The Trump administration has presented Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodríguez with a set of non-negotiable conditions for any resumption of large-scale oil production and relief from the existing U.S. blockade, insisting that the country must immediately expel all Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Cuban military, intelligence, and economic advisers, while permanently severing long-standing economic and political ties with these four nations.

According to multiple sources cited by ABC News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has privately briefed U.S. lawmakers that the administration will only permit expanded drilling and export of Venezuela’s vast heavy crude reserves if Caracas agrees to an exclusive strategic partnership with American energy companies and prioritizes sales to the United States, effectively excluding traditional buyers such as China — Venezuela’s largest single oil purchaser for many years.

The leverage for these demands stems from Venezuela’s current oil-storage crisis: U.S. sanctions and the naval blockade have caused storage tanks to reach capacity, forcing the closure of numerous wells since late December 2025 and creating a severe bottleneck that U.S. officials estimate will leave the interim government financially insolvent within a matter of weeks unless significant volumes of oil can be exported.

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President Donald Trump has publicly stated that the interim authorities have already signaled willingness to transfer between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to U.S. control for sale on the open market, with proceeds to be overseen directly by the United States “to ensure they benefit both the Venezuelan people and American interests,” while Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker confirmed that the strategy focuses on controlling tanker movements rather than requiring U.S. ground troops.

The White House has neither confirmed nor denied the reported conditions, leaving Rodríguez to navigate an increasingly precarious position: balancing the urgent need to restart oil revenue flows to stabilise the economy and maintain political authority against the geopolitical cost of publicly breaking with long-time allies and accepting a near-exclusive economic relationship with the United States.

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