Socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro confirmed over the weekend that his regime will not accept further deportation flights of Venezuelan deportees after President Donald Trump cancelled a Biden-era oil license granted to California-based Chevron to operate in the country.
The socialist dictator asserted that he had no doubt that the United States had “shot itself in the foot” by terminating the license.
Maduro claimed during a regime event on Saturday that the cancellation of the Chevron license has “affected” the U.S. deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants. Maduro further accused the United States of “persecuting” migrants and called for the “defense” of migrants despite the fact that his socialist regime directly caused the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere.
“We have a little problem there, because with what they did they have damaged the communications we had opened, right? And I was interested in the communications we had opened because I wanted to bring all the Venezuelans who are imprisoned and persecuted there unjustly, just for being a migrant,” Maduro said.
“Being a migrant is not a crime. The persecution against migrants must stop in the United States, because migrants have dignity, they have families and they deserve human respect. The human rights of migrants must be respected,” he continued.
In November 2022, during the administration of former President Joe Biden, the United States granted a license to Chevron that allowed the company to resume oil production in Venezuela and sell Venezuelan oil in American markets. The soon-to-expire license allowed Chevron to operate during his first term in the country in spite of the oil sanctions imposed by President Trump in 2019. At the time, President Trump sanctioned the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in response to the extensive list of human rights violations committed by the Maduro regime against its own people.
President Trump first announced the impending end of the Chevron license on social media, explaining that the end of the license was in response to the electoral conditions in Venezuela and the regime not transporting Venezuelan criminals back to their country at the agreed-upon pace. The announcement drew the immediate ire of several members of the Maduro regime, some of whom accused Trump of trying to “harm” the Venezuelan people and predicting that his actions would instead end up “hurting” the United States.
Last week, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) confirmed that the termination of the Chevron license will take place on Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 12:01 a.m., giving Chevron a month to wind down operations in Venezuela.
Maduro had initially agreed to accept U.S. deportation flights — including members of the Tren de Aragua foreign terrorist organization — in negotiations led by Richard Grenell, President Trump’s presidential envoy for special missions. Grenell met with Maduro in Caracas in late January.
Grenell’s negotiations with Maduro also resulted in the release of six unjustly detained Americans the Venezuelan socialists had accused of plotting to “assassinate” Maduro and other members of his regime.
Maduro further claimed in his event on Saturday that Venezuela was “prepared” for any measure coming from the United States, stressing that the “noise” stemming from Trump’s decision to end the Chevron license has “affected” the deportation flights of Venezuelans. As of February, three such deportation flights had reportedly taken place. The latest one occurred on February 24, when 242 Venezuelan migrants were deported.
“If it were up to me, as president, together with the Political-Military High Command of the Revolution and the people, that company [Chevron] would stay working a hundred years more. We have no problem with that,” Maduro said.
Maduro, whose regime had repeatedly denied the existence of a Venezuelan migrant crisis in the past, urged the United States to “cease its persecution” against migrants and accused the United States of allegedly causing the nation’s migrant crisis through the imposition of sanctions against the socialist regime and its officials.
“This persecution against migrants must stop in the U.S., because they deserve human respect. The human rights of migrants must be respected,” Maduro said.
“They created noise to the issue and it is regrettable that this persecution scheme is given to human beings who only seek a better future economically, because of the damage caused by the sanctions that they [the U.S.] made in Venezuela,” he continued.
In reality, the Venezuelan migrant crisis — a direct consequence of the collapse of Venezuela under socialism — began long before President Trump imposed sanctions against the Maduro regime. According to U.N. estimates, 8 million Venezuelans, roughly a quarter of Venezuela’s entire population of 30 million, have fled from their country as of 2024.
Since the early 2010s, Venezuela is experiencing what has widely been described as the worst migrant crisis in the Western Hemisphere, comparable to that of Syria and Ukraine, two war-torn countries, unlike Venezuela. The collapse of socialism in Venezuela was well underway by 2014, two years before President Trump was first elected in November 2016. Venezuelan migration had already experienced a dramatic 2,889 percent increase between 2012 and 2015.
According to a report published by Bloomberg on Friday, the Trump administration is preparing to instruct other foreign companies with existing licenses — such as France’s Maurel & Prom, Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni — to cease their operations in Venezuela.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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