President Trump signed an executive order to protect Venezuelan oil revenue from being used in judicial proceedings, a week after U.S. forces initiated a covert operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The executive order, signed Friday and made public on Saturday, declared a national emergency to ensure Venezuelan oil revenue held in U.S. Treasury accounts won’t be targeted by lawsuits or creditor claims.
The order says failing to safeguard the revenue, held in Foreign Government Deposit Funds, “will substantially interfere with our critical efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela.”
“The failure of these critical efforts would jeopardize major foreign policy objectives of the United States, including” curbing illegal immigration, fending off threats from Iran and Venezuela and “bringing peace, prosperity, and stability to the Venezuelan people and to the Western Hemisphere more generally,” the executive order reads.
Several companies have long-standing claims against Venezuela, Reuters reported, noting Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips left Venezuela nearly two decades ago after their assets were nationalized and are both owed billions of dollars.
Trump gathered about a dozen executives from energy companies at the White House on Friday amid his administration’s push to get U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuela. Trump told the executives that they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance told Trump that his company was still owed $12 billion and that the U.S. government has the chance to restore what’s been lost, according to Reuters.
Trump, in turn, said ConocoPhillips would get much of its money back, but the U.S. would be starting with a clean slate, the news outlet reported.
“We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault,” Trump told Lance.
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