US Sanctions on Venezuela Oil Industry Risk Backfiring, Threatening Global Conflict - Analysts

The US bid to dominate Venezuela’s oil sector through secondary sanctions could unite foreign competitors against Washington and spark a global conflict, analysts said, Sputnik reports.

Earlier this week, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft Trading SA and its head Didier Casimiro for operating in Venezuela’s oil sector. Moscow accused Washington of unfair trading practices and said the new sanctions will harm US-Russian relations.

The US oil giant Chevron was not penalized in any way by the new sanctions even though it would continue to operate in Venezuela.

Historian and political analyst Steve Ellner, associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives, warned that this conception risks driving the United States into a catastrophic full-scale war with both Moscow and Beijing.

"By granting Chevron and other US companies waivers the Trump administration is obviously favoring US economic interests. This is in many ways a throwback to the pre-1914 period when the rivalry between European powers intensified and eventually led to World War I", Ellner said.

Chevron has been able to take advantage of this obsession among Trump administration officials to continue their lucrative activities in Venezuela, Ellner observed.

"Chevron spokespeople argue that by not investing in Venezuela, Russia and China are able to penetrate such a strategically important industry like petroleum", he said.

The US sanctions, imposed on Venezuela, contradicted US official rhetoric about favoring free markets and free trade and was also an expression of the economic nationalism championed by President Donald Trump, Ellner pointed out.

"The system of secondary sanctions in which non-US companies are forced to abide by unilateral sanctions imposed by the US government has two dimensions. In the first place it is an instrument of US foreign policy designed to penalize those governments that Washington considers to be political adversaries. In the second place, in many cases, it favors US corporate interests over those of the rest of the world", Ellner said.