implement this policy through its new license instead.
Even prior to its promulgation, Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrovcomplainedthat “our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela”, so this policy was already being informally implemented by Delcy Rodriguez’s government under US pressure.Apart from Cuba, none of the countries that the US’ new license prohibits transactions with are dependent on Venezuelan energy, but cutting them out of this industry serves another purpose arguably even more strategic than denying them its resources.
Trump boasted earlier this month that India agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil as part of the terms of itstrade dealwith the US and replace its imports with American and possibly Venezuelan oil instead. It was hitherto assessed prior to the US’ new license that “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil” in no small part due to the Venezuelan Ambassador to Chinaconfirminghis country’s interest in continuing exports to it and Trump welcoming Chinese investment in this industry.
Source: ZeroHedge News
