Communist Party of Venezuela condemns handing over of assets to USA

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) categorically rejects the new and serious handover of national assets carried out by the illegitimate and illegal triumvirate that de facto exercises power in Venezuela.

Information revealed in recent days confirms the transfer of a fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves to US companies through agreements negotiated behind the backs of the Venezuelan people, without transparency and outside the constitutional controls that should govern any operation that compromises the strategic interests of the Republic.

Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the transfer of 17 strategic oil fields with approximately 65 billion barrels of proven potential. According to the list that has been circulated, not all of these fields are entirely untapped. The agreement includes new developments in fields where oil production has already been proven and where decades of operational knowledge have been accumulated.

This is not a minor agreement or a simple commercial transaction. We are witnessing the handover of a significant portion of the nation's main wealth under conditions unknown to the country and without the necessary public debate or parliamentary oversight established in Articles 150 and 187 of the Constitution.

Once again, the fundamental issues of Venezuelan political and economic life are announced from the White House and Miraflores simply nods in agreement.

According to information that has circulated since the announcement made by Donald Trump, the United States Department of War would have a direct involvement, through companies linked to the development of these oil projects.

This fact reveals with absolute clarity the nature of the new relationship that is being imposed on Venezuela. We are not dealing with shared interests between two countries negotiating on equal terms and with mutual respect. We are witnessing a US policy aimed at guaranteeing its own energy, economic, and strategic interests through increasing control over Venezuelan resources.

Trump himself, who has called the agreement "a gift," has made it clear that he intends to use Venezuelan crude to meet the energy needs of the United States, including replenishing its strategic reserves. Thus, Venezuelan oil, the patrimony of our people, will end up fueling the American economic and military machine.

Venezuelan oil is becoming a strategic resource at the service of the supremacist pretensions of US imperialism globally, bolstering its warmongering plans and the terrorist expansionism of Israeli Zionism.

Delcy Rodríguez claims that national sovereignty has been preserved. However, her illegitimate reform of the Organic Hydrocarbons Law demonstrates the exact opposite.

The reform promoted by the triumvirate opens the door for transnational companies not only to have operational control over strategic oil projects, but also to participate directly in fundamental decision-making regarding the exploitation of the nation's resources.

This is compounded by an unprecedented dismantling of the tax system. The new legislation eliminates and relaxes a series of tax obligations and reduces the financial commitments of private companies participating in the oil business.

While the Venezuelan people are subjected to miserable wages, deteriorating public services, and increasing difficulties in meeting their basic needs, transnational capital is offered extraordinarily favorable conditions to appropriate an ever-increasing portion of the oil wealth.

The situation is particularly shameful for those who, for years, built their political discourse around the defense of national sovereignty and the denunciation of U.S. imperialism. The triumvirate has ended up subordinating national economic policy to the needs of its own political survival. Today, they act as the White House's watchmen.

They can no longer accuse those of us who denounce this reality of playing into the hands of imperialism. Today, the White House has become a central authority on fundamental decisions regarding Venezuelan political and economic life, while the illegitimate triumvirate carries out and guarantees its designs.

The PCV reminds the triumvirate that Article 138 of the Constitution of the Republic establishes with absolute clarity that "all usurped authority is ineffective and its acts are null."

Those who exercise power without due constitutional legitimacy cannot compromise the nation's patrimony with impunity nor mortgage the future of the Venezuelan people.

The PCV condemns this savage plunder, now presented with technocratic rhetoric intended to give a false appearance of rationality and legality to the blatant looting of the national heritage.

For years, the authoritarian leadership of the PSUV used criminal sanctions and the blockade as mechanisms to operate in secrecy, evade controls, and allow the illegal enrichment of privileged sectors at the expense of the suffering of millions of Venezuelans. Now, it intends to use the discourse of "pragmatism" to justify a new phase of surrender.

The Venezuelan people cannot accept that the national crisis be used as an excuse to hand over the country's strategic wealth to foreign corporations.

Venezuela's recovery requires transparency, sovereignty, democratic control, and popular participation. It requires restoring institutional order, fully reinstating the Constitution, and returning to the Venezuelan people their right to decide the fate of their resources.

Faced with plunder, surrender, and subservience, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) reaffirms its commitment to the unwavering defense of national sovereignty, democratic rights, and the interests of the working class and the people. This historical moment demands that we advance toward the broadest possible popular, patriotic, democratic, and anti-imperialist unity.

No to the handover of Venezuelan oil!

For the restoration of constitutional order and the full sovereignty of the Venezuelan people!

Political Bureau of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)