Ricardo F. Morín Ligadura (Binding) Watercolor and ink with incised lines on cardboard 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm) 2005
The United States does not cease to be bound by law when it acquires the power to determine what another country may do. Its officials require authority under American law. The State remains subject to its international obligations. Neither requirement is satisfied merely because the government affected by American power agrees to the resulting arrangement.
Venezuelan constitutional authority and American legal responsibility are distinct questions. The first concerns the competence to grant rights over the Republic’s wealth. The second concerns the means by which the United States obtained those rights and the authority under which its officials acted. An American contract cannot supply a missing Venezuelan competence. Venezuelan governmental consent cannot supply a missing American power or excuse a breach of an international obligation binding the United States.
The distinction was already present before the January intervention. On December 23, 2025, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel advised that the President could order military personnel to assist in removing Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela for prosecution in the United States. The memorandum expressly addressed domestic law. Its opening conclusion depended on the national interests served and on the anticipated force remaining below the level of war in the constitutional sense. [1]
The opinion supplied the executive branch’s interpretation of presidential authority for the proposed operation. Congressional authorization and judicial review remain separate sources of constitutional judgment. Each subsequent exercise of American power over Venezuela’s government, revenues, or petroleum requires its own legal basis.
The Constitution assigns Congress the power to declare war and makes the President Commander in Chief. The disputed boundary between those powers cannot be settled by the President’s description of his own conduct. Nor does an executive opinion addressing that boundary determine whether another State’s sovereignty may lawfully be violated. [2]
On January 4, Ambassador Mike Waltz publicly invoked self-defense under Article 51. [3] On January 5, he told the Security Council that the United States had conducted a law-enforcement operation with military assistance. He invoked the indictments against Maduro and Cilia Flores, the President’s responsibility to protect Americans, and Maduro’s lack of legitimacy. He also denied that the United States was occupying Venezuela. [4]
An indictment authorizes proceedings within a legal system. It does not, by itself, authorize the use of armed force within another State. The United Nations Charter prohibits force against territorial integrity or political independence. The pertinent grounds for departing from that prohibition include Security Council authorization and self-defense; valid territorial consent presents a separate inquiry. Article 51 identifies an armed attack as the condition for the inherent right it preserves. [5]
The Administration must explain how those justifications fit together and establish the conditions required by each. A prosecutorial purpose does not itself satisfy the international requirements for self-defense; invoking self-defense does not itself establish domestic authority for the operation. The Administration must identify the armed attack relied upon and explain the necessity and proportionality of its response. Article 51 also requires immediate reporting of self-defense measures to the Council. [5]
On January 6, the United Nations Human Rights Office rejected unilateral military intervention as a means of obtaining accountability for Venezuela’s human-rights violations and described the operation as undermining the prohibition on force. On January 13, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights likewise insisted on respect for sovereignty, non-intervention, and the prohibitions on aggression and force, while reiterating its findings concerning the Maduro government’s repression. [6][7]
Those institutional assessments identify obligations that remain binding when the target government commits abuses. If the Administration relies instead on an invitation to intervene, it must identify valid consent given before the operation and establish that its forces acted within that consent. Recognition of a preferred authority cannot stand in for the consent itself. [8]
The War Powers Resolution subjects presidential military action to reporting and termination requirements. [9] On January 14, the Senate sustained a point of order against the privileged status of S.J.Res. 98, a measure directing the removal of American forces from unauthorized hostilities within or against Venezuela. Senators divided fifty to fifty; the Vice President voted in the affirmative. [10]
That vote blocked the measure’s progress and left the statutory question unresolved. Congress grants authority through law. A defeated effort to restrain the President records a political failure to impose restraint, rather than an affirmative grant of the disputed power.
The financial arrangements raise their own questions of American authority.
Executive Order 14373, issued on January 9, identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as Venezuelan sovereign property and describes American possession as custodial. Yet it assigns the Secretary of State responsibility for determining the public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes for which those funds may be disbursed, and directs Treasury to follow the Secretary’s instructions. [11]
The order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Section 1702(a)(1)(B) authorizes extensive regulation of foreign-property transactions. Section 1702(a)(1)(C) separately permits confiscation when the United States is engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked, subject to a presidential determination connecting the foreign owner to those hostilities or attacks. The statute distinguishes transaction control from vesting ownership for American benefit. [12]
The Administration must account for its conduct under that distinction. Its January order claims custody while assigning American officials decisions over the use of Venezuelan wealth. Any later acquisition of ownership requires authority for that acquisition. Powers to control transactions cannot simply be treated as powers to take property for American benefit. [11][12]
Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse addressed precisely the problem of control without ownership in a letter dated September 16 and released the following day. Citing public reporting, they referred to at least $13 billion in Venezuelan oil revenues deposited in a Treasury custody account. They asked what constitutional or statutory constraints govern funds that the United States does not own but whose use its officials control. [13]
The senators requested account statements, transaction records, Venezuelan spending requests, and safeguards against improper disbursements. Their October 5 response deadline remained open on September 30. The letter places the Administration under a formal demand to account for its authority and conduct. [13] The Administration’s own order classifies those funds as Venezuelan sovereign property held in American custody. On that premise, the Administration must account for the authority by which American officials determine their use. [11]
The petroleum arrangement adds a further act requiring authority. On August 31, the White House announced that North American Blue Energy Partners had granted the Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent. It also announced preferential purchasing rights and powers over corporate governance. The fact sheet emphasized that the American interest came at no cost to the taxpayer. [14]
Acceptance, administration, and disposition of that interest each require legal authority. A zero acquisition price answers a question about cost, while leaving the agency’s power to acquire the asset to be demonstrated. Any proceeds received for the United States must also be accounted for under federal law governing public receipts and expenditures. [15]
A Congressional Research Service report updated September 8 describes the Office of Strategic Capital’s capital-assistance program in terms of loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance. It separately identifies proposed legislation that would authorize certain equity investments. [16]
The Administration must therefore identify the particular legal basis for the NABEP interest. The operative instrument and the authority invoked would permit assessment of whether the transaction falls within an existing power and satisfies its conditions. A press announcement leaves that statutory account incomplete.
American statutory authority, even if established, would answer only the domestic question. International law determines separately whether the United States has breached an obligation owed outside its own legal order. Article 3 of the International Law Commission’s articles on State responsibility expresses the distinction: an act’s treatment as lawful under internal law does not determine its international lawfulness. [17]
The Charter of the Organization of American States addresses the acquisition of advantage with particular precision. Article 19 prohibits direct and indirect intervention. Article 20 prohibits economic or political coercion intended to force another State’s sovereign will and obtain advantages. Article 21 rejects recognition of territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained through force or other coercive means. [18]
These provisions subject the relation between pressure and benefit to law. Coercive intervention can occur without military occupation, and a private company can serve as the vehicle through which governmental pressure secures an advantage.
The documented sequence is consequently material: American force removed the president; an American order placed decisions over Venezuelan revenues under American supervision; the Administration then announced enduring American interests in petroleum production and corporate governance. In April, President Trump had already described the economic relationship as resembling a joint venture and stated that the attack had paid for itself many times over. [4][11][14][19]
The sequence supports an inference connecting intervention to economic advantage. A finding of prohibited coercion must establish how American pressure constrained Venezuela’s sovereign choice and contributed to obtaining the particular rights. The President’s own description supplies evidence of that connection and requires the military action and economic return to be examined together.
The Administration’s reliance on governmental agreement must therefore be examined within the circumstances in which that agreement was obtained. Consent is relevant. Its existence on an instrument cannot, without examination, dispose of a claim that force or coercion procured it.
The corporate structure requires equal precision. The White House distinguishes its agreement with NABEP, governed by American law, from the company’s Venezuelan concessions, governed by Venezuelan legislation. [14] A contract with a private corporation is not automatically a treaty between States. Any associated intergovernmental commitments must be identified before rules governing treaty validity are applied.
Where the instrument is a treaty, the rule expressed in Article 52 of the Vienna Convention addresses consent procured through unlawful threats or force. The United States’ non-ratification requires attention to the applicable customary rule. The prior question about American conduct nevertheless remains direct: did the United States use prohibited force or coercion to obtain the advantages it now claims? [20][21]
American officials remain answerable for their own acts throughout that corporate structure. Their decisions to direct revenues, acquire interests, and exercise governmental powers are conduct of the United States. Attribution of additional corporate conduct requires further evidence, but the Administration’s own participation is already the subject of its announcements. [17]
Permanent sovereignty over natural resources supplies another applicable principle. Its legal standing does not depend solely on the status of a General Assembly declaration. The International Court of Justice has recognized it as a principle of customary international law, expressly reaffirming that character in its advisory opinion of July 19, 2024. [22]
Its application requires attention to the policy and conduct established by the evidence. Here the Administration has expressly announced a policy of securing American benefit from Venezuelan resources. A Venezuelan private beneficiary and an American governmental beneficiary can participate in the same transaction without either representing the sovereign people whose resources give it value.
