On November 10, 2026, The New York Times reported that a confidential document prepared by KPMG for the United States government had disclosed the receipt of approximately $12.26 billion in Venezuelan natural-resource revenues through an account controlled by the United States Treasury. According to the newspaper’s account of the report, the deposits covered January 3 through September 30, following the American military intervention that removed Nicolás Maduro from power. The custodial account was initially established in Qatar and transferred to Citibank in New York in late January. Approximately $11.7 billion was subsequently directed to foreign-currency auctions intended to support Venezuela’s currency, while another $130 million went toward the settlement of governmental obligations abroad. The account retained approximately $170 million at the end of September. Most of the revenues had therefore been disbursed, but the report did not establish the ultimate beneficiaries of the currency auctions or demonstrate how the proceeds had improved the circumstances of Venezuelan households.¹
The distinction between custody and ownership is central to the arrangement. The revenues originated in Venezuelan resources and did not constitute an appropriation of American public funds. Executive Order 14373, issued on January 9, recognized the deposits as property of the Venezuelan government while placing their disposition under restrictions administered by the United States Treasury and the Department of State. The order authorized the Secretary of State to determine the governmental and diplomatic purposes for which the funds could be released and directed the Treasury to follow the Secretary’s instructions concerning disbursements. Venezuela retained legal ownership, but American officials exercised the authority to approve payments. The arrangement consequently separated the ownership of national resources from the final administrative control over their proceeds.²
The distinction is not resolved by establishing that most of the money returned to Venezuela. Currency auctions can serve legitimate monetary purposes, including the provision of foreign exchange to businesses and the reduction of pressure upon a depreciating currency. Their benefits, however, depend upon the allocation of foreign exchange, the prices paid, and the subsequent uses of the currency acquired. A large aggregate disbursement does not disclose whether importers obtained comparable access, whether transactions favored particular intermediaries, or whether households received material relief. Earlier reporting by The New York Times had found that a substantial share of the dollars reached a relatively small group of Venezuelan agribusinesses and consumer corporations, while numerous smaller enterprises struggled to obtain the foreign currency necessary for investment. The available evidence therefore identifies a disparity in access without establishing how much of that disparity resulted from American approval procedures, decisions by Venezuelan financial institutions, or commercial arrangements governing the auctions. The distribution of benefits cannot be determined solely from the amount released from the custodial account.
American officials have defended their custodial role as a means of preventing the diversion of revenues through corruption and commercial intermediaries. Venezuela’s experience supplies substantial grounds for concern about the administration of public wealth. Successive governments permitted political influence over economic opportunities, while the concentration of executive power under Chávez and Maduro weakened institutional restraints upon the allocation of resources. The existence of these failures does not establish that foreign supervision necessarily provides a more accountable alternative. The relevant question is whether the new arrangement permits independent examination of governmental decisions, identifies their beneficiaries, and makes those exercising authority answerable for the consequences of their discretion.
The concern is not confined to Venezuelan institutions. In a letter dated September 16 and publicly announced by the Senate Finance Committee on September 17, Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse requested information from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the American administration of Venezuelan resource revenues, including the legal constraints governing their use and the safeguards against improper financial advantage. The senators also warned that the administration might use its control over Venezuelan revenues to direct billions of dollars without congressional authorization or approval. Their intervention did not establish that funds had been misappropriated. It questioned the legal constraints upon American executive discretion over revenues that the United States itself acknowledged belonged to Venezuela. Congressional oversight could examine American governmental conduct, but it could not, by itself, confer upon Venezuelan citizens an effective role in determining how their national wealth should be administered.³
The commercial relationships surrounding the custodial account introduced another division of authority and benefit. According to the November report, Trafigura and Vitol accounted for sixty-one percent of deposits into the account by the end of September. The two commodity traders had obtained extensive rights to market Venezuelan petroleum following the American intervention. Their participation could facilitate sales, provide access to international buyers, and generate revenues otherwise difficult to obtain. The economic justification of those services, however, remains distinct from the public interest in knowing their contractual terms, the compensation retained, and the conditions under which competing purchasers could enter the market. A government may increase the volume of commercial activity without thereby establishing that the resulting advantages have been distributed equitably among the population.
