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US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said Washington could lift some sanctions on Venezuela as soon as next week, as President Donald Trump tries to convince American companies to pump tens of billions of dollars into revitalising the country’s oil industry.
Bessent’s comments come amid scepticism among oil executives about making the large capital commitments Trump is seeking after US forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York for trial.
“We’re de-sanctioning the oil that’s going to be sold”, Bessent told Reuters in an interview published on Saturday.
After saying the US would “run” Venezuela immediately following Maduro’s capture, Trump said on Friday that the interim government in Caracas “seem[s] to be an ally, and I think it will continue to be an ally” to Washington. He said the US would probably not launch further military operations in Venezuela since Caracas has responded satisfactorily since Maduro’s removal.
Bessent said the US is considering how it can best get oil revenue flowing again in Venezuela “to run the government, run the security services and get it to the Venezuelan people”.
When asked by Reuters when sanctions could be lifted, Bessent said “it could be as soon as next week”, without specifying the exact ones. Treasury did not immediately reply to questions about which sanctions Bessent was referring to.
The US energy department said on Wednesday that the US “is selectively rolling back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude oil and products to global markets”.
Bessent also said that he would meet next week with the heads of the IMF and World Bank about their organisations’ re-engagement with Caracas. He added that the roughly $5bn of Venezuela’s frozen IMF Special Drawing Rights international reserve assets could be used to help revamp Venezuela’s economy.
The IMF and World Bank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump gathered the most prominent US energy executives at the White House on Friday to try to convince them to spend “at least $100bn” in Venezuela to increase production and drive down US oil prices.
While some executives were optimistic about the prospect of investing in Venezuela, ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods warned the president that the country remains “uninvestable” without “significant changes”. The FT has reported that the oil industry was unlikely to commit to making large investments in Venezuela without legal, financial and security guarantees from the Trump administration.
Trump told the executives on Friday that “they will have those [security] guarantees”, without specifying what any guarantees would look like.
The US began imposing targeted sanctions on Venezuelans and Venezuelan entities in 2005, with the first Trump administration widely expanding them in 2019. That year, Trump signed executive orders imposing financial and sectoral restrictions, and sanctioning the Venezuelan government and state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
The US president signed an executive order on Friday night barring courts and creditors from impounding oil revenue from Venezuela that is held in US Treasury accounts, declaring a “national emergency to safeguard” that revenue.
“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela”, the White House said.
Additional reporting by Claire Jones in London