Occupation would impose additional obligations if the facts establish it. Under the Hague Regulations, the relevant condition is effective authority over territory by hostile armed forces. Financial supervision and political predominance alone do not establish that condition. An American denial does not disprove it. The inquiry must concern the authority actually exercised over particular territory during the relevant period. [23]
If occupation is established, its law limits the occupant’s administration of public property and natural resources. The occupant does not acquire sovereignty. Its powers are temporary, and the rules governing usufruct require preservation of the capital of the resources administered. The International Court of Justice has reiterated those limits. [22][23]
The prohibitions on unlawful force and coercive intervention apply independently of that territorial classification. Responsibility for the intervention and the advantages obtained through it can therefore be examined while the evidence concerning occupation remains incomplete.
The Administration owes a specific account: the authority for its equity interest, the rules governing its directions over sovereign revenues, and the legal justification for the force and pressure through which the announced advantages were obtained. The operative instruments and transaction records are necessary to test that account. Their absence leaves the Administration’s claims of lawful authority unsubstantiated at precisely the points where its conduct requires explanation.
Congressional oversight, statutory limits, and international obligations address the conduct from different legal positions. Enforcement may remain contested and adjudication incomplete. The Administration nevertheless bears the burden of identifying the powers it exercises and answering the obligations its conduct engages.
The Administration has announced what the United States obtained. It has not thereby established what American law authorized its officials to acquire or what international law permitted the United States to exact.
The law governing that conduct is not a condition the United States may impose on Venezuela. It is an obligation the United States must meet itself.
Ricardo F. Morín
September 30, 2026
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania
Notes
[1] U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, “Proposed War Department Operation to Support Law Enforcement Efforts in Venezuela,” December 23, 2025, especially pp. 1–2; publicly released in redacted form.
[2] Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, and Article II, Section 2, Clause 1. Congress.gov, Constitution Annotated, 2024 Supplement, discussion of presidential and congressional war powers.
[3] Ambassador Mike Waltz, interview on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures, January 4, 2026, invoking Article 51; broadcaster’s report and embedded interview. This public statement is distinct from a communication to the Security Council reporting measures taken in self-defense.
[5] Charter of the United Nations, Articles 2(4), 39–42, and 51. The record reviewed for this essay does not establish whether the United States submitted an Article 51 communication reporting the January operation. No finding of failure to report is made.
[6] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, statement by spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on the United States intervention in Venezuela, January 6, 2026; official UN Geneva transcript.
[7] Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “IACHR expresses concern over armed incursion in Venezuela, calls for respect for international law, and the end of repression,” January 13, 2026.
[8] International Law Commission, Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries, 2001, Article 20 and its commentary, concerning valid consent, its limits, and consent given before the act. The commentary supplies the consent framework, not a determination of which Venezuelan authority could invite intervention. A claim of invitation by a recognized authority lacking effective control requires examination of that authority’s international capacity, the timing and scope of its consent, and the conduct authorized. Recognition alone does not resolve those questions.
[9] War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1543(a)(1), 1544(b), and 1547. The sixty-day rule concerns the report submitted or required under § 1543(a)(1); the additional thirty-day period requires the presidential determination specified in § 1544(b). Applying the clock requires establishing when a report was submitted or required and whether the relevant use of forces continued. Continuing financial supervision is not itself continuing military hostilities.
[10] United States Senate, Roll Call Vote No. 9, 119th Congress, Second Session, January 14, 2026, point of order concerning the privileged status of S.J.Res. 98.
[11] Executive Order 14373, “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” January 9, 2026, especially Sections 4(a), 4(b), 4(c)(ii), and 5(a)(ii).
[12] International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1702, especially § 1702(a)(1)(B)–(C). The armed-hostilities condition in subsection (C) is distinct from the constitutional-war threshold discussed by OLC. Subsection (C) also requires a presidential determination that the foreign owner planned, authorized, aided, or engaged in the relevant hostilities or attack. Acquisition of a corporate interest requires identification of its own legal basis; it is not classified here as confiscation merely because the acquirer is governmental.
[13] Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse, letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, dated September 16, 2026, released September 17, 2026, pp. 1–3. The committee release and download title bear the September 17 date; the letter itself bears September 16.
[14] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Historic Oil Agreement to Secure American Energy Dominance and Drive Venezuela’s Economic Recovery,” August 31, 2026.
[15] Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7; Miscellaneous Receipts Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3302(b). Section 3302(b) generally requires deposit of money received for the Government, subject to applicable statutory exceptions. The Appropriations Clause governs withdrawals from the Treasury. Venezuelan sovereign funds held in custody are not automatically American public receipts or appropriations. Receipts accruing to an American governmental equity interest require separate classification.
[16] Congressional Research Service, “Office of Strategic Capital: Overview and Considerations,” IF13215, updated September 8, 2026, sections on the capital-assistance pilot program and issues for Congress. Public reproduction of the CRS report.
[17] International Law Commission, Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, 2001, especially Articles 2–5, 8, and 20; annexed to General Assembly Resolution 56/83. These articles are not a treaty; many provisions reflect customary law. Article 4 concerns State organs. Article 5 requires legal empowerment to exercise governmental authority and conduct in that capacity; ordinary corporate governance rights do not themselves establish such delegation. Article 8 concerns particular conduct under State instructions, direction, or control. State equity alone does not attribute all corporate conduct.
[20] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, Articles 2(1)(a), 46, and 52. Article 46 provides a separate, narrow connection between internal competence and international validity: the violation must concern a fundamental internal rule governing treaty-making competence and be manifest. The expiry of a temporary presidential-substitution period does not by itself establish those conditions or invalidate every subsequent act. That issue remains distinct from responsibility for American force or coercion.
[21] U.S. Department of State, “Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,” archived treaty-law guidance on the United States’ signature, non-ratification, and recognition of customary treaty law.
[22] International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, July 19, 2024, paragraphs 124–125, 133, and 240; reproduced in UN document A/78/968. The opinion discusses Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), Judgment, December 19, 2005, paragraph 244. In the 2005 judgment, the Court declined to apply permanent sovereignty to the looting and exploitation there considered. Paragraph 125 of the 2024 opinion distinguishes the absence of credible evidence of a governmental exploitation policy in that case from exploitation pursued as governmental policy contrary to occupation-law duties. The principle is therefore neither categorically inapplicable to occupation nor a substitute for establishing the relevant facts and obligations.
[23] International Committee of the Red Cross, “Occupation and international humanitarian law,” August 4, 2004, especially the discussion of Hague Regulations Articles 42 and 55 and the factual test for occupation.
The constitutional question now presented by Venezuela does not begin with petroleum. It begins with the identity of the sovereign.
Article 5 of the Constitution in force states that sovereignty resides in the people and cannot be transferred. It specifies that the people exercise sovereignty directly in the forms provided by the Constitution and law and indirectly, through suffrage, by the organs exercising Public Power. It then establishes the relation on which the rest depends: the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and remain subject to it. [1]
That language does not identify government with the sovereign people. It distinguishes the sovereign from the organs through which sovereign authority is exercised. A president, legislature, ministry, State enterprise, or interim administration may exercise constitutional competencies. None becomes the sovereign by exercising them. Governmental power is constituted power. Sovereignty remains with the people.
Article 12 gives this distinction a material object. Mineral and hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, are property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible. The deposits do not belong to the officials administering the Republic. Temporary control of governmental institutions does not convert public-domain wealth into the property of those who control them. [2]
The relation between Articles 5 and 12 therefore precedes any petroleum agreement. The Republic possesses the deposits. State organs may act concerning them only through authority conferred by the constitutional order. The sovereign source of those organs remains the people.
That structure has acquired immediate consequence because the United States has not merely facilitated commerce in Venezuelan petroleum. The present Administration publicly describes an arrangement designed to secure American governmental and economic advantages over Venezuelan reserves on a scale and for a duration extending far beyond the present political transition.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced what it called the biggest oil deal in world history. It said Venezuelan interim authorities had granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions over 17 fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. The same announcement described United States “majority control,” governmental governance rights, “economic ownership,” a 35 percent equity interest for the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital, a guaranteed right for the Department of State to purchase 20 percent of production at cost, a right of first refusal over the remaining 80 percent, veto authority over appointments to the company’s board, and a requirement that a majority of directors be United States citizens. [3]
The Administration did not present those provisions as incidental protections surrounding a Venezuelan development program. It presented them as American achievements. The White House said the arrangement would secure American “energy dominance for the next century,” expand the reserves effectively available to the United States, support American refineries and employment, and provide low-cost petroleum for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, military requirements, and other sensitive uses. [3][4]
The United States is not an accidental beneficiary of an arrangement designed elsewhere. The benefits to the United States are stated as objectives of the policy itself.
The same fact sheet describes the arrangement as part of stabilization, reconstruction, and eventual democratic transition. It says the new hydrocarbons framework was adopted with United States support. It describes United States governance and audit provisions, banking reform, payment oversight, and financial monitorship as means by which tax and royalty payments will be supervised. It also says the United States is sponsoring reconciliation talks between the 2015 National Assembly and the interim authorities. [3]
The vocabulary of transition therefore accompanies a structure in which the foreign power that intervened militarily has acquired enduring economic interests, governance rights, purchasing privileges, and supervisory functions over the principal natural resource of the country in transition.
