Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Former Conindustria President Luigi Pisella, who is also a member of the Venezuelan government-created Special Commission for the Evaluation and Classification of Public Assets, has revealed that Washington retained approximately US $4.7 billion of Venezuela’s oil-export income during the first half of 2026 as “payment” for the US military operation that resulted in the January 3 bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Pisella’s estimate indicates that US imperialism appropriated almost one-third of Venezuela’s gross oil-export revenue as war booty. Although the Venezuelan authorities have neither confirmed nor denied his figures, analysts consider his disclosure the closest approximation to an official explanation of how Washington has divided and administered the country’s principal source of foreign currency since the imperial attack.

Pisella is a former leader of Conindustria, a historically far-right-leaning Venezuelan business association that has adopted a closer working relationship with the Chavista government in recent years. His membership in the special commission and links with representatives of President Nicolas Maduro and Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s governments lend particular weight to figures that might otherwise be dismissed as private speculation.

Oil income subjected to imperial deductions
On July 21, The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration had collected over US $13 billion from Venezuelan oil sales during 2026, while the destination of most of that money remained unclear. Local oil-sector estimates placed PDVSA’s own revenue between January and June at approximately US $11.2 billion. Pisella, however, calculated the country’s total first-half oil billing at US $14.5 billion.

“Oil revenue is actually $14.5 billion for the first half of 2026,” Pisella said during an August 4 interview with financial analyst Pedro Penzini on the Unión Radio network. He then questioned whether the full amount had entered Venezuela before explaining that Washington had withheld approximately US $4.7 billion allegedly to cover the cost of its January military intervention.

Pisella connected that deduction with repeated statements by US President Donald Trump claiming that Venezuela had paid for Washington’s January military operation with its own oil. Trump has referred to a volume of between 40 million and 60 million barrels—a bare admission that the US empire forced its victim to finance the operation conducted to bomb its territory, murder over 100 people, and abduct its constitutional president and first lady.

Subtracting the US $4.7 billion seized by Washington from the US $14.5 billion in gross revenue leaves approximately US $9.8 billion. According to Pisella, further deductions must then be made for the portion produced and exported by Chevron, which he estimated at roughly 250,000 barrels per day, or 27% of total Venezuelan oil exports.

Pisella placed Chevron’s corresponding gross revenue at around US $4 billion. However, production expenses, debt payments, and the exchange of revenue for imported refining diluents would reduce the amount by approximately US $3 billion. Under his calculations, only around US $7 billion from Venezuela’s oil exports should therefore have entered the country during the first half of 2026.

Oil balance mirrors BCV currency placements
Pisella linked this remaining balance to the foreign currency supplied by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to Venezuela’s exchange market. He said BCV placements reached US $6.7 billion during the first six months of 2026—more than twice the US $3 billion supplied throughout the entirety of 2025.

The businessman argued that the estimated net oil income and the amount placed through public and private banks were consequently “reasonably balanced.” Nevertheless, the numerical correspondence does not resolve fundamental questions about how Washington administered the revenue, when transfers were authorized, what additional conditions were imposed on Venezuela, or whether every deduction was genuinely connected to oil production.

Official opacity deepens frustration
Chavista analysts have warned that it is unacceptable for the Venezuelan people to obtain information of such strategic importance from a non-government business representative rather than from the authorities responsible for protecting and administering national resources. Even more serious, they argue, is the continuing official opacity surrounding this and other major financial and political decisions adopted since US imperialism imposed its sui generis relationship with the Chavista Venezuelan government.

The Financial Times acknowledged that evidence of an economic recovery in Venezuela remained relatively muted six months after Washington seized control of the funds, potentially indicating that the US had not returned all the revenue to Caracas. The observation represents a rare moment of accuracy from a corporate outlet that ordinarily reproduces Washington’s preferred narratives on Venezuela. It also contrasts with the artificial optimism promoted after the bombing by far-right journalists and analysts—including Penzini—and even by some government officials. Meanwhile, many Venezuelans continue to experience the material effects of imperial extortion and economic hardship, now worsened by the June 24 catastrophic earthquake.

‘To the Victor Belong the Spoils’: Trump Flaunts US Plunder of Venezuela

US-based opposition-aligned Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez summarized the arrangement bluntly: “The US has charged Venezuela $4.7 billion, or 32% of oil exports so far this year, for the cost of invading it.” He noted that Germany paid the Allied powers the equivalent of 13% of its exports in reparations between 1924 and 1931.

Rodríguez—whose interventions Chavista analysts routinely criticize as being more concerned with strengthening his international academic profile than helping Venezuela—nevertheless offered a difficult-to-dispute comparison: the Trump regime’s predatory imperialism has imposed a burden on Venezuela proportionally far greater than those historic reparations, forcing the country to pay its aggressor for the attack carried out against it.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

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