The concentration of foreign-exchange allocations within Venezuela compounds that inquiry. The American government could approve the release of revenues while Venezuelan banks and economic authorities determined which enterprises obtained the currency placed at their disposal. Commercial intermediaries could benefit from transactions conducted before the revenues entered the account, while selected domestic purchasers obtained access to dollars after their release. The sequence thus extended from petroleum sales negotiated with international traders to disbursements authorized in Washington and auctions conducted through Venezuelan institutions. Each stage determined a different aspect of the resources’ eventual availability. The reported concentration among larger enterprises places the terms of those auctions and the identity of participating purchasers at the center of the financial inquiry.
The condition becomes more consequential when considered alongside the circumstances of Venezuelans who have left their country. Years of economic contraction, deteriorating services, political repression, and declining opportunities compelled millions to seek security and employment abroad. According to government figures compiled by UNHCR, nearly 7.9 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants were living worldwide outside Venezuela as of December 2025.⁴ Their departures were not uniform in cause or circumstance. Some crossed international borders with resources sufficient to establish new lives, while others depended upon temporary protection, precarious employment, or relatives already established outside Venezuela. The departure of so many people altered the economic responsibilities of those who remained. Income earned abroad increasingly sustained households that could not obtain adequate support from domestic wages, pensions, or public services.
For Venezuelans who entered the United States under Temporary Protected Status, the possibility of remaining and working lawfully depended upon a protection explicitly designed to be temporary. Venezuela received TPS designations in 2021 and 2023. In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security moved to terminate those designations and reverse an earlier extension. The decisions preceded the American intervention of January 3, 2026, and the subsequent arrangements for administering Venezuelan revenues. They exposed affected beneficiaries who lacked another lawful immigration status to the loss of employment authorization and protection against removal. The legal challenges that followed did not prevent the termination decisions from operating during the periods covered by Supreme Court stays, and some Venezuelans formerly protected by TPS consequently faced detention and deportation.⁵
The Department of Homeland Security defended the termination decisions through its assessment of conditions in Venezuela and the national interests of the United States. In terminating the 2023 designation, Secretary Kristi Noem determined that conditions had improved in several areas, including the economy, public health, and crime, and that covered Venezuelans could safely return. The Department also concluded that allowing the affected population to remain temporarily was contrary to the American national interest, even while acknowledging the possibility that some extraordinary and temporary conditions persisted. The subsequent termination of the 2021 designation similarly relied upon the Secretary’s determination that the applicable statutory conditions were no longer satisfied. These were governmental assessments made under the authority conferred by immigration law. Their legal significance was distinct from the question of whether every person affected could return to circumstances providing adequate employment, medical care, personal security, or support for dependents.
The judicial proceedings subsequently altered the legal framework within which those decisions could be challenged. On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court held in Mullin v. Doe that the statutory prohibition upon judicial review of TPS determinations barred nonconstitutional challenges to the Secretary’s decisions. On October 5, the Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s January 28 judgment in National TPS Alliance v. Noem and remanded the Venezuelan litigation for reconsideration in light of Mullin. That action neither finally resolved the legality of the termination decisions nor established durable protection for affected Venezuelans. Constitutional challenges were not categorically extinguished by Mullin, but the decision substantially restricted judicial examination of the Secretary’s determinations under ordinary administrative law.⁵
The consequences of losing protection extended beyond the individual whose authorization expired. A Venezuelan who had obtained employment in the United States could contribute to the support of relatives dependent upon remittances. Removal by immigration authorities, or a decision to depart because continued residence had become legally or economically untenable, could interrupt that support. The effects would depend upon the person’s circumstances, the availability of another lawful status, and the possibility of employment after departure. No single estimate of the resulting losses can be inferred from the termination notices. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of protection introduced a new insecurity into arrangements through which Venezuelan families had attempted to compensate for the failure of economic opportunities and public services at home.
