Making the empire’s ambitions clear, US stooge Juan Guaidó has promised Venezuelan oil to US corporations.

The US-backed Venezuelan “government” of Juan Guaidó has said there will be plenty of money to be made for Wall Street under a government without the current President, Nicolas Maduro.

According to reports, this offer was made during a meeting between US officials and delegates of the Guaidó cabinet in Washington. Apparently, Guaidó has promised that if he should take control of the actual levers of state power in Venezuela he would end the control over Venezuelan oil projects currently given to the state oil company, PDVSA.

The current law in Venezuela states that any projects involving Venezuelan oil that PDVSA must have, at least, a 51% stake. According to the delegates in Washington, this is the best way to reinvigorate Venezuelan oil production.

In an interview following their official meetings in Washington, one Guaidó envoy, Carlos Vecchio, explained this strategy as a part of a broader policy “to go to an open economy.” Vecchio then went on to say that this “openness” would be what brings the oil sector back and reassured US speculators that “the majority of the oil production that we want to increase will be with the private sector.”

While this is obviously the reason the US backs the Guaidó “government” it is stunning to hear it so openly. Vecchio was just as brazen when asked about whether PDVSA’s North American subsidiary, Citgo would go bankrupt or not.

Vecchio explained that Guaidó “wants to keep the operation running” which likely reflects on recent moves by Guaidó and his cheerleaders to try to hand control of Citgo’s US assets and profits to the fraudulent president. This has been a common measure proposed by many analysts to try to create a slightly less-illegal-looking way to steal Venezuelan money.

Yet now that we have confirmation that Guaidó does, in fact, intend to immediately begin selling off rights to Venezuela’s resources if he should ever get power, we know exactly where Citgo’s profits will go in the future. Guaidó may desperately want to control some Citgo and PDVSA assets for now, but he is also all too willing to sell them to Wall Street should he get the chance.

This idea that selling off PDVSA to companies like Exxon – one of the oil giants kicked out of Venezuela by Hugo Chavez – will somehow make things better for average citizens of the country, is obviously ridiculous. Beyond the sheer stupidity and obvious theft, however, this narrative put forth by Guaidó and the US media totally whitewashes what is, for all intents and purposes, a US economic blockade of Venezuela and the host of sanctions on the nation’s oil industry.

This pattern of abusive sanctions on Venezuelan oil production has carried on for years and continues to be a regular tactic imperial powers use on Venezuela. The Trump regime just enacted their own new sanctions in this vein last week, strictly restricting the export of oil, which is expected to further harm the Venezuelan economy and people.

All of this lays bare just what the US is doing to Venezuela. Washington has no real concern of the average people actually being hurt in Venezuela. Instead, Washington is out to rip whatever resources it can away from the Venezuelan people.

The oil coming out of the ground in Venezuela could easily be in the global market right now if it weren’t for Washington’s meddling. If that oil was on the market, the Bolivarian government would likely return to deploying the policies they’ve always championed like public housing, subsidized medicine, price controls, health care, and other social welfare programs. Looking at it this way, it becomes obvious the only people holding the Venezuelan people back is the same people promising freedom, the opposition’s supposed “friends in Washington”