The present interim administration did not obtain its current mandate through a new national election following the January United States military action. As of late September, its president continued to promise elections as part of a transition to full democracy without establishing a firm election date. The United States itself continues to describe democratic transition as prospective. [3][5][6]
That circumstance does not make Article 5 disappear. It makes Article 5 unavoidable.
If sovereignty were vested in whoever happened to control the machinery of government, effective control would answer the constitutional question. Article 5 says otherwise. The organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and remain subject to it. The Constitution therefore refuses the identification of governmental possession with sovereign ownership. [1]
The current National Assembly’s subsequent endorsement of the petroleum arrangement is part of the constitutional record. On September 1, it backed the arrangement by a show-of-hands vote. Some opposition deputies abstained because they had not been able to examine the written terms. [7] But an act of a constituted organ is not identical with the sovereign from which Article 5 says constituted authority derives. Legislative approval must possess constitutional competence for the act approved. The existence of a vote cannot, by itself, transform the organ casting it into the sovereign people or cure an antecedent absence of authority if the power purportedly exercised was not constitutionally available to that organ.
This is the distinction between representation and sovereignty. Representatives may exercise constitutionally conferred powers on behalf of the people. They do not own the sovereignty they exercise. Article 5 keeps the representative subject to the sovereign represented.
The distinction is particularly consequential where the commitment is intended to endure for a century. One hundred years is not a transitional interval. A concession of that duration reaches beyond the officials who granted it, beyond the present American Administration, beyond the promised democratic transition, and through generations of Venezuelans who had no part in the governmental circumstances under which it was created.
The American record itself recognizes, in another context, that control and possession do not extinguish Venezuelan ownership. Executive Order 14373, issued on January 9, defines specified natural-resource revenues held in United States Treasury accounts in Section 2 and determines in Section 4(a) that those funds are property of the Government of Venezuela. It says the United States holds those funds solely in a custodial and governmental capacity, not as a market participant, and requires Treasury to designate them as sovereign property of Venezuela rather than property of the United States. [8][9]
Yet Section 4(c)(ii) of the same order provides that those funds are held pending “sovereign disposition” for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela. Section 5(a)(ii) directs Treasury to follow the Secretary of State’s instructions concerning disbursements and transfers. [8]
From January onward, the Administration thus assigned an American officer authority to determine the purposes for which Venezuelan sovereign property would be used. Venezuelan ownership remained formally acknowledged while decisions concerning its exercise passed to an officer of the intervening State. The authority by which that officer could determine sovereign purposes on Venezuela’s behalf was asserted in an American order rather than supplied by the Venezuelan Constitution.
Nearly eight months later, the petroleum arrangement added proprietary advantages to that supervisory structure. The White House described United States economic ownership, majority control, veto rights, preferential acquisition, and a governmental equity interest protected against dilution. Reuters reported that the 35 percent position was structured through penny warrants intended to preserve the United States ownership level as additional capital entered the enterprise. [3][10]
The sequence is not one of ignorance about whose resources are involved. The American documents repeatedly identify the reserves, revenues, concessions, and deposits as Venezuelan. The Administration knows the object is Venezuelan wealth. Its own January order expressly recognizes Venezuelan sovereign property. Its later announcements expressly identify the advantages sought for the United States. [3][8]
The Venezuelan juridical record identifies the force that altered the governmental circumstances. On January 3, the Constitutional Chamber described the United States action as an agresión militar extranjera [foreign military aggression] undertaken for the secuestro[abduction] of Nicolás Maduro. It treated his resulting ausencia forzosa [forced absence] as a material and temporary impossibility of exercising presidential functions. Invoking its interpretation of Articles 234 and 239.8, the Chamber ordered Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to exercise the presidency through an urgent precautionary measure intended to preserve the State and defend the Nation. It left the definitive classification of the absence to the competent State organs. [11]
The ruling that named the aggression also ordered the acting presidency whose consent the United States now invokes. Dismissing the Chamber as an organ of the former government does not supply an independent constitutional basis for that consent. The government maintained through the Chamber’s response subsequently became the channel through which the United States obtained the petroleum advantages it announced in August.
The President of the beneficiary State had already connected the military action to its economic return. On April 30, President Trump described the relationship with Venezuela as “like a joint venture,” said both countries were making money, and declared that the United States had “paid for the attack many times over.” [12]
Exploitation does not mean every foreign investment, petroleum sale, loan, or commercial concession. It denotes the deliberate extraction of advantage from another nation’s resources under conditions in which the foreign beneficiary possesses extraordinary power over the governmental circumstances through which consent is purportedly obtained. The asymmetry is recorded on both sides: the Venezuelan Chamber named the aggression and ordered a defensive measure; the American President described the resulting economic relationship as a joint enterprise that had repaid the attack. The August arrangement then gave enduring economic and governmental form to that advantage.
The White House’s own language makes the contradiction sharper. Its August fact sheet accuses Russian and Chinese actors, along with Venezuelan political cronies, of having “looted Venezuela’s resources” for the benefit of American adversaries. The same document then celebrates the displacement of those actors by a system designed to ensure American dominance in the hemisphere, American governmental control, American economic ownership, American purchasing privileges, and American strategic supply. [3][4]
The nationality of the beneficiary cannot determine whether Venezuelan sovereignty has been respected. If foreign control of Venezuelan resources is objectionable because the resources belong to Venezuela, changing the foreign beneficiary does not alter the constitutional location of Venezuelan sovereignty or the juridical status of the deposits.
The constitutional issue is not whether Venezuela may receive foreign capital, sell petroleum, or enter long-term commercial relations. It is the source of the authority by which the Republic is bound. Investment describes capital. Contract describes an instrument. Recognition describes a foreign government’s diplomatic position. None of those categories, by itself, supplies Venezuelan sovereign competence.
The distinction becomes still more important when corporate form intervenes. The White House has emphasized the role of a private company and the use of private American capital. [3][4] But a private corporation cannot grant itself a Venezuelan petroleum concession. The underlying right to exploit deposits belonging to the Republic must originate in Venezuelan law. Private corporate arrangements can distribute economic interests after a right exists. They cannot create the sovereign authority necessary to create the right in the first place.
Reuters identifies North American Blue Energy Partners as controlled by the Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. [10] The arrangement therefore joins a Venezuelan private beneficiary to the American governmental interests it expressly creates. The advantage obtained by the United States need not be exclusive to be deliberate. Nor does a Venezuelan businessman’s private interest constitute the consent of the Venezuelan people. His participation does not alter the need to establish the constitutional authority for granting rights over the Republic’s deposits.
Nor can American law answer that antecedent Venezuelan question. American statutes, executive orders, licenses, contracts, and judicial jurisdiction can determine what United States officials and American entities may do under United States law. They cannot determine what authority Venezuelan officials possess under the Constitution of Venezuela to bind the Republic.
The American Preamble begins “We the People,” and American constitutional doctrine treats those words as identifying the source that ordained and established the Constitution. But the Supreme Court has not treated the Preamble as an independent source of substantive governmental power. Venezuela’s Article 5 is not prefatory language. It is an operative constitutional provision defining where sovereignty resides, how it is exercised, where State organs derive from, and to what they remain subject. [1][13][14]
Translating Article 5 into the familiar American phrase “We the People” would diminish rather than clarify it.
Article 5 is more exact. The people do not merely appear at the founding moment and then disappear into the institutions they created. Sovereignty remains theirs. Government does not receive sovereignty as property. It exercises constituted powers while remaining subordinate to the sovereign source from which those powers emanate.
The distinction between the sovereign people and their representatives determines what governmental consent can mean.
A representative act can bind the Republic only because the constitutional order gives the representative authority to perform that act. Representation is therefore derivative. Sovereignty is not. To treat the consent of representatives as self-validating is to reverse the constitutional relation Article 5 establishes.
The problem becomes more acute when the governmental order supplying the consent exists under foreign tutelage. The January order placed decisions over Venezuelan sovereign revenues in American hands. The subsequent structure extended that supervision across the transition: the foreign State sponsors political reconciliation, supports the legal framework governing the resource, claims audit and financial-monitoring functions, acquires governance rights and vetoes in the resulting enterprise, receives economic ownership and preferential purchasing rights, and openly describes the arrangement as securing its own dominance. [3][4][8]
Under those conditions, governmental consent cannot be treated as evidence independent of the foreign power obtaining the benefit. The foreign beneficiary participates in the political and institutional environment from which the purported consent emerges.
