Analysis

The United States and Venezuela: a history of diplomatic relations shaped by oil, tension and ruptures

By Daniel Sardá · April 23, 2026

# The United States and Venezuela: a history of diplomatic relations shaped by oil, tension and ruptures

The relationship between the United States and Venezuela did not follow a simple line of permanent friendship or permanent hostility. Over nearly two centuries it passed through very different stages: an opening phase of recognition and hemispheric mediation, a long period of oil interdependence, a stage of growing Venezuelan autonomy, more open geopolitical clashes and, finally, a political, legal and strategic confrontation especially marked under Chavismo.

That trajectory matters because it helps explain why the bilateral relationship remains so sensitive. This is not only a story of ideology or classical diplomacy. It is also a story of energy markets, companies, nationalisations, hemispheric security, coups, sanctions and litigation.

How the relationship between the United States and Venezuela began

The institutional starting point of the relationship came relatively early. According to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State, the United States recognised Venezuela in 1835, when it granted an exequatur to Venezuelan consul Nicholas D. C. Moller in New York. The same source notes that there had already been a U.S. consular presence in Venezuelan territory since 1824, in Maracaibo.

That point helps situate the link, but it should not be exaggerated. For much of the nineteenth century, the relationship still did not revolve around oil or modern ideological conflict. It was a still relatively conventional diplomatic relationship within a hemispheric system in formation.

The naval blockade of 1902-1903 and Washington's role

One of the first major landmarks in the relationship was the naval blockade of 1902-1903, when Britain, Germany and Italy used naval force against Venezuela to press for the payment of debts and claims by their nationals. Here precision matters: the United States did not militarily “liberate” Venezuela, but it was decisive in the diplomatic and arbitral resolution of the crisis.

The documentation in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) for 1903 on the Venezuelan conflict shows that Washington acted to prevent European coercion from turning into permanent territorial occupation and to channel the dispute toward protocols, arbitration and negotiation. In that process, the U.S. diplomat Herbert W. Bowen played an important role by representing Venezuelan interests in negotiations with the blockading powers.

The key point of this episode lies in how it ended. The crisis did not conclude with a hemispheric war or a direct U.S. military intervention against Europe, but with a negotiated settlement in Washington framed through arbitral mechanisms. That helped consolidate an important idea for the later bilateral relationship: the United States was willing to limit certain forms of European intervention in the Caribbean and the Americas, but within a logic of hemispheric hegemony and arbitration, not disinterested altruism.

How oil transformed the bilateral relationship

The relationship between the two countries changed in scale with the Venezuelan oil boom in the first half of the twentieth century. From that point onward, the relationship was no longer only diplomatic: it also became a relationship among states, international companies and the energy market.

For decades, Venezuelan oil developed under a system of foreign concessions, with a strong presence of U.S. and Anglo-Dutch companies. That structure turned Venezuela into a strategic supplier for the international market and, at the same time, into a country where the room for manoeuvre of the state vis-à-vis companies increasingly became a central question of sovereignty.

An important moment in this evolution was the Hydrocarbons Law of 1943, which strengthened the state's capacity to regulate the sector and consolidated a more robust state participation in oil rents. This was not yet a rupture with the United States or with foreign companies, but it was an important step in the transition from a concessionary scheme highly favourable to firms toward a more negotiated and more sovereign relationship.

From that point on, the bilateral relationship began to move on two levels at the same time:

Venezuela, OPEC and the search for oil autonomy

The next major turning point came with the founding of OPEC in 1960. To understand why it was so important, the context matters first. The documentation in FRUS 1958-1960 on Venezuela and oil import quotas shows that the oil import quotas imposed by the United States in 1959 affected Venezuela and strained the relationship, because Caracas feared losing market share and bargaining power.

In that context, the creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was an attempt to reorganise the bargaining power of producer countries. The official OPEC page on Venezuela recalls the key role of Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo as one of the founding fathers of the organisation.

A careful nuance is necessary here: OPEC was not an automatic rupture with the United States, but it did make the relationship more political and strategic. Venezuela ceased to be merely an important supplier to the U.S. market and began acting as a country trying to coordinate producer interests vis-à-vis major consumer powers and international oil companies.

Machurucuto and Cuban support for guerrilla warfare in Venezuela

Another important phase of the bilateral relationship during the Cold War was the Machurucuto episode in 1967. The best way to describe it is as a guerrilla infiltration with Cuban sponsorship, not as a large-scale conventional invasion.

The documentation in FRUS 1969-1976 on Latin America records that the capture of Cuban military personnel near Machurucuto was seen in Washington as further evidence of Havana's support for armed subversion in Venezuela. This episode reinforced cooperation between Caracas and Washington against the armed export of the Cuban Revolution.

