Venezuela and Iran: Oil and survival

Carmen Navas Reyes

Venezuela, under threat following the attacks of 3 January, and in perspective alongside the historical mirror that is Iran, allows us to study the models of classic oil nationalism and pragmatic resistance.

But beyond the economy, some analysts have put forward the theory that Venezuelan and Iranian oil is not just a business, but vital ammunition in the war scenario being proposed by the US

2026 reform: Privatisation or tactical lifeline?

To understand the current reform, we must look at the red numbers.

In 2014, Venezuela had annual oil revenues of close to $40bn.

Following US sanctions and the financial blockade, that figure plummeted to just $740m in 2020.

The state, owner of the resource, was left without the capacity to extract it and without banks to collect payment.

The response was the Anti-Blockade Law of 2020, which gave rise to petroleum participation contracts (CPP). According to inputs from a recent high-level meeting, CPPs are not traditional concessions. They are service agreements where the private sector invests and operates, collecting its investment directly through physical production (barrels), eliminating the financial transaction that the US could block.

The government defends the success of the model: revenues in five years increased to a record $14bn in 2025, which, although far from historical revenues, were considerably higher than the $740m at the worst point in 2019.

The reform now seeks to give this mechanism legal status, removing it from the realm of exceptionality, which often placed the Venezuelan state at a disadvantage.

Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, sums it up as a “flexibilisation of tariffs” in which the private sector provides the capital and the state maintains sovereignty over the oil field.

While Caracas discusses the new legal basis for adapting to the new conditions of energy relations with the US, Donald Trump sent a message from Washington on 23 January confirming the US president’s change of stance on oil geopolitics: “Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world… larger than Saudi Arabia’s”, suggesting that the US could make “a lot of money” from this pragmatic relationship.

Clash of visions and internal criticism

The reform has sparked some criticism.

Former oil minister Rafael Ramírez, who faces corruption charges in Venezuela, described the measure on 27 January as a “repeal of the 1976 nationalisation”.

For those who have historically defended oil nationalism, the CPPs, within the framework of the reform of the Hydrocarbons Law, hand over operational control – which they consider to be the real value – to transnational corporations.

The government counters with ‘war pragmatism’: the 2006 model (with 90% of revenue going to the state) was ideal in peacetime, but unviable under siege.

The new scheme ensures 65–70% of revenue and, most importantly, keeps the industry alive. This represents a forced retreat due to circumstances to avoid total suffocation.

New cold war: the China factor

This is where the global dimension comes into play. Why are Trump and Washington now showing tacit tolerance for this Venezuelan model (as seen through the licences granted to Chevron) while maintaining their tough rhetoric? The answer may lie in the goal of containing China.

Several analyses, including those by conservatives such as Tucker Carlson, have put forward a thesis that resonates in the media and geopolitical think tanks: the US is preparing for a large-scale kinetic or trade conflict with China.

In this scenario, control of Venezuelan oil reserves ceases to be a market issue and becomes a matter of pure national security.

Carlson warns that the Trump administration finds it unacceptable that the world’s largest reserves (Venezuela) and one of the keys to the Persian Gulf (Iran) are supplying China. “The oil is going to China… it should be coming to us” – that’s the underlying interpretation of Washington’s new doctrine.

From this perspective:

• Cutting off resources to the enemy: The goal is no longer just to ‘change the regime’ in Caracas for ‘democratic’ reasons, but to decouple Venezuela from China. If the CPPs and licences allow Venezuelan crude to flow to the Gulf of Mexico (US) instead of Shanghai, Washington wins a strategic battle without firing a bullet.
• The Iranian case: With Iran, the situation is more volatile. Carlson suggests that hostility toward Tehran seeks to cut off China’s main secure energy artery in West Asia. Controlling or neutralising Iranian oil leaves China’s industrial and military machinery vulnerable to a naval blockade. And at the same time, controlling the supply routes.

This ‘new cold war’ explains the current paradox. The US, while turning the Caribbean into a large military base, is allowing Venezuela to breathe economically (through Chevron and, in the future, the participation of other large US companies). It prefers a pragmatic Venezuela that sells to the North, rather than an unaligned Venezuela that is a secure energy supplier to China and, financially, contributes to putting the nail in the coffin of the dollar as a global currency.

Iran and Venezuela – the ‘Petroleumscape‘

This dynamic is not new. Venezuela and Iran share a historical ‘petroleum landscape’. Both suffered Western-orchestrated coups when they attempted to nationalise their resources (1948 and 1953). Both founded Opec, the organisation of petroleum-exporting countries, in 1960 to defend themselves.

In recent years, the Caracas-Tehran alliance has been existential. Iran taught Venezuela how to navigate sanctions (covert fleets and refinery repairs, among others). Now, both countries find themselves in the vortex of the US-China dispute.

The legal reform in Venezuela is, at its core, a manoeuvre to survive on this chessboard: ensuring its own cash flow to alleviate the US threat, even though the geopolitical gravity inevitably pushes for greater pressure from Washington on both countries.

A century-old story

The partial reform of the Hydrocarbons Law is much more than a technical adjustment. It is an act of survival on the eve of a major global conflict.

Venezuela is sacrificing part of its income and operational control (which it was already doing via the CPP with the Anti-Blockade Law) to reinsert itself into the Western market and try to circumvent the blockade.

Ultimately, in the war for global hegemony waged by Washington, which sees Beijing as its main contender, Venezuelan and Iranian oil are the ultimate strategic trophies.

Venezuela and its 100-year history of oil, as we began to study, is one of the battlefields. – Globetrotter

Carmen Navas Reyes is a Venezuelan political scientist with a master’s degree in ecology for human development. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Our America Studies at the Rómulo Gallegos Foundation Center for Latin American Studies (Celarg) in Venezuela. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

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