When the petroleum arrangement was announced, even the maximum temporary-substitution period under Article 234 had expired. Article 234 provides for substitution during a temporary presidential absence for up to ninety days, extendable by the National Assembly for up to ninety more. The first period ended on April 3. [1] On April 6, the Associated Press reported that the Assembly had taken no public vote to authorize an extension. [15] Even assuming authorization of the maximum second period, the outermost 180-day limit ended on July 2. [1]
On July 15, Acceso a la Justicia reported that the Assembly still had not pronounced on the presidential absence. It argued that the exhausted temporary period required the Assembly to activate Article 233 and the new presidential election prescribed within thirty consecutive days. Its reading permits Rodríguez to continue transitionally until an elected president takes office. That continuation does not dispense with the succession determination or the election; it exists pending their completion. [16]
On August 31, the White House announced the grant of rights it described as lasting a century. The Assembly’s failure to resolve the absence had been publicly documented, and the election required under the Article 233 reading had not occurred. By late September, there was still no firm election date. [3][5][6][16]
The Assembly’s endorsement supplied political support for a commitment reaching across generations while the constitutional duties governing the presidency making that commitment remained unperformed. [7][16]
The constitutional authority has not been established merely by pointing to the consent of the interim administration. That consent is precisely what is in question. A government continuing beyond the temporary-substitution period, without completion of the succession and electoral duties governing the transition, cannot be identified with the sovereign Venezuelan people merely because it continues to exercise governmental power. The foreign power that altered the circumstances of that government cannot invoke its consent as independent evidence that the Venezuelan people consented to the appropriation of the Republic’s natural wealth.
The intervening State invokes the consent of the governmental order maintained after its intervention as the juridical basis for its own acquisition. The circle never reaches the sovereign identified by Article 5.
The defense that someone had to govern establishes the need for continuity. It does not establish that continuity required granting the intervening State enduring ownership interests and preferential access to Venezuelan wealth. The Administration’s own January response to the emergency expressly distinguished custody and administration from proprietary acquisition. Its August arrangement crossed that distinction. Neither the need to preserve revenues nor the absence of an elected successor supplies authority to turn temporary administration into century-long foreign advantage.
Calling the arrangement reconstruction does not establish that authority. Calling it privatization does not establish it. Calling it stabilization does not establish it. Calling it a contract does not establish it. Each term describes a policy, mechanism, or objective. None establishes the Venezuelan constitutional source of the authority exercised.
Article 12 places the deposits in the public domain of the Republic. Article 5 places sovereignty in the people. Between those provisions stand the organs of government, possessing only the authority the constitutional order gives them. [1][2]
The constitutional chain therefore runs in one direction: from the sovereign people, through constituted authority, to the administration of the Republic and its public wealth. It does not run backward from possession of governmental offices to ownership of sovereignty.
A foreign power can acquire physical access. It can acquire contractual rights. It can acquire economic leverage. It can obtain governmental cooperation. It can exercise military superiority. It can even obtain effective control over institutions and revenues. None of those conditions changes the constitutional identity of the Venezuelan sovereign.
The Administration’s rhetoric of victory makes the distinction still more stark. On September 22, while discussing Venezuela and the oil agreement in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump said, “To the victor belong the spoils.” [17] A victor may possess the capacity to take advantage of circumstances created by victory. Capacity is not title. Superior force can explain how control was obtained. It cannot establish, by itself, the Venezuelan constitutional authority by which control becomes lawful.
That is why the issue cannot be reduced to whether the petroleum arrangement will increase production, attract investment, lower prices, rebuild infrastructure, or generate tax revenue. Those consequences may be economically important. They do not answer the antecedent question.
The question is who possessed authority to consent.
Under Article 5, that inquiry cannot end with the identification of those presently occupying governmental institutions. The organs of the State are not the source of sovereignty. They emanate from it and remain subject to it. [1]
Under Article 12, the object of the transaction is not ordinary governmental property available to rulers in their own right. The deposits belong to the Republic as public-domain property. [2]
The United States may call its role stabilization. It may call its interests economic ownership. It may call its supervision reconstruction. It may call its dominance strategic necessity. Venezuela’s Constitution supplies the prior vocabulary: people, sovereignty, Republic, Public Power, public domain, competence.
Those terms determine the Venezuelan question.
The American Administration’s own record establishes that the acquisition of advantage is deliberate. It announces the control, quantifies the ownership, fixes the purchasing privilege, protects the equity position, imposes governance conditions, celebrates the absence of cost to the American taxpayer, and states the objective of American dominance. [3][4][10]
The Administration has used the consent of the interim authorities to secure enduring American advantages over Venezuelan wealth. It has not established the Venezuelan constitutional authority by which those authorities could grant them.
Ricardo F. Morín
September 30, 2026
Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania
Notes
[1] Centro para la Integración y el Derecho Público (CIDEP), Constituciones de Venezuela, Constitución de 1999, Articles 5, 233, 234, and 239.8.
[3] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Historic Oil Agreement to Secure American Energy Dominance and Drive Venezuela’s Economic Recovery,” August 31, 2026.
[7] Reuters, “Venezuela’s assembly backs oil deal announced with U.S.,” September 1, 2026. Euronews, “Venezuela hands the US control over a fifth of its oil in landmark deal,” September 2, 2026, reports the show-of-hands vote and the abstention of opposition deputies who had not been able to examine the written terms.
[8] Executive Order 14373, “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” January 9, 2026, especially Sections 2, 4(a), 4(b), 4(c)(ii), and 5(a).
[9] The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Safeguards Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” January 9, 2026.
[10] Reuters, “US structured Venezuela oil position to protect it from dilution, official says,” September 4, 2026. Also identifies NABEP as controlled by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt.
[11] Acceso a la Justicia, “La SC ordena que Delcy Rodríguez, Vicepresidenta Ejecutiva, asuma y ejerza en condición de ‘encargada’ la presidencia de la República,” January 3, 2026. Reproduces the Constitutional Chamber’s decision, including its descriptions of foreign military aggression, abduction, and forced absence, and its precautionary order under Articles 234 and 239.8.
[12] GovInfo, “Remarks During a Document Signing Ceremony and an Exchange With Reporters,” April 30, 2026, p. 8, official presidential transcript, including the descriptions “like a joint venture” and “we’ve paid for the attack many times over.”
[15] Associated Press, “Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez remains acting president after her initial 90-day appointment expired,” April 6, 2026. Reports that the National Assembly had not taken a public vote to extend the initial period.
[16] Acceso a la Justicia, “¿Qué ocurre con la encargaduría presidencial?”, July 15, 2026. Reports the Assembly’s failure to pronounce on the presidential absence, argues for activation of Article 233 following exhaustion of the temporary-substitution period, and reads the Constitution as permitting transitional service until the elected president takes office.
[17] Factba.se / Roll Call, transcript of President Donald J. Trump’s address to the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 22, 2026, including the statement “To the victor belong the spoils” following his discussion of the Venezuela oil agreement.
Constitutional Authority and Venezuela Ricardo F. Morín 2026
The constitutions of Venezuela and the United States frame petroleum as the material interest between two distinct constitutional orders.
Ricardo F. Morín September 6, 2026
I have written to the President of the United States and to my representatives in Congress about recent United States actions involving Venezuela, its petroleum resources, sovereign revenues, reconstruction, and political transition.
I am publishing that correspondence because the questions raised by these actions belong in the public record.
My purpose is neither partisan nor dependent upon support for any Venezuelan political faction. The same standard should apply to every American administration and to every government exercising authority in Venezuela.
The question at the center of this inquiry can be stated plainly: who has the legal authority to make these decisions?
Under Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution, sovereignty resides in the Venezuelan people. The institutions of the State exercise powers that come from that sovereignty; the institutions themselves are not sovereign. Venezuela’s Constitution also places its hydrocarbon and mineral deposits within the public domain of the Republic and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible. This raises a further question: what constitutional power does any Venezuelan administration have to make long-term commitments involving those resources?
There is a separate American question. What authority does the United States government have under the Constitution and federal law to acquire rights involving another nation’s sovereign resources and revenues? What has Congress authorized? What has Congress funded? Which commitments belong to private investors, and which powers are being exercised by the United States government?
Private investment does not answer these questions. A corporation can invest money and enter into contracts. Corporate participation, however, cannot give either government constitutional powers that it does not otherwise possess.
THE DOCUMENTARY RECORD
The official record has become unusually specific.
In a Fact Sheet dated August 31, 2026, the White House states that an agreement involving North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, gives the United States government “powerful governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed low-cost off-take,” meaning rights to purchase Venezuelan oil at favorable terms.
The same Fact Sheet explains what some of those rights are. It states that the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital received a 35 percent ownership stake in NABEP’s corporate parent. It states that the Department of State received the right to purchase 20 percent of the oil produced at production cost and the first opportunity to purchase the remaining 80 percent.
The governmental rights extend beyond ownership and oil purchases. According to the Fact Sheet, the United States government can veto the appointment of any member of NABEP’s board of directors, and a majority of the board must be United States citizens. The Fact Sheet also states that the United States government’s agreement with NABEP is governed by United States law and is subject to the jurisdiction of United States courts.
The White House further states that what it calls Venezuela’s “interim authorities” granted NABEP 100-year concessions covering 17 oil fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. I use “interim authorities” here only because that is the White House’s description. Its use should not be read as my own determination of the constitutional status or authority of the Venezuelan officials involved.
The White House describes two related but distinct relationships. Its August 31 Fact Sheet states that Venezuela’s “interim authorities” granted NABEP the 100-year concessions. The September 2 release, meanwhile, states that the United States government’s agreement is with the private company, not with Venezuela’s interim government, and that no political process formed part of those negotiations. The later statement identifies the counterparty to the United States agreement; it does not, on its face, withdraw the earlier statement about who granted NABEP the Venezuelan concessions.