Machurucuto was diplomatically important for three reasons:

The oil nationalisation of 1976 under Carlos Andrés Pérez

The oil nationalisation of 1976 was one of the major milestones of Venezuelan history and also an important point in the relationship with the United States. But it should not be presented as a total rupture with Washington.

The documentation in FRUS 1969-1976 on the meeting between Carlos Andrés Pérez and the U.S. embassy shows that the process was understood by both sides within a logic of negotiation, compensation and continuity of supply. Pérez even asked Washington to distinguish between the strategic interests of the United States and the concrete interests of the companies.

That point is key. The nationalisation of 1976 was a sovereign decision and a major change in control of the sector, but it was not carried out as an absolutely hostile break. There was pressure for adequate compensation, agreements with most of the companies and continuity in the energy relationship. That is why, although it marked a strong affirmation of sovereignty, it did not destroy the bilateral link.

The Falklands/Malvinas war: a geopolitical clash with Washington

Differences between Caracas and Washington were not only about oil. There were also moments of broader geopolitical friction, and the clearest case was the Falklands/Malvinas war in 1982.

During that conflict, Venezuela backed the Argentine position, while the United States ultimately supported the United Kingdom. The documentation in FRUS 1981-1988 on the inter-American system and the Falklands/Malvinas crisis shows that Venezuela was among the Latin American countries most critical of the U.S. position.

This episode mattered because it touched especially sensitive elements of Venezuelan foreign policy:

Malvinas showed that the relationship with Washington could be strained not only by energy or economics. It could also clash over strategic alignment, the hemisphere and diplomatic history.

The 2002 coup and the breakdown of trust with the United States

The April 2002 coup was one of the most sensitive moments in the entire contemporary bilateral relationship. Here it is useful to distinguish clearly among three levels:

1. prior knowledge; 2. initial political reaction; 3. direct operational participation.

The most important documentary piece is the declassified intelligence brief of April 6, 2002 preserved by the National Archives, which stated that conditions were ripe for a coup attempt in Venezuela. That allows one to argue with considerable confidence that the United States had prior knowledge that a forcible outcome was taking shape.

What is also well documented is that Washington's initial reaction was favourable to regime change and insufficiently careful with respect to constitutional rupture. What should not be presented as a fully closed fact without stronger support is that the United States operationally directed the coup. The prudent formulation is different: there was prior knowledge, an initial political reaction functionally favourable to the de facto government, and, after Chávez returned, a deep breakdown of trust that marked the bilateral relationship for years.

Chávez's oil re-statization and the collapse of the old energy arrangement

In 2007, Hugo Chávez completely reconfigured the oil balance inherited from the 1990s opening. The key was the Orinoco Belt, where the government demanded that PDVSA hold majority ownership in strategic projects.

The Reuters coverage of the 2007 nationalisations and of the exit of ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips from the new scheme shows the logic clearly: the Venezuelan state moved to require at least 60% participation in the projects, and while Chevron, BP, Total and Statoil accepted remaining as minority partners, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips rejected the new framework and ended up leaving, opening long-running litigation.

That point is central because it marks an important difference with 1976:

Sanctions, diplomatic rupture and recent reconfiguration

The most recent phase is best explained as an escalation in stages, not as one homogeneous block.

1. Personal sanctions

The modern framework began with Executive Order 13692 of 2015, directed at persons linked to human rights abuses, political persecution and corruption.

2. Financial sanctions

Then came Executive Order 13808 of 2017, which restricted new financial operations with the Venezuelan government and with PDVSA. At that point, pressure ceased to be only personal and began to affect the state's financial structure.

3. Oil sanctions and diplomatic rupture

In 2019, the confrontation entered another phase, with harder sanctions on PDVSA and diplomatic rupture. The sanctions architecture continued expanding through executive orders and specific licenses, as summarised on the OFAC page on Venezuela-related sanctions.

From that point on, the relationship became a mixture of:

Recent reconfiguration

The latest phase has been especially volatile. Reuters reported in 2024 on the partial reimposition of oil sanctions and the replacement of broad licenses with more restricted authorisations. That confirms that, after the 2019 rupture, Washington's policy was not linear, but rather a combination of pressure, partial openings, temporary licenses and tactical adjustments.

That is why the best way to close this stage is not to speak of “normalisation” or definitive rupture, but of an unstable reconfiguration, in which oil, sanctions, litigation and Venezuelan domestic politics remain intertwined.

Conclusion

The relationship between the United States and Venezuela did not follow a single historical logic. It moved from a combination of hemispheric mediation and early recognition to a long phase of oil interdependence, then to a period of growing Venezuelan autonomy, later to more open geopolitical frictions and, finally, to a political, legal and strategic confrontation especially marked under Chavismo.

That trajectory helps explain why the bilateral relationship remains so difficult to stabilise. It is not only a relationship between two governments. It is a relationship loaded with diplomatic history, political memory, oil, legal conflicts, sanctions and crises of trust.

Quick chronology

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