PDVSA increases US exposure
Electrical and petroleum investment has been promised by United States to Venezuela through acting President Delcy Rodríguez, as PDVSA confirmed negotiations with United States for expanded output: through existing joint venture mechanisms. This news has been of outmost concern to loyalist Maduro supporters who claim Delcy Rodríguez is a traitor. While general population sees relief in this unexpected source of national income. Big question would be on fate of joint ventures that are not partnered by companies outside of Chevron or outside of United States.
Petroindependencia, Petroindependiente, Petroboscan, Petropiar and Loran are joint ventures between Chevron and Pdvsa. These five joint ventures are likely to develop significant capital investment from United States, which will allow them to increase petroleum output for Pdvsa and Venezuela on those fields where those specific five joint ventures are operating. However, there are at least thirty-nine other joint ventures: including joint ventures with countries such as Russia, China, France, Italy, India. An example is Pedrocedeño, what will happen to these joint ventures? How will capital investment go into them? Perhaps we will see a shift of investment away from current investors in Venezuelan petroleum to exclusively United States investors.
Acting president Delcy Rodriguez has been crystal clear that Venezuela seeks to achieve a balanced portfolio of investors not only in petroleum and commerce but also in diplomatic and geopolitical relations. Therefore, Venezuela's relations with China, Russia, and Iran are meant to stay, in spite of desires of United States to use them as our only source of investment. We must also notice that investment in electrical industry is needed: as sanctions or unilateral coercive measures that were applied in Venezuela since Obama days have disproportionately targeted Venezuelan electrical grid, as it was impossible to import spare parts for electrical industrial generation equipment. This led to a rapid decay of electrical grid. A similar situation has been seen in Cuba over decades. So Americans would be investing to rebuild what they already had destroyed many years before having bombed.
President Gustavo Petro and President Donald Trump have surprisingly agreed to conduct an in-person meeting, which means that Colombian President will require to be issued a new visa for United States. Opposition figures of Colombia have acted like Venezuelan opposition. They have extended beyond their way to please Trump regime and they have been sidelined. Donald Trump as usual prefers to deal with strong leaders like Gustavo Petro. Now Delcy Rodríguez has quickly entrenched herself as natural Venezuelan leader, ousting traditional opposition luminaries. Delcy Rodríguez claims that Venezuelan food industry excels for having store shelves stocked during one hundred and eleven days, which is quite impressive indeed. There is a variety of food, vegetable, and meat produce available in all markets in Venezuela.
Cost continues being prohibitive, as Venezuela's inflation has not been tackled yet. Exchange rate of official transactions from Bolivars to dollars is already at 321, while in order to buy a cryptocurrency USDT, you already must pay 700 bolivars: more than double official rate. We sincerely hope that as urgent negotiations regarding electrical and petroleum investment are settled, emphasis will be focused in narrowing differential between both exchange rates. If possible such differential should be eliminated as arbitrage opportunities only tend to favor a selected few.
Even though Venezuela is prepared to continue its relationship with powers such as Iran, Russia and China, their presence in our country will certainly be a geopolitical power game with United States. Venezuelans at this particular moment will welcome added United States investment. We will certainly fine-tune correlation of forces later on, once our relationship with United States stabilizes. For time being, China is prepared to substitute prior petroleum imports from Venezuela to new imports for Iran. China accommodates for United States desire to continue treating all of Latin America, including Venezuela, as its backyard. That will provide an influx of cash to Iran, which is another adversary of United States, which might engage into war with Israel.
Russian tanker Bella-1 was carrying Venezuelan petroleum related products. It was chased by United States Coast Guard and Navy during several weeks across oceans, until Bella-1 was finally seized off coast of United Kingdom and Iceland. Crews have been detained. Russia has only requested them back through standard diplomatic means. During last few days it seems that Russia, China, and Iran have not demonstrated much response power, just as Venezuela wasn't able to either. It looks like United States is with total impunity placing its rules across world with no consequences. It looks like international coalition despising United States methods of trade and persuasion has not yet materialized. One country with only 4% of world's population is able to place in submissive mode to rest of the planet.
