US takes a 55 per cent Venezuela oil stake as Colombia opens deportations in Barranquilla
Donald Trump announced a deal giving the United States control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven reserves and a 55 per cent joint-venture stake, with a 100-year concession cited and no official text released. Colombia's President Abelardo de la Espriella ordered deportations to begin in Barranquilla, home to about 182,000 Venezuelans, starting with people who commit crimes and then those whose status has not been regularised; opposition figures accused the policy of xenophobia.
Geopolitics··Midday
Washington announces a 55 per cent stake and a 100-year concession
President Donald Trump announced a deal giving the United States control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven reserves. A US official told CBS News that Washington will hold a 55 per cent stake in the joint venture, and interim President Delcy Rodriguez said the concession runs for 100 years. Trump wrote that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth reached the agreement through a partnership with private business, and that it came at no cost to the American taxpayer. Rubio said the deal would bring nearly 100 billion dollars in private investment to Venezuela. Rodriguez said it covers 17 strategic fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels, more than 100 billion dollars of investment and more than 209 billion dollars in taxes for the state. Venezuela holds the world's largest proven reserves, an estimated 303 billion barrels, but output has fallen sharply from its peak in the late 1990s. Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were seized in a US special forces operation on 3 January, after which Trump said Washington would control the sale of the country's oil. The official text has not been released.[1]
Colombia launches its deportation pilot in Barranquilla
President Abelardo de la Espriella told police at a security council meeting on 25 August to start removing people who commit crimes first and then those whose status has not been regularised. The pilot begins in Barranquilla, home to about 182,000 Venezuelans. About 2.8 million Venezuelans live in Colombia, 95 per cent of the migrant population; nearly 2 million hold Temporary Protection Permits and an estimated 500,000 have no authorisation to stay. Opposition senator Iván Cepeda accused the policy of xenophobia and called it authoritarian, despotic and discriminatory; congresswoman María del Mar Pizarro called it populism rather than a security measure. Juan Carlos Viloria Doria, who represents Venezuelans in Barranquilla, warned against confusing irregular immigration status with criminality, and Ronald Vergara, founder of a migrant organisation, described the prospective removals as truly inhumane.[2]
The oil deal and deportation drive mark two faces of the same migrant wave
Washington's deal reaching into Venezuela's oil fields concretises US control over the country's energy assets after Maduro's capture in January. Rodriguez's figures on a 100-year concession and 65 billion barrels of proven potential show Caracas widening the frame for sharing resources with an outside power, while Rubio's pledge of nearly 100 billion dollars in private investment carries an expectation of revived production. Millions of Venezuelans who fled the same crisis have settled in neighbouring states for years, with Colombia the largest destination. de la Espriella's Barranquilla pilot points to a harder security line aimed at hundreds of thousands without authorisation to stay. Cepeda's charge of xenophobia and Viloria Doria's warning against conflating status with crime show the political and human cost of the government's move being contested. The two developments unfolded in different capitals, yet both return the regional burden of Venezuela's collapse to the foreground.[1], [2]