The August 31 Fact Sheet describes NABEP’s proposed investment of as much as $100 billion in Venezuelan oil infrastructure as private investment and says that the agreement will cost American taxpayers nothing.
That distinction matters. Private investment is not the same thing as public spending. Money invested by a private company is not a congressional appropriation. But private financing does not turn governmental powers into private acts. A United States government ownership stake, government purchasing rights, authority over board appointments, control or monitoring of revenues, and other rights exercised by federal agencies remain governmental actions. Their legal authority must be established separately.
A White House release dated September 2 again describes the agreement as giving the United States government “powerful governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed low-cost off-take.” The same release places the agreement within the Administration’s broader program of “stabilization, reconstruction and democratic transition.”
Another official document raises a related question.
Executive Order 14373, issued January 9, 2026, states that specified Venezuelan oil revenues held by the United States remain property of the Government of Venezuela rather than property of the United States. Section 4(b) is expressly titled “Custodial Nature of United States Possession” and states that the United States will hold these funds “solely in a custodial and governmental capacity.”
Section 4(c)(ii) further provides that the funds are to be held pending sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
In ordinary terms, the United States holds the revenues but does not own them, while a United States cabinet officer is given responsibility for determining their sovereign disposition on behalf of Venezuela. Section 5 further directs the Treasury to identify the funds as sovereign property of the Government of Venezuela “held in custody by the United States.” The Treasury is also directed to comply with instructions from the Secretary of State concerning transfers or disbursements of those funds.
The Order states the legal authority upon which it relies. It invokes the Constitution, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, and section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code.
The Order also expressly contemplates a continuing role for Congress. Section 6(b) authorizes recurring and final reports to Congress concerning the national emergency under the reporting provisions of the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Section 7(b) states that implementation of the Order must be consistent with applicable law and is “subject to the availability of appropriations.”
Those provisions are part of the record and should not be overlooked. They identify legal authorities asserted by the Executive Branch and recognize statutory reporting and appropriations constraints. They do not, by themselves, answer the broader question of how far those authorities extend or establish the legal basis for every governmental action associated with Venezuela’s resources, reconstruction, or political transition.
This creates a question that deserves a clear answer: what authority do the laws invoked by the Executive Order actually confer upon American officials to determine the disposition of sovereign Venezuelan property that the United States itself acknowledges it does not own?
The official documents establish what the Executive Branch says it has undertaken and identify some of the authority it relies upon. They do not, by themselves, establish that every action described in them is constitutionally or statutorily authorized.
That distinction is the reason for this inquiry.
One set of questions must be answered under American law: what powers do the Constitution and federal statutes give the Executive Branch, what has Congress authorized or funded, and where are the limits of those powers?
Another set must be answered under Venezuelan law: did the Venezuelan officials entering these arrangements have the constitutional power to make them?
Neither question can answer the other. American recognition cannot give Venezuelan officials powers that Venezuela’s own Constitution does not give them. Venezuelan consent cannot give the United States government powers that the American constitutional system does not give it.
These are the questions addressed in the correspondence reproduced below.
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
White House Fact Sheet, August 31, 2026 President Donald J. Trump Announces Historic Oil Agreement to Secure American Energy Dominance and Drive Venezuela’s Economic Recovery
The Fact Sheet and September 2 release tell us how the Executive Branch describes the agreement. They are not substitutes for the complete agreement itself. Unless and until that agreement is made public, we can establish what the Executive Branch says the agreement contains, but we cannot independently examine all of its terms.
LETTERS TO CONGRESS
September 6, 2026
The following is reproduced as sent.
Ref. Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Member of Congress:
I write as an American citizen concerned about a constitutional question that should transcend political affiliation: the authority under which the Executive Branch is assuming governmental, financial, and proprietary powers concerning Venezuela, its sovereign assets, and its natural resources.
My concern is not whether the present policy toward Venezuela is politically desirable. Nor is it a defense of Nicolás Maduro or of any Venezuelan political faction. It concerns the limits of governmental authority under the constitutions of both nations and the corresponding responsibility of Congress.
Recent official statements describe a United States role in the stabilization, reconstruction, and democratic transition of Venezuela. The White House has also announced arrangements giving agencies of the United States government substantial economic and governance rights associated with Venezuelan petroleum resources, including rights connected with concessions reportedly granted by Venezuela’s interim authorities.
These actions raise a question that cannot be answered exclusively under American law.
Article 5 of the Constitution of Venezuela places sovereignty in the Venezuelan people. The organs exercising public power emanate from that sovereignty and are subject to it. The government administering the State is therefore not itself the sovereign.
That distinction becomes especially consequential where national resources are concerned. Venezuela’s Constitution places hydrocarbon and mineral deposits within the public domain of the Republic and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible. Whatever authority a Venezuelan government possesses over those resources must consequently derive from the Venezuelan constitutional order. Effective control of governmental institutions cannot by itself establish unlimited constitutional competence to dispose of them.
Recognition by the United States cannot answer that question. Neither can participation by private enterprise. A private corporation may possess contractual rights, but it cannot confer sovereign authority upon a Venezuelan administration or upon the government of the United States. Nor can foreign recognition substitute for constitutional authority originating in the Venezuelan people.
There is a separate American constitutional question. Congress possesses powers concerning appropriations, war, foreign commerce, and oversight that cannot simply be presumed to have passed to the Executive because an asserted foreign-policy objective is considered urgent or advantageous. The involvement of private capital likewise does not eliminate the need to determine the legal authority for governmental rights, commitments, military involvement, administration of foreign sovereign property, or governmental direction accompanying that investment.
I therefore respectfully ask Congress to establish, through its constitutional powers of inquiry and oversight, the legal foundation for what has already occurred.
In particular, Congress should require public identification of the constitutional and statutory authority asserted for every significant United States governmental interest acquired in connection with Venezuelan resources; determine whether Congress authorized or appropriated funds for governmental activities associated with Venezuela’s stabilization, reconstruction, or political transition; obtain and examine the operative agreements rather than relying upon descriptions of them; determine the legal basis upon which United States officials purport to exercise governance, financial, custodial, or proprietary rights involving Venezuelan sovereign assets; and examine whether the Venezuelan parties purporting to authorize these arrangements possessed the constitutional competence to do so.
This inquiry should also address the antecedent question of Venezuelan popular sovereignty. If any undertaking purports to exercise a power that the Venezuelan Constitution reserves to the people, the validity of that authority cannot logically be established merely by pointing to the signature of those presently exercising governmental control.
The principle at stake should apply irrespective of political party. No Democratic or Republican President should acquire powers over another nation’s sovereign resources merely because the United States possesses sufficient economic or military power to make an arrangement effective in practice.
Effective power and lawful authority are different things.
I therefore ask Congress not simply whether current policy toward Venezuela is beneficial, but whether each exercise of American governmental power has been lawfully authorized, whether the Venezuelan constitutional authority upon which it depends actually exists, and whether Congress has permitted executive action to move beyond powers the Constitution assigns to it.
The answer should be established publicly and documentarily, before arrangements of extraordinary duration become accepted as accomplished facts.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT
September 6, 2026
The following is reproduced as sent.
President Donald J. Trump The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Ref. Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Mr. President:
I write concerning the constitutional foundations of the United States government’s present actions involving Venezuela, particularly those affecting its petroleum resources, sovereign revenues, reconstruction, and political transition.
This is not a partisan objection, nor is it an argument for the restoration of Nicolás Maduro. It concerns a principle that should bind every American administration regardless of party: the power of the United States does not itself create the legal authority to exercise sovereign powers belonging to another nation.
Your Administration has publicly described a program of stabilization, reconstruction, and democratic transition for Venezuela. It has also announced substantial United States governmental economic and governance rights associated with Venezuelan petroleum resources.
The fundamental constitutional question begins in Venezuela rather than in Washington.
Under Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution, sovereignty resides in the Venezuelan people. Governmental institutions exercise authority emanating from popular sovereignty; governmental institutions do not possess that sovereignty.
The distinction is essential. Effective possession of governmental institutions does not make an administration synonymous with the Nation, nor does recognition by the United States transfer Venezuelan sovereignty to the administration presently exercising governmental control.
Venezuela’s constitutional treatment of natural resources makes the question still more consequential. Hydrocarbon and mineral deposits are constitutionally characterized as public-domain property of the Republic and as inalienable and imprescriptible. The authority of any administration to make commitments concerning those resources must therefore be established from the Venezuelan constitutional order itself.
Private enterprise cannot supply missing sovereign authority. A corporation may invest capital or undertake contractual obligations, but corporate participation cannot confer upon either government a constitutional power that the Venezuelan constitutional order has not granted.
Nor does describing an arrangement as privately financed resolve the separate question of American governmental authority. Where agencies of the United States acquire governance rights, economic interests, control over revenues, rights concerning petroleum production, or responsibilities associated with another nation’s reconstruction and political transition, the source and limits of those United States governmental powers remain matters of constitutional importance.
