On the oil agreement between Venezuela and the United States

The oil agreement reached between Venezuela and the United States is a giant opportunity to recover investment, oil production and dignity in our country, but an alliance this momentous only endures if it rests on a legitimate government.

Development and Freedom!

Those of us who grew up listening to our grandparents talk about the splendor of Zulia, of Lake Maracaibo lit up with derricks, of the country that exported prosperity and not migrants, know that this is not just a figure in barrels. It is the possibility that this memory stops being nostalgia and becomes the future once again.

The United States is and has been our oil partner par excellence. Throughout the 20th century, the injection of American capital and transfer of technology, together with the work and talent of Venezuelans, made us the most prosperous country in Latin America. The oil that came out of our land supplied the machinery that defeated Nazism, was decisive in defeating Soviet communism and sustained the West’s energy stability in the darkest moments of the Middle East.

Achieving the increase in production that this agreement entails is a task of enormous dimensions. We have the wealth underground, but we lack almost everything else: investment, technology, infrastructure, and above all, the human capital that chavismo forced to flee. Every Venezuelan petroleum engineer who works today in Houston, in Bogotá, in Madrid, is an open wound of this country. Rebuilding the industry also means bringing them back, or at least giving them back the possibility of returning.

It is important to remember that, in the midst of the greatest oil bonanza in our history, chavismo stole more than a trillion dollars. For decades they gave away millions of barrels to Cuba, sold our products at unacceptable discounts to China, Russia and Iran, turning our oil fields practically into a petty cash box for dividing up the loot among themselves and financing the radical left around the world.

While Venezuelans stood in lines for days to get food and gasoline, intermediaries, companies and officials of these regimes were accomplices in enormous schemes of corruption and laundering of the money stolen from our country. We will not forget it. That is why we celebrate that our greatest historical partner is refocusing on Venezuela.

The agreement involves 17 oil fields, with more than 65 billion barrels in reserves. It is so significant that it can return us to the top places in world production. It makes no sense to have the greatest fortune in the world in our subsoil, while on the surface entire cities lack electricity, gas, basic services, roads, quality hospitals and schools, and the infrastructure the country deserves.

Almost 90 years ago Arturo Uslar Pietri left us the thesis of “sowing the oil”; today it becomes relevant. We must take advantage of this enormous injection of capital to tend to and develop the industry, and to modernize agriculture, livestock farming and tourism.

The world is changing at a speed that allows no pauses. Technology advances, electrification advances, and the weight of oil in the global energy mix will not be eternal. For that very reason, we must exploit and take advantage of our oil. Venezuela has already lost 25 years and we will not get a second chance. “Sowing the oil” is no longer a thesis and has become a deadline.

We assume that this is a commitment with the Venezuelan State and not with chavismo, and we warn that its proper execution cannot rest on the same people who destroyed our oil industry.

It is imperative that the strategic commercial allies who will execute this agreement be very thoroughly vetted and that the possible short-, medium- and long-term effects of the relationship with them be weighed. Chavismo has been very skillful throughout these almost 3 decades at using these kinds of strategies and instruments.

We are convinced that the United States knows this, and that we share the same conviction: to reach the full potential of the announced agreement, it is necessary to have solid institutions, legal certainty and a legitimate government that is the product of free elections. No lasting alliance can rest on a government without votes.

We support the agreement presented today and celebrate it as a real opportunity to lift our people out of poverty. But there are still details that must be made known with complete transparency, in order to give our citizens greater confidence.

Venezuela and Zulia need international investment, and we welcome massive investment from the United States. We must seize this economic opportunity. We need it and we have waited for it for decades.

We will work to develop this agreement to its maximum potential, and we will do so in democracy. Because we Venezuelans dream big. We will achieve this dream together: Development and Freedom.