By Gregory Makoff
About the author: Gregory Makoff is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and author of Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina's $100 Billion Debt Restructuring . He was as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Treasury and a financial advisor to the Iraqi government during its debt restructuring in the 2000s.
Now that the shock and awe of the U.S. invasion in Venezuela is wearing off, the world is left speculating on what President Donald Trump's endgame really is and how he aims to achieve it. If he wants Venezuela's crude oil, how does he think he will get it?
Trump hasn't provided much clarity on this question. Americans and Venezuelans are left guessing whether he intends to use additional military force to extract resources for the benefit of U.S. investors and corporations, or whether he will choose to use American financial, legal, and political power to help rebuild Venezuelan industry and stabilize its finances and political institutions for the long term.
The success of Trump's intervention will require the backing of investors and stakeholders who need clarity before offering support. Lucky for them, evidence is emerging that the administration is leaning into meaningfully supporting the long-term financial recovery of Venezuela.
Venezuela has approximately $100 billion of unpaid bond obligations, $40 billion of which is past-due interest. Trump took on this issue with executive actions that deprioritized payments to Venezuela's creditors last week. First, the Treasury Department announced that Venezuelan oil revenue will flow through a Treasury account, and then Trump issued an executive order Friday night saying that funds in that account will be immune to attachment by creditors. The executive order will take away much of creditors' leverage to get a quick and generous deal in an eventual restructuring of the debt.
A similar strategy, using both executive orders and a U.N. Security Council resolution, were used by the U.S. after its intervention in Iraq. By preventing creditors from attaching to Iraq's oil shipments, the country was able to drive a hard bargain. In a yearslong process, Iraq restructured $20 billion of its commercial claims for about 10 cents on the dollar market value. It achieved similar debt relief from 18 of its bilateral lenders, which included the U.S.
In Venezuela, the White House and Treasury don't intend to go it alone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that he approached the International Monetary Fund about providing a loan to Venezuela. That implies that Venezuela's economic plan, debt restructuring, and future IMF loans will be subject to input and approval of the international community, as all these matters are generally conditional on a vote of the IMF board.
These are positive signs -- as is the invitation of Venezuela's exiled opposition leader, María Corina Machado, to visit the White House on Thursday. If not for Trump's past bad-mouthing of Machado, that invitation would be of no surprise. A successful democratic recovery in Venezuela is obviously aligned with the Trump administration's top political, economic, and foreign policy goals: lowering immigration pressures, lowering gasoline prices, and freeing Cuba from communism.
The likely problem that will arise is Trump's reluctance to posture as an international do-gooder. He saw the disastrous end to President George W. Bush's interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of spreading democracy. Trump's instinct is to instead present as a strongman.
Trump has therefore been playing it both ways, using Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to threaten Greenland with the potential use of military force on TV, while deploying Bessent to manage Venezuela's recovery quietly.
Trump's bellicose tendencies threaten his administration's success in Venezuela, which will eventually hinge on the support of Congress and the international community. It will take years for the country's oil production to recover to the point that it is self-funding. Trump will need the IMF and Congress to approve financial support for the country in the meantime. Otherwise Venezuela will remain, in the words of Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, "uninvestable."
What might happen if Trump chooses the alternative and pursues a maximally extractive approach in Venezuela? For one, he might take action elsewhere. He could double down on overt acts of unilateralism -- for example, by attempting to annex Greenland and commencing on-land bombing campaigns against drug dealers in Mexico and Colombia. Latin American resentment, Chinese and Russian military expansion in their spheres of influence, and the dilution of the power of stabilizing international institutions like the IMF would likely follow. World peace and prosperity would be at risk.
I don't think Trump has bad intentions. But that escalation is even talked about and feared among investors and international circles underlines the urgency for Trump to be more transparent.
His priority should be the Venezuelan people. They have lived under a Cuban-backed, populist-military government for nearly 30 years. Many lack food, healthcare, schools, security, and toilet paper. It is their country's future at stake, and a recovery program will fail without their energetic support. They, more than anyone, urgently need a clear statement from the U.S. that it will work with them and the international community to not only reinstate democracy and the rule of law, but to ensure that Venezuela's resources are going to be primarily used to help the Venezuelan people.
The U.S. should own up to its good intentions.
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January 14, 2026 14:43 ET (19:43 GMT)
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