Executive Order 14373 recognizes that Venezuelan oil revenues held by the United States remain sovereign Venezuelan property rather than property of the United States. That recognition makes the underlying question unavoidable: by what authority may American officials determine the disposition, governance, or economic use of property whose sovereign character the United States itself acknowledges?
I respectfully ask your Administration to make public the complete legal basis for these United States governmental actions, including the constitutional and statutory authority asserted by the United States; the operative agreements creating governmental rights or obligations; the legal basis for the authority claimed by the Venezuelan parties entering those agreements; and the basis for concluding that the agreements are compatible with Venezuelan constitutional sovereignty and applicable international law.
The question is not whether the United States believes that these arrangements will benefit Venezuela. Constitutional government does not derive its legitimacy from a foreign government’s assessment that the arrangements will be beneficial.
Nor should military, economic, or diplomatic predominance be permitted to settle a constitutional question that precedes the exercise of military, economic, or diplomatic power.
The Venezuelan people are the source of Venezuelan sovereignty. Neither an American President nor a Venezuelan administration can substitute itself for the Venezuelan people. Recognition by the United States cannot create Venezuelan constitutional competence, and private investment cannot convert effective control into sovereign authority.
This principle should not depend upon who occupies the White House. The same limitation should bind this Administration and every succeeding administration.
I therefore respectfully ask that the constitutional authority for United States actions already undertaken be disclosed and examined before additional commitments concerning Venezuela’s resources, reconstruction, or governmental transition are made irreversible in practice.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform that act.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
September 6, 2026
The following is reproduced as sent.
The Honorable Marco Rubio Secretary of State U.S. Department of State Washington, DC 20520
Ref. Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I write concerning the constitutional and statutory authority underlying actions you have taken with respect to Venezuela in two distinct capacities: as a signatory to the recently announced petroleum agreement, and as the official whom Executive Order 14373 designates to determine the purposes for which Venezuelan sovereign revenues held by the United States may be disposed.
This is not a partisan objection, nor an argument for restoring Nicolás Maduro. It concerns a principle that should bind every administration regardless of party: the power of the United States does not itself create the legal authority to exercise sovereign powers belonging to another nation.
Executive Order 14373 presents the contradiction directly. The Order identifies the specified funds as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them “solely in a custodial and governmental capacity,” and not as a market participant. Yet it provides that those funds are to be held pending sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela, and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to comply with your instructions concerning their disbursement or transfer.
Custody does not confer sovereignty. An Executive Order may assign functions within the Executive Branch, but it cannot, by its own terms, create an authority greater than the constitutional and statutory authority from which it derives. Executive Order 14373 identifies IEEPA, the National Emergencies Act, and 3 U.S.C. §301 among its sources of authority, but the Order does not establish how those authorities confer upon a United States cabinet officer Venezuelan sovereign competence to determine governmental purposes for the disposition of property that the Order itself recognizes as belonging to Venezuela. The assertion of that power therefore does not resolve the antecedent question of lawful authority to exercise it.
A related defect arises from the petroleum agreement announced by the White House. The White House describes that agreement as giving the United States government governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed rights to purchase Venezuelan oil in connection with concessions covering approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. Article 12 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that hydrocarbon deposits within the territory and specified maritime areas belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible. Article 5 provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.
These provisions do not mean that every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced is itself constitutionally inalienable. They establish the antecedent constitutional question: the authority to create concessions and governmental rights concerning resources belonging to the Republic must itself derive from the Venezuelan constitutional order.
The participation of a private company does not cure that defect. A private contractual act cannot substitute for sovereign competence, nor can a private entity confer upon the United States governmental rights that depend upon authority the Venezuelan constitutional order has not lawfully supplied. The relevant question is not whether private investment may participate in Venezuelan petroleum development, but whether the concessions and governmental rights upon which this arrangement depends were created through constitutionally competent Venezuelan authority.
Effective control of governmental institutions does not itself establish constitutional competence. United States recognition cannot create that competence, and the participation or consent of a private party cannot replace it. Under Article 5, the source of Venezuelan sovereignty remains the Venezuelan people.
Accordingly, the publicly disclosed instruments do not establish the lawful authority necessary for the United States to exercise the sovereign functions described above. Executive assertion cannot supply Venezuelan constitutional competence, and private agreement cannot convert effective control into sovereign authority. If the United States maintains that enacted law and the Venezuelan constitutional order nevertheless authorize these actions, the operative agreements and the specific provisions upon which that position rests should be made public and subjected to examination against the constitutional limitations described here.
The Venezuelan people are the source of Venezuelan sovereignty. Neither a United States official nor a private enterprise can substitute itself for them.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
LETTER TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF WAR
September 6, 2026
The following is reproduced as sent.
The Honorable Pete Hegseth Secretary of War U.S. Department of War Washington, DC 20301
Ref. Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I write concerning the constitutional and statutory authority underlying your Department’s participation in the recently announced petroleum arrangement involving Venezuela, including the 35 percent equity interest that the White House states has been granted to the Office of Strategic Capital.
This is not a partisan objection, nor an argument for restoring Nicolás Maduro. It concerns a principle that should bind every administration regardless of party: the possession of governmental power does not itself establish that its exercise has been lawfully authorized.
The White House states that North American Blue Energy Partners granted your Department’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity stake in its corporate parent, representing what the White House describes as potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in value and dividends for the United States. The fact that a private company purports to grant such an interest does not itself confer statutory authority upon a federal office to accept, hold, administer, or benefit from it.
The statutory framework governing the Office of Strategic Capital makes the defect particularly significant. Section 149 of title 10 defines “capital assistance” as a loan, loan guarantee, or technical assistance and defines an eligible investment by reference to such capital assistance. Its capital-assistance program provides for loans and loan guarantees, together with technical assistance, subject to the conditions Congress prescribed.
Congress subsequently considered the very authority implicated here. The House included in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 a provision that would have provided equity-investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital. The final congressional agreement did not include that provision. Congress enacted additional authorities for the Office while leaving the proposed equity-investment authority unenacted.
The publicly identified statutory framework therefore does not authorize the 35 percent equity holding described by the White House. An executive office cannot treat its general investment-related responsibilities as equivalent to a specific power to acquire and hold equity where the governing statute defines the forms of capital assistance Congress authorized and Congress considered, but did not enact, an express equity-investment authority. The White House’s assertion that the interest was obtained at no cost to the American taxpayer does not cure that statutory defect. Absence of a purchase price is not an authorization to accept and hold property.
The White House further states that the United States government possesses veto power over appointments to the company’s board of directors and that a majority of the board must consist of United States citizens. It characterizes the interests obtained by the United States as governance rights. These governmental rights cannot derive their legal authority merely from the willingness of a private company to confer them. A private agreement cannot enlarge the statutory powers of a federal agency.
A further and independent defect arises under the constitutional order of Venezuela. Article 12 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that the country’s hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible. Article 5 provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.
These provisions do not make every commercial interest in lawfully produced petroleum constitutionally inalienable. They establish that the authority underlying concessions and governmental rights concerning the Republic’s hydrocarbon resources must itself arise within the Venezuelan constitutional order.
The participation of North American Blue Energy Partners does not answer that antecedent question. A private entity may possess contractual rights, investment interests, and commercial capacity; it does not thereby possess sovereign competence to create governmental authority that Venezuelan law has not supplied, nor can its contractual grant enlarge the statutory authority Congress has conferred upon an office of the United States.
Neither effective control of Venezuelan governmental institutions nor recognition by the United States can itself create Venezuelan constitutional competence. Likewise, neither private capital nor a purported private grant can cure the absence of governmental authority on the United States side.
Accordingly, the public legal record does not establish lawful authority for the Office of Strategic Capital to accept and hold the equity interest described by the White House. If the Department maintains that a separate enacted authority defeats that conclusion, the specific statutory provision and the operative agreements upon which that position rests should be made public. The same applies to the Venezuelan authority underlying the concessions and governmental rights upon which the arrangement depends.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
LETTER TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
September 7, 2026
The Honorable Chris Wright Secretary of Energy U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20585
Ref. Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I write concerning the constitutional and statutory authority underlying your Department’s participation in United States governmental activities involving Venezuela’s petroleum resources, electrical infrastructure, economic stabilization, and reconstruction.
This is not a partisan objection, nor an argument for restoring Nicolás Maduro. It concerns a principle that should bind every administration regardless of party: governmental power and private economic capacity do not themselves create lawful authority to exercise sovereign powers belonging to another nation.
On September 2, 2026, the Department of Energy announced that you traveled to Venezuela to oversee agreements involving Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova. Your Department describes these agreements as expanding petroleum production, unlocking billions of dollars in private-sector investment, modernizing Venezuela’s electrical grid, and advancing the Administration’s effort to rebuild the country’s critical energy infrastructure.
The Department further states that these agreements build upon an earlier arrangement establishing what it describes as “U.S. majority control” over an estimated 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven petroleum reserves.
That description raises an antecedent question of governmental authority that private investment cannot answer.
Private companies may invest capital, enter contracts, assume commercial risks, and undertake infrastructure projects. Their expenditures do not become congressional appropriations merely because United States officials encourage or facilitate them. The distinction is fundamental. Billions of dollars committed by private companies must not be represented as billions appropriated by Congress for Venezuelan reconstruction.
