Venezuelan coup leader María Corina Machado vows to privatize oil: US corporations will ‘make a lot of money’2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, a US government-funded far-right coup leader, vowed to privatize Venezuela’s oil. US companies will “make a lot of money”, she told Donald Trump Jr. in an interview.
By Ben Norton
October 16, 2025
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was given to María Corina Machado, a far-right, pro-war Venezuelan opposition leader who has been funded by the US government for more than two decades.
Machado has helped to lead numerous violent coup attempts in Venezuela, in 2002, 2014, 2017, 2019, and again today.
She is now at the center of the US government’s regime-change war against Venezuela.
In an interview with Donald Trump Jr. in February 2025, Machado made it clear that she wants to privatize Venezuela’s state-owned oil industry and sell off the South American nation’s natural resources to US corporations.
geopoliticaleconomy.com
Usually, the foreign government will overthrow the targeted country and change the oil laws to require a cost-plus revenue-sharing for oil produced. They would receive a fixed amount to compensate for development costs plus a fixed price per barrel produced. Any decline in the price of oil eats into the revenue received by the local government. Such was the case with Gaddafi's Libya when the price collapsed after 2008. He went to the foreign oil companies and demanded a reduction in their share. Complicating the situation, Britain and France lobbied Sec. of State Clinton to oust Gaddafi so their national oil companies BP and Total would replace Italy's Eni and China's oil companies under a friendly government.
Trump has openly declared during his first term his desire to wage war or a coup and take the oil. He is like the Israeli political leadership, which have openly stated for many months what they wanted to do in Gaza. There is not a lot of public or political backlash like one would expect as in the past. |