Perhaps Russia, China, and Iran are waiting for other occasions to become more to offensive, at other geopolitical locations away from Venezuela. It certainly looks like United States backyard of Latin America and Caribbean is being enforced as a reality. China, Russia, and Iran are not willing to fight United States near its vicinity. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has appointed González López for presidential guard. Previous holder of that position is on investigation, as he may have applied policies that led to a deficient security facilitating extraction of President Maduro.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke about a first current phase of stabilization in Venezuela, followed by recovery which is meant to occur as United States investment in petroleum and electrical industries flows into Venezuela. It will be challenging to see how those investments actually come into Venezuelan economy: as United States is obsessed with idea that government led by Acting president Delcy Rodríguez is not supposed to touch funds, as naval blockade continues. We still might have to wait a few weeks or months to detail specifics on how this logistical operation can occur. While stabilization and recovery will be welcome, a transition to another kind of government is not supported by Venezuelan constitution. Elections for a new president are not scheduled until 2030.
Theoretically, Delcy Rodríguez should be able to secure periodical extensions of her mandate: by reasonings that will be provided by Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice in next few weeks or months. Not necessarily Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth or Stephen Miller are running Venezuela. Instead, President Delcy Rodríguez has identified common objectives such as an increased petroleum investment and commercialization flow, and need for Venezuelan industry to use electrical investment from United States. It is likely that she agreed to those two specific policy actions from United States. She lets Donald Trump use narrative that he is imposing them: so that domestic consumption of public opinion in United States can continue claiming that they run Venezuela. But when she addresses Venezuela, she uses regular narrative geared to Venezuelan population.
It remains to be seen what new investment projects, or continuity of existing projects will be provided by Russia, China or Iran: to support thesis that Venezuela is still actively diversifying its partners. During last few days, there has been no talk on military preparations. It is likely that relations of Venezuela with militaries of Russia, China and Iran may have deteriorated: as all of them eagerly supplied their equipment so that Venezuelans could defend ourselves from United States invasion. None of that equipment was used. Those countries may not be willing to invest much further in Venezuelan military either. There is a willingness to continue our relationship with other countries. However, it is unclear how those enhanced relations with our traditional friends will be enforced, as Venezuela seems to be sticking completely to United States priorities.
Minister of Interior and Justice Diosdado Cabello finally appeared on his Wednesday night comedy show El Mazo Dando, which was awaited as we were expecting it would entail some changes. Indeed, opposition communities in Venezuela were happy to see that Captain Diosdado Cabello no longer sounds bully, but rather submissive and depressed, even though he considered that acting presidency of Delcy Rodríguez is constitutional solution for unavoidable fact that President Maduro is no longer in power. It will take time for Diosdado and his team to get used to strictly following lines of command coming from acting President Delcy Rodriguez who used to be his internal rival at government's party. She carefully discusses policies and agreements with United States investors.
Acting President Delcy Rodriguez has called for dialogue between different points of view, and nonacceptance of fascism in Venezuelan society. Hardline supporters of both government and opposition are not pleased with this turn of events. Opposition wanted a clean sweep of government and vice versa. We have been fighting so much that cooperation seems new, while mistrust is present in every single proposal. Both Nicolás Maduro and traditional opposition leaders are gone probably forever.
Nicolás Maduro's fortune seized in Switzerland is gigantic, consisting of bitcoins, gold and hard currency. It is likely that this corruption money, to name of Nicolás Maduro, will be a strong weapon that will be used by United States New York court pursuing him: as evidence that corruption money may have been funded by drugs or other corrupt activities. All sides are preparing their legal cases. Next time Nicolás Maduro will appear in court will be during month of March. We are still at beginning of January. Venezuelans will soon refocus our strategies for this year. There might be economic opportunities on verge of being untapped. Perhaps we might slow down political discourse, which tended to be in trashing our adversaries, as new business opportunities flow downstream.