The converse is equally important. Private financing does not transform governmental action into private action. When a Cabinet Secretary travels to another nation to oversee agreements that his Department describes as implementing United States control over petroleum resources and rebuilding that nation’s critical infrastructure, the governmental role requires an independent source of lawful authority. Private capital cannot confer powers upon the Department of Energy that Congress has not granted it.
The Venezuelan constitutional question is separate and equally fundamental.
Article 12 of the Constitution of Venezuela provides that hydrocarbon deposits within the national territory and corresponding maritime areas belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible. Article 5 provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.
These provisions do not mean that every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced is itself constitutionally inalienable. They establish the antecedent question: the governmental authority to create concessions, confer control, and undertake long-term commitments concerning resources belonging to the Republic must itself derive from the Venezuelan constitutional order.
Nor does the participation of Venezuelan officials, PDVSA, CORPOELEC, Chevron, Eni, GE Vernova, or any other private or state enterprise resolve that question. Contractual capacity and sovereign competence are not interchangeable. A corporation may possess authority to contract without possessing authority to confer sovereign powers, and effective control of governmental institutions does not itself establish unlimited constitutional competence to bind the Venezuelan nation or dispose of rights concerning its public domain.
I therefore do not presume that a national referendum is required for every energy contract or infrastructure undertaking. The more fundamental question precedes that issue: what constitutionally competent Venezuelan authority authorized the concessions, governmental rights, and long-term commitments that the Department of Energy now describes as producing “U.S. majority control” over Venezuelan petroleum resources?
The United States constitutional question must be answered independently. Venezuelan consent cannot enlarge powers that Congress has not conferred upon the Department of Energy, just as United States recognition or participation cannot create constitutional competence that Venezuelan officials do not possess.
Congress has previously enacted legislation addressing assistance, democratic institutions, elections, and other United States activities concerning Venezuela. Those enactments demonstrate that Congress knows how to authorize particular governmental activities concerning Venezuela and to appropriate funds for them. They do not establish a general Executive authority to administer Venezuela’s economy, direct its reconstruction, or assume governmental control over its natural resources.
The distinction between private investment and governmental commitment is therefore indispensable. If Chevron, Eni, GE Vernova, or other private entities invest their own capital, that fact should be stated as such. If the United States Government is committing federal funds, assuming financial obligations, directing reconstruction, administering infrastructure, acquiring control over Venezuelan resources, or otherwise exercising governmental authority, the enacted statutory and appropriations authority for each such undertaking should likewise be identified.
Accordingly, the public record presently establishes substantial United States governmental participation in arrangements concerning Venezuela’s energy resources and reconstruction, but it does not, merely by announcing those arrangements, establish the constitutional and statutory authority necessary to exercise every governmental power the Department describes.
If the Department maintains that enacted law authorizes its participation in these activities, I respectfully ask that it identify the specific statutory provisions upon which it relies; disclose any governmental agreements defining the Department’s authority, obligations, financial commitments, or supervisory role; distinguish federal expenditures and obligations from private-sector investments; and identify the Venezuelan constitutional authority upon which the United States relies for the concessions, control, and governmental rights involved.
The question is not whether increased petroleum production, electrical reliability, foreign investment, or economic reconstruction may benefit Venezuela or the United States. Expected economic benefit cannot itself confer constitutional authority upon either government.
The Venezuelan people remain the source of Venezuelan sovereignty. Neither foreign governmental power, effective domestic control, nor private economic investment can substitute for constitutionally competent authority.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
OFFICIAL PUBLIC CONTACT CHANNELS
The letters above record what I have written. The source documents allow readers to examine the underlying government statements for themselves.
Readers may reach their own conclusions. Anyone who independently decides to communicate with the federal government may write in their own words, adapt my correspondence, reproduce it, disagree with it, or take a different position.
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PUBLIC POSITION
The constitutional question does not depend upon whether someone believes the present policy is good or bad for the United States or Venezuela. It should not depend upon which political party controls the government.
The question is more basic: does the government have the legal authority to do what it is doing?
The White House has made consequential claims in public documents. It describes United States government rights involving an ownership stake, oil purchases, appointments to a corporate board, Venezuelan revenues, and a broader program of stabilization, reconstruction, and democratic transition.
Those actions should be measured against the powers that the United States Constitution and federal law actually give the government.
A second question must be answered under Venezuela’s Constitution. The United States cannot give Venezuelan officials powers that Venezuela’s own Constitution does not give them. Nor can a private corporation do so.
Under Venezuela’s Constitution, the Venezuelan people are the source of Venezuelan sovereignty. A foreign government cannot supply that sovereignty, and neither can a private company.
None of this determines in advance what the answers must be. It establishes the questions that should be answered.
Government action should not become lawful merely because the government has enough power to carry it out. Nor should an unresolved question of authority disappear simply because an arrangement has already been put into effect.
That is why I am placing the correspondence and the documents on which it is based before the public.
ADDITIONAL LETTERS
On September 9, 2026, the following correspondence was submitted by United States mail to Congressional Oversight Committees, United Nations Officials, and Selected Press, Requesting Independent Journalistic Examination.
Letters to Congressional Oversight Committees:
September 8, 2026
The Honorable James E. Risch Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate
The Honorable Jeanne Shaheen Ranking Member Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate
423 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Ref. Congressional Oversight of Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Chairman Risch and Ranking Member Shaheen:
I write to place before the Committee a constitutional and statutory question arising from the expanding role of the United States Government in Venezuela and to request congressional examination of the authority underlying that role.
This is not a partisan objection, nor an argument for restoring Nicolás Maduro. It concerns the allocation of governmental authority under the laws of the United States and the constitutional sovereignty of Venezuela. The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
The Committee has already examined United States policy toward Venezuela and the conditions necessary for a democratic transition. Members of both parties have affirmed that Venezuela’s political future must ultimately be determined through free and fair elections and by the Venezuelan people themselves. That principle acquires additional constitutional importance as the Executive Branch enters long-term arrangements concerning Venezuelan petroleum resources, governmental revenues, economic reconstruction, and institutional control before that democratic transition has occurred.
Executive Order 14373 identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds those funds “solely in a custodial and governmental capacity.” Yet the Order provides that the funds are to be held pending sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela, and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to comply with instructions concerning their disbursement or transfer.
Custody and sovereign authority are not equivalent. An Executive Order may allocate functions within the Executive Branch, but it cannot by its own terms create authority greater than that conferred by the Constitution and laws from which it derives.
A further question arises from the petroleum agreement announced by the White House on August 31, 2026. The White House states that the agreement gives the United States Government governance rights, economic ownership, guaranteed rights to acquire Venezuelan petroleum, and veto power concerning appointments to the board of the private company involved. It further states that Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves.
The same announcement describes these arrangements as part of a three-stage program of stabilization, reconstruction, and democratic transition. It identifies up to $100 billion in proposed Venezuelan petroleum infrastructure expenditures as private-sector investment. That distinction must be preserved. Private investment is not a congressional appropriation, and private capital cannot itself confer governmental authority upon an Executive department or agency.
The Venezuelan constitutional question is separate.
Article 12 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible. Article 5 provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.
These provisions do not make every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced constitutionally inalienable. They establish an antecedent question: the authority to create concessions and governmental rights concerning resources belonging to the Republic must itself derive from the Venezuelan constitutional order.
Neither United States recognition nor effective control of Venezuelan governmental institutions answers that question. Nor does the participation of a private enterprise. Contractual capacity cannot substitute for sovereign competence.
The duration of the arrangements makes the issue particularly consequential. A 100-year concession purports to bind Venezuela far beyond the tenure of the officials presently exercising governmental power and beyond the democratic transition that the United States itself says remains to be completed. A future election cannot retrospectively be presumed to supply constitutional authority for governmental commitments undertaken before that election. The relevant inquiry is whether constitutionally competent authority exists at the time the Republic is purportedly bound.
There is also an unresolved congressional question concerning the extent of the United States governmental commitment. Public reporting has described proposals for a substantial United States stabilization or reconstruction presence in Venezuela, including a proposal involving approximately 3,000 personnel and expenditures of approximately $3 billion. I have not identified an enacted congressional authorization or appropriation establishing such a mission. Nor should privately financed petroleum or infrastructure projects be treated as evidence that Congress has appropriated funds for a governmental reconstruction program.
I therefore respectfully ask the Committee to exercise its oversight authority to determine:
1. what enacted statutory authority supports the governmental rights, economic interests, petroleum acquisition rights, financial administration, and other sovereign functions the Executive Branch has undertaken or proposes to undertake concerning Venezuela;
2. what operative agreements, legal opinions, memoranda, or other instruments define those governmental rights and obligations;
3. what constitutional authority the United States relies upon for the Venezuelan officials presently exercising power to grant 100-year petroleum concessions and other long-term governmental rights affecting resources belonging to the Republic;
4. what federal funds have been appropriated, obligated, transferred, or expended for Venezuelan stabilization, reconstruction, administration, infrastructure, or related governmental activities, separately identifying expenditures of the United States Government from investments made by private enterprises;
5. whether any proposed deployment or assignment of approximately 3,000 United States personnel, or any approximately $3 billion stabilization or reconstruction program, has received statutory authorization, appropriations, or other congressional approval; and
6. what mechanisms exist for congressional audit and continuing oversight of Venezuelan sovereign revenues held or administered by the United States Government.
