President Trump said on Wednesday that he would revoke a Biden-era policy that allowed more oil to be produced in Venezuela and exported, dealing a blow to the country’s government and Chevron, which produces oil there.
Mr. Trump did not mention Chevron in his post on Truth Social, saying only that he would reverse concessions granted on Nov. 26, 2022. That’s when the Treasury Department gave Chevron permission to expand operations in Venezuela. The license is up for renewal on March 1.
“The regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that they sent into our Country (the Good Ole’ U.S.A.) back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to,” Mr. Trump said.
A spokesman for Chevron said the company was reviewing the implications of Mr. Trump’s statement. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, has long operated in Venezuela.
Asked about Venezuela last month, Chevron’s chief executive, Mike Wirth, said the company was focused on keeping staff safe and following the law. “We don’t set policy,” he said on the company’s year-end earnings call. “We engage with the government to help inform them of the potential impacts of policy choices, and we’ll continue to do so.”
Oil is the backbone of Venezuela’s deeply troubled economy. The country is believed to have the world’s largest oil reserves, but the government of President Nicolás Maduro has struggled to take advantage of those resources because of mismanagement and underinvestment in its state-owned oil company.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, called Mr. Trump’s move “a harmful and inexplicable decision” in a post on social media. She added that by “seeking to harm the Venezuelan people, in reality it is inflicting harm to the United States, its population, and its companies.” She added that the decision was likely to drive up the migration of Venezuelans, with “widely known consequences.”
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. oil prices were little changed Wednesday afternoon, hovering around $69 a barrel.
The United States stopped importing oil from Venezuela for several years after Mr. Trump placed sanctions on the country’s state-owned oil company in 2019, during his first term. Imports resumed after the Biden administration gave Chevron permission in late 2022 to export oil it produced in Venezuela.
But the United States is far less reliant on Venezuelan oil than it once was. It imports roughly 226,000 barrels a day from the country, equivalent to about 1 percent of U.S. demand, according to the Energy Information Administration. Venezuela produces a denser, more viscous type of oil that is not common in the United States. Refineries in the United States are designed to run on a mix of that heavier oil and lighter varieties produced domestically.