The combination of these policies exposes a contradiction. The American executive asserted control over the release of revenues generated by Venezuelan resources while continuing immigration measures adopted before the intervention that reduced the security of Venezuelans who had sought employment and refuge in the United States. The two exercises of authority had different legal foundations and originated at different moments. One concerned sovereign funds administered through an emergency economic order; the other concerned statutory immigration protections and executive determinations about their continuation. Their coexistence does not establish that either decision was taken for the purpose of harming Venezuelan households. It does reveal that the same government could exercise extensive authority over the country’s economic recovery while declining to maintain protections for people displaced by the conditions that made recovery necessary.
American history supplies a revealing comparison. Following the Cuban Revolution, the United States imposed economic restrictions upon Cuba while establishing a substantial program to receive and assist Cubans who had left the island. The Cuban Refugee Emergency Center was established in Miami in 1960, and the Kennedy administration subsequently placed the refugee program within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 provided authority for federal assistance, including financial support, resettlement, medical services, and employment preparation. Congress then enacted the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, establishing a special means through which eligible Cuban nationals could obtain permanent residence. American economic opposition to the Cuban government was accompanied by a sustained domestic undertaking to assist a substantial portion of the population that had departed.⁶
The Cuban policy arose under particular Cold War circumstances. The reception of refugees served humanitarian purposes while also advancing American political objectives in the confrontation with Havana. Eligibility was not universal, admission policies changed over time, and the benefits available to successive generations of Cuban migrants were not identical. More recent restrictions have also affected Cubans, including the termination in 2025 of the humanitarian parole programs established for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The earlier Cuban settlement program therefore cannot be treated as an unchanged American commitment extending to every Cuban arriving in the United States. Its historical significance lies instead in the capacity of American institutions to establish durable refugee assistance and a nationality-specific route to permanent residence when the political authorities responsible for those decisions considered such measures appropriate.⁷
The comparison does not require identical historical conditions to identify the difference in governmental response. Cubans who qualified under the earlier arrangements could acquire legal residence through a statutory provision that outlasted the administration responsible for its enactment. Venezuelans dependent upon TPS possessed no equivalent nationality-specific route to permanent residence. The temporary character of their protection left its continuation vulnerable to successive executive determinations, subject to a statutory framework that the Supreme Court subsequently interpreted as sharply restricting judicial review. One population benefited from a legislative decision to facilitate permanent incorporation into American society; another received provisional protection that could be withdrawn while the underlying reasons for displacement had not necessarily disappeared.
The distinction between the branches of government is material to the comparison. Congress enacted the Cuban Adjustment Act and provided statutory authority for refugee assistance, while the executive established and administered programs within that legislative framework. Venezuelan TPS, by contrast, arose through determinations made by the executive under the general immigration statute enacted by Congress. Its termination was likewise an executive decision, but the limits upon that decision and the availability of judicial review derived from legislation and its subsequent interpretation by the courts. The difference in treatment therefore cannot be attributed exclusively to the preferences of successive presidents. It also reflects the extent to which Congress has chosen to establish durable legal protections for particular displaced populations or to leave their continued residence dependent upon temporary administrative determinations.
The different legal arrangements also affected the time available for individuals to establish ordinary economic responsibilities. A person able to seek permanent residence could undertake employment, establish a household, and plan for obligations extending beyond an administrative designation. Temporary protection permitted lawful employment without assuring that the authorization would continue. Its termination could therefore interrupt obligations that had developed during a period in which the government itself permitted the individual to remain and work. The law distinguished temporary permission from an entitlement to permanent residence, but the economic consequences of withdrawing that permission were not confined to the duration of the original authorization.
There is no necessary inconsistency in a government restricting commercial relations with another state while admitting people who leave it. Nor does the fact of migration alone obligate a receiving country to confer permanent residence upon every applicant. The difficulty arises when the government exercising economic pressure and control over another country’s resources also treats the resulting human displacement as a matter largely detachable from its foreign policy. Venezuelan governmental failures preceded many of the principal American restrictions, and those failures remain attributable to the officials responsible for them. Subsequent American decisions introduced additional constraints and obligations whose consequences could extend to people who possessed no effective means of influencing either government’s conduct.
The contrast with Cuba identifies more than a disparity in immigration law. It reveals the different responsibilities that the institutions of a state may choose to assume toward people affected by an international confrontation. The United States once regarded the resettlement of Cuban refugees as sufficiently important to warrant federal assistance and legislation facilitating permanent residence. In Venezuela’s case, Washington has undertaken an exceptional role in the country’s economic administration without establishing a comparable durable settlement policy for Venezuelans displaced by decades of institutional and economic deterioration. Congress possesses the authority to legislate such protections, while the executive exercises the powers assigned to it under existing immigration law. The difference cannot be explained simply by the legal distinction between refugees and temporary protected persons, because the creation of those categories, the rights attached to them, and the discretion permitted in their administration are themselves consequences of legislative choices.
The question of sovereignty gives these contradictions a common locus. Political sovereignty resides in the nation, while governmental institutions exercise authority on its behalf. The distinction is indispensable wherever public officials commit national resources, undertake international obligations, or determine the conditions under which citizens receive public benefits. Venezuela’s deterioration demonstrates how extensively the exercise of state authority can depart from the interests of the population. Foreign control over particular economic decisions may be defended as a temporary remedy for that departure, but such control does not necessarily restore the nation’s ability to hold those exercising power accountable.
The custodial account therefore presents a problem that neither the amount deposited nor the amount disbursed can settle. Its operation may have prevented particular abuses, reduced financial uncertainty, and facilitated the return of substantial revenues to Venezuela. These are potentially important accomplishments. The public record must nevertheless permit examination of the decisions taken in the account’s administration, including the conditions imposed upon disbursements and the economic interests served. The reported concentration of foreign-exchange allocations among larger Venezuelan enterprises makes that examination more consequential. Without an account of the successive decisions governing release and distribution, the description of the United States as custodian states the legal character claimed for its possession without establishing the accountability of its conduct.
The same demand for accountability applies to Venezuela’s interim authorities. A request submitted by the central bank does not, by itself, demonstrate that the Venezuelan population exercised effective control over the disposition of the money. The existence of domestic consent or participation in an arrangement between governments is not equivalent to the public’s ability to examine its terms and consequences. If an interim administration directs the proceeds toward preferred enterprises, institutions, or creditors, responsibility for those decisions cannot be transferred entirely to the American officials who authorize the disbursements. Nor can the participation of Venezuelan authorities relieve Washington of responsibility for the discretion it has chosen to exercise.
The treatment of displaced Venezuelans introduces a corresponding question about the distribution of obligations. A family deprived of adequate domestic income may depend upon a relative abroad. That relative may obtain temporary permission to work, acquire financial responsibilities, and contribute to the support of people who remain in Venezuela. The withdrawal of immigration protection can jeopardize those arrangements without restoring the domestic conditions that made migration necessary. Meanwhile, the revenues derived from the country’s natural resources may continue to pass through decisions made by officials in two governments and transactions conducted by private intermediaries. The population encounters the consequences of those decisions through prices, employment, public services, and the security of relatives whose economic contributions have become indispensable.
These circumstances do not demonstrate a single governmental intention or a coordinated policy to dispossess Venezuelans. The decisions arise under different laws, address different administrative objectives, and involve institutions with distinct responsibilities. Their convergence is nonetheless consequential. Measures defended individually as financial stabilization, protection against corruption, immigration enforcement, or the restoration of commercial activity may impose cumulative obligations upon people whose circumstances are considered separately by each governmental authority. No institution necessarily measures the combined effect upon the household that must endure them.
The possibility of reconstruction does not remove the contradiction. Improved petroleum production, greater foreign-exchange availability, and restored commercial relations could materially benefit Venezuela. Yet the recovery of national income does not establish that the people most affected by the preceding deterioration will receive comparable relief. A returning migrant may confront inadequate employment and public services. A family dependent upon remittances may lose its principal source of support. A commercial enterprise may gain access to foreign currency while another remains unable to obtain the imports necessary to operate. The aggregate recovery of economic activity and the distribution of its benefits are different measures of the country’s condition.
The accumulation of these consequences is what gives the present situation its combustible character. Domestic governmental failures created vulnerabilities upon which foreign sanctions, commercial interests, migration policies, and exceptional arrangements for the administration of national revenues subsequently acted. The authority to take those decisions remained divided among governments, financial institutions, and private enterprises. Their consequences, however, could converge upon the same population. The separation of decision-making authority did not prevent the accumulation of costs among those least capable of altering the decisions themselves.
The restoration of Venezuelan sovereignty cannot therefore be measured solely by the return of revenues to accounts administered within Venezuela. Nor can the country’s recovery be judged independently of the treatment of its displaced citizens. Public authority requires more than a legal declaration identifying the owner of national resources. It requires institutions through which those resources are administered for public purposes and through which the officials exercising discretion remain answerable for their decisions.
The November 10 disclosure identifies an arrangement in which Venezuelan wealth was held under American authority and largely disbursed, without providing a sufficient public account of its ultimate distribution. The history of Cuban refugee assistance demonstrates that American administrations and Congress have previously combined economic confrontation with substantial commitments to people displaced by a country under pressure. The treatment of Venezuelans under temporary immigration protections demonstrates a different and more precarious response. These are not identical exercises of governmental power, but their relationship cannot be dismissed merely because they arise under separate legal instruments or depend upon decisions taken by different branches of government.
A nation may retain sovereign ownership of its wealth while depending upon foreign officials for permission to dispose of it. Its citizens may sustain households through income earned abroad while remaining subject to the withdrawal of the authorization that permits them to earn it. The restoration of public revenue may proceed without resolving the insecurity of those whose departures helped preserve families during the country’s deterioration. The fundamental question is whether the powers exercised in the name of Venezuela’s recovery will restore to Venezuelans effective authority over the decisions affecting their lives, or whether the country’s wealth and its people will continue to be administered through separate arrangements whose combined consequences neither government is required to assume.
Endnotes
1. Tyler Pager and Anatoly Kurmanaev. “U.S. Received $12 Billion in Venezuelan Oil Revenues, Secret Report Shows.” The New York Times, November 10, 2026; reproduced by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Reporting based upon a confidential KPMG document commissioned by the United States government concerning the Venezuela Custody Account. The report covers deposits from January 3 through September 30, 2026; the account’s initial location in Qatar and its subsequent transfer to Citibank in New York; approximately $12.26 billion in receipts; foreign-exchange disbursements; commercial intermediaries; and the absence of a complete public account identifying the ultimate beneficiaries of the transactions. The article also refers to earlier reporting concerning the concentration of foreign-currency allocations among larger Venezuelan enterprises.
2. The White House. Executive Order 14373, “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” January 9, 2026. Published in the Federal Register, January 15, 2026, 91 FR 2045. Sections 2–5 define the covered funds, prohibit unauthorized transfers and judicial attachment, recognize their ownership by the Government of Venezuela, establish the custodial character of American possession, and direct the Secretary of the Treasury to comply with the Secretary of State’s determinations concerning disbursements. The order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act.
3. United States Senate Committee on Finance. “Wyden, Warren, Whitehouse Press Trump Administration Over Revenue from Venezuelan Oil and Gold Deals,” published September 17, 2026. The accompanying letter, dated September 16, 2026, was signed by Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse and addressed to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The senators requested information concerning the administration of Venezuelan natural-resource revenues, constitutional and statutory constraints on executive discretion, financial safeguards, beneficial ownership, possible conflicts of interest, the activities of KPMG, and the risks that the administration might direct funds without congressional authorization or approval. The correspondence requested account statements, transaction records, spending requests from Venezuelan authorities, and disclosure of recipients and beneficial owners.
4. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Venezuela situation.” Updated December 2025. According to government figures compiled by UNHCR, nearly 7.9 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela were living outside Venezuela worldwide. This global count is not confined to Venezuelans residing in the United States or covered by Temporary Protected Status.
5. United States Department of Homeland Security. “Termination of the October 3, 2023 Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status.” Federal Register, February 5, 2025, 90 FR 9040–9044, Document No. 2025-02294. The notice records the Secretary’s determination concerning country conditions, national interest, and the termination of the 2023 designation.
United States Department of Homeland Security. “Termination of the 2021 Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status.” Federal Register, September 8, 2025, 90 FR 43225–43231, Document No. 2025-17087. The notice terminates the 2021 designation effective November 7, 2025, subject to subsequent judicial proceedings.
Supreme Court of the United States. Mullin v. Doe, Nos. 25-1083 and 25-1084, June 25, 2026, 609 U.S. 324. The Court held that 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(5)(A) bars judicial review of nonconstitutional claims concerning the Secretary’s designation of a country for TPS, or the termination or extension of that designation, including challenges to the administrative process leading to those determinations.
In the consolidated Miot litigation, the Supreme Court also concluded that the Haitian plaintiffs’ equal-protection claim was unlikely to succeed for purposes of interim relief. The Court did not finally determine whether the statutory prohibition categorically excludes constitutional claims, nor did that ruling adjudicate the separate constitutional allegations presented by the Venezuelan plaintiffs.
Supreme Court of the United States. Mullin v. National TPS Alliance, No. 26-48, October 5, 2026. The Court granted certiorari, vacated the Ninth Circuit’s January 28, 2026 judgment in National TPS Alliance v. Noem, 166 F.4th 739, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Mullin v. Doe.
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. National TPS Alliance v. Mullin, No. 25-5724, orders of October 30 and November 3, 2026. The October 30 order denied the government’s request for a stay and an alternative administrative stay. The November 3 order withdrew that determination and granted a fourteen-day administrative stay beginning November 6. This procedural account reflects the litigation as of November 11, 2026. The Supreme Court’s vacatur and remand left the Ninth Circuit to consider the effect of Mullin upon the claims presented, including the limits of judicial review and the disposition of any remaining constitutional claims.
6. United States National Archives and Records Administration. “Cuban Refugee Program, 1960–1970.” Record Group 363, Records of the Social and Rehabilitation Service. Historical documentation concerning the establishment of the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center, the Kennedy administration’s organization of federal refugee assistance, and the agencies administering resettlement programs.
United States General Accounting Office. Analysis of Federal Expenditures to Aid Cuban Refugees. Report B-164031(3), November 3, 1971. Prepared by the Comptroller General for the Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate. The report examines federal expenditures associated with refugee assistance, education, transportation, and resettlement.
United States Congress. Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, Public Law 87-510, June 28, 1962, 76 Stat. 121, codified in relevant part at 22 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. Statutory authority for assistance to refugees and designated migrants.
United States Congress. Cuban Adjustment Act, Public Law 89-732, November 2, 1966, 80 Stat. 1161, as subsequently amended. Establishes a special statutory procedure through which qualifying Cuban natives or citizens may obtain adjustment to lawful permanent residence.
7. United States Department of Homeland Security. “Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.” Federal Register, March 25, 2025, 90 FR 13611–13622, Document No. 2025-05128. Announces termination of the categorical humanitarian parole programs for the four nationalities and provides the Department’s stated reasons and the consequences for associated parole periods and employment authorizations. The measure is distinct from the Venezuelan TPS termination notices and from the statutory provisions of the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Ricardo F. Morín
November 11, 2026
San Francisco, California