These questions do not depend upon whether the policies at issue are expected to produce economic benefits for Venezuela or strategic benefits for the United States. Economic advantage cannot supply constitutional authority where that authority is otherwise absent.
Nor does the prospect of future democratic elections answer the present question. If the Venezuelan people remain the source of Venezuelan sovereignty, the authority by which their Republic is bound today must be identifiable today.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain and examine the operative instruments and legal authorities upon which these arrangements depend and, to the extent consistent with legitimate requirements of confidentiality, to make that record available to Congress and the public.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Brian J. Mast Chairman Committee on Foreign Affairs U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks Ranking Member Committee on Foreign Affairs U.S. House of Representatives
2170 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Ref. Congressional Oversight of Constitutional Authority and United States Actions Concerning Venezuela
Dear Chairman Mast and Ranking Member Meeks:
I write to place before the Committee a constitutional and statutory question arising from the expanding role of the United States Government in Venezuela and to request congressional examination of the authority underlying that role.
This is not a partisan objection, nor an argument for restoring Nicolás Maduro. It concerns a principle antecedent to disagreements over policy: governmental power does not itself establish lawful governmental authority, and neither recognition nor private economic participation can supply constitutional competence that does not otherwise exist.
The Committee has already addressed Venezuela’s democratic transition. Members representing differing political positions have nevertheless recognized that the Venezuelan people must ultimately determine their political future through a credible democratic process. That proposition becomes particularly important as the Executive Branch undertakes long-term arrangements concerning Venezuelan petroleum resources, sovereign revenues, reconstruction, and governmental control before that democratic transition has occurred.
Executive Order 14373 identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them “solely in a custodial and governmental capacity.” Yet the Order provides that those funds are to be held pending sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela, and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to comply with instructions concerning their disbursement or transfer.
The Order therefore raises an antecedent question that its own assertion of Executive authority does not resolve: what enacted authority permits an officer of the United States to determine governmental purposes for the disposition of sovereign property that the Order itself recognizes as belonging to Venezuela?
The petroleum agreement announced by the White House on August 31 raises a related question. The White House states that the agreement gives the United States Government governance rights, economic ownership, guaranteed petroleum acquisition rights, and veto power concerning appointments to the board of the private enterprise involved. It further states that Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves.
The White House identifies these arrangements as a central component of an Administration program of stabilization, reconstruction, and democratic transition.
That sequence deserves congressional examination. The democratic transition is described as prospective, while governmental and economic arrangements capable of extending for generations are being created in the present.
Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible.
These provisions do not establish that every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced is constitutionally inalienable. They establish the antecedent constitutional question: by what authority are concessions and governmental rights concerning resources belonging to the Republic being created?
Effective governmental control is not synonymous with constitutional competence. United States recognition cannot itself create Venezuelan constitutional authority. A private enterprise may possess contractual capacity, but it cannot confer sovereign competence upon Venezuelan officials or enlarge the statutory powers of an agency of the United States.
The 100-year duration attributed to the petroleum concessions makes that distinction especially important. Such concessions purport to create rights extending far beyond the tenure of the present Venezuelan authorities and beyond the democratic transition the United States says it seeks. A future election cannot simply be presumed to supply retrospectively the constitutional authority required for commitments undertaken before that election.
The United States side presents an independent question.
The White House describes up to $100 billion in proposed petroleum infrastructure expenditures as private investment. Other Administration announcements likewise describe billions of dollars in prospective private-sector energy and infrastructure investment. These amounts must be distinguished from appropriated federal funds. Private investment is not a congressional appropriation.
The converse is equally important. Private financing does not transform governmental conduct into private conduct. When officers and agencies of the United States acquire governance rights, administer foreign sovereign revenues, exercise economic interests, supervise reconstruction, or assume governmental obligations, those acts require statutory authority regardless of whether private capital finances the underlying commercial projects.
Public reporting has also described a proposed United States stabilization or reconstruction mission involving approximately 3,000 personnel and approximately $3 billion. I have not identified an enacted congressional authorization or appropriation establishing such a mission. If no such authority exists, the distinction should be made explicit. If authority has been enacted or funds have been obligated, the relevant legal instrument and appropriation should be identified.
I therefore respectfully ask the Committee, including through its appropriate subcommittees, to determine:
1. what enacted statutory authority supports the governance rights, economic interests, petroleum acquisition rights, administration of Venezuelan sovereign revenues, and other governmental functions undertaken by the Executive Branch;
2. what operative agreements, legal opinions, memoranda, or other instruments define those rights and obligations;
3. what Venezuelan constitutional authority the United States relies upon for the grant of 100-year petroleum concessions and other long-term governmental commitments by the authorities presently exercising power in Venezuela;
4. what federal funds have been appropriated, obligated, transferred, or expended for Venezuelan stabilization, reconstruction, administration, infrastructure, or related governmental activities, with federal expenditures distinguished from private-sector investment;
5. whether any proposed deployment or assignment of approximately 3,000 United States personnel, or an approximately $3 billion stabilization or reconstruction program, has received congressional authorization or appropriations;
6. what authority governs the acquisition or exercise by United States departments or agencies of equity interests, governance rights, veto powers, petroleum acquisition rights, or comparable economic interests arising from these arrangements; and
7. what mechanisms Congress has established, or should establish, for auditing Venezuelan sovereign revenues held or administered by the United States and for reviewing the governmental agreements now being implemented.
These questions do not require Congress first to determine whether the Administration’s economic policy will succeed or fail. They precede that judgment. A policy may be economically advantageous and still require constitutional and statutory authority for the governmental acts through which it is implemented.
The same principle applies in Venezuela. Expected reconstruction, increased petroleum production, or future democratic elections cannot substitute for the authority required when long-term obligations are created.
If the Venezuelan people are to chart their own destiny, the governmental authority by which their Republic is being bound in the present must itself be capable of constitutional identification.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain and examine the operative agreements and legal authorities underlying these arrangements and, to the extent consistent with legitimate requirements of confidentiality, to make that record available to Congress and the public.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Mike Rogers Chairman Committee on Armed Services U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Adam Smith Ranking Member Committee on Armed Services U.S. House of Representatives
2216 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Ref. Congressional Oversight of the Office of Strategic Capital’s 35 Percent Equity Interest in the Venezuela Petroleum Arrangement
Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith:
I write to request congressional examination of the statutory authority under which the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital has accepted or holds the 35 percent equity interest described by the White House in connection with the recently announced petroleum arrangement involving Venezuela.
The question falls directly within the Committee’s legislative and oversight responsibilities because Congress has not merely legislated generally concerning the Office of Strategic Capital. During consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, the House addressed the precise subject of equity-investment authority for that Office.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced that North American Blue Energy Partners had granted the Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent. The White House characterized that interest as having been obtained at no cost to the American taxpayer and as representing up to hundreds of billions of dollars in potential value and dividends for the United States.
Whether the interest was acquired without a purchase price does not answer the antecedent statutory question. Authority to accept, hold, administer, exercise rights arising from, or receive distributions upon an equity interest must derive from law. A private entity cannot enlarge the statutory powers of a federal office by offering property to it.
Section 149 of title 10 establishes the Office of Strategic Capital and gives it substantial investment-related responsibilities. Its capital-assistance program, however, defines “capital assistance” as a loan, loan guarantee, or technical assistance and defines an eligible investment by reference to that capital assistance.
The legislative history of the Fiscal Year 2026 authorization is therefore particularly consequential. The House included section 905, which the joint explanatory statement states “would provide equity investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital.” The Senate contained no similar provision. The final congressional agreement did not include the House provision.
I do not treat the omission of section 905 as though it were, by itself, a judicial determination that every possible equity transaction by the Office is unlawful. It establishes something narrower and directly relevant to congressional oversight: Congress considered express equity-investment authority for the Office, and that proposed authority was not included in the final agreement.
Against that legislative record, the subsequent acquisition or acceptance of a 35 percent equity interest requires identification of the enacted authority upon which the Department relies.
The White House announcement raises additional questions concerning the nature of the interest. The United States Government is said to possess veto power over appointments to the company’s board, while a majority of the board must consist of United States citizens. The White House expressly characterizes the arrangement as conferring governance rights and economic ownership upon the United States Government.
These are not merely descriptive references to private investment. They concern governmental property interests and governmental rights purportedly held by an office within the Department of War.
The distinction between private and governmental action is therefore indispensable. North American Blue Energy Partners may possess whatever contractual capacity applicable private law affords it. That capacity does not determine what property or powers a federal office is authorized by Congress to accept or exercise.
I respectfully ask the Committee to determine:
1. the specific enacted statutory authority under which the Office of Strategic Capital accepted, acquired, or holds the 35 percent equity interest described by the White House;
2. whether the interest is held directