MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
How might President Trump's plan for Venezuelan oil actually work? Benjamin Gedan is here to help us answer that. He served at the State Department, the Treasury Department and as South America director on the National Security Council during the Obama administration. He's now the director of the Latin America program at the Stimson Center. That's a think tank that describes its mission as promoting international peace and security. Good morning, Mr. Gedan.
BENJAMIN GEDAN: Good morning.
MARTIN: So let me make sure I understand this. There appear to be two types of deals happening here. The first, from last week, is that the administration is partnering with a Venezuelan company to take a direct stake in oil production. The other, from yesterday, is private companies like Chevron investing more in Venezuela. So if I have that right - right?
GEDAN: You do.
MARTIN: OK. So how do these new deals fit into the administration's overall strategy?
GEDAN: Yeah, I think the Chevron deal is a really traditional approach from the oil industry, and this is what President Trump was hoping would happen when he invaded Venezuela in January and removed Nicolás Maduro. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the White House, very few oil companies have decided to take the risk of operating in what is a very difficult investment climate. I think that's what led to this extraordinary announcement that the Pentagon itself would become a player in the oil sector.
MARTIN: And Venezuela produces mostly heavy and extra-heavy crude. Is that a significant hurdle in dramatically ramping-up production in the way that the Trump administration is envisaging and, in fact, promising?
GEDAN: No, I don't think that's the big impediment. The United States has the equipment and experience to refine Venezuela's heavy crude. In fact, the U.S. and Venezuelan oil sectors historically were very much intertwined. The real problems are the uncertainty of operating in a country that's governed by an unstable authoritarian regime, and also this incredible need for private investment in a country where investors are understandably very reluctant to risk their capital.
MARTIN: So what would you say are the most critical elements needed for this deal to succeed? And in succeed, I have to say under the parameters that the administration laid out. Because obviously there are other people who think success means something else.
GEDAN: Yeah, absolutely, right? If you set aside kind of the moral considerations of extorting the Venezuelan government for, you know, below-market prices to extract its oil, you have considerations about whether the deal is practical - whether this promised $100 billion in private investment that would be needed to dramatically increase Venezuelan oil production is at all realistic given current political and physical conditions.
MARTIN: Is there a way, though, in which this serves U.S. interests, broadly defined?
GEDAN: Yeah. Well, I think, actually, narrowly defined (laughter) it might serve U.S. interests, which is to say who wouldn't want access to 65 billion barrels of oil, much of it potentially at below-market cost, right? I think that is appealing. This is 17 oil fields that the United States would have access to with, you know, a portion of that sold to the United States at cost, meaning well below what it's worth on global markets. Again, it's unclear if any of that will come to pass, but you could see the narrow appeal.
MARTIN: But what about in terms of a democratically elected successor government? It doesn't serve that political interest. It serves a U.S. economic interest is I - what I think I hear you saying, but it doesn't serve the interest of a - sort of a broader democratic move in Venezuela.
GEDAN: Yeah, I think it's really problematic for the interests of the Venezuelan democratic opposition. I think the message that most people in the United States and Venezuela have received from this deal is that the United States is probably not very committed to a democratic transition. A successor government in Venezuela would inevitably return to the details of this deal and conclude that it's not in the interest of Venezuela to offer these concessions to the United States.
MARTIN: But what about improving the quality of life for the Venezuelan people, at least on an economic basis?
GEDAN: Yeah. The Venezuelan people, broadly speaking, support the development of Venezuela's oil industry. It used to produce more than 3 million barrels a day. It now produces about 1 million barrels per day. And so if a deal like this does generate huge amounts of foreign investment it would help reanimate a Venezuelan economy that desperately needs new activity.
MARTIN: But it's interesting 'cause - we only have about 30 seconds here. What I think I hear you say is if the goal here is in part to dislodge, say, Chinese investment, what this actually does is set Venezuela up for the Chinese model, which is economic development at the expense of democratic freedom.
GEDAN: Yeah, I mean, it certainly seems that way, right? The Venezuelan opposition wants new investment in Venezuela, it wants the Venezuelan oil sector to be back on its feet, but it doesn't want that at the cost of freedom for more than 300 political prisoners and at the cost of a democratic system that Venezuela enjoyed for much of its recent history.
MARTIN: That's Benjamin Gedan, senior fellow and director of the Stimson Center's Latin America program. Mr. Gedan, thank you.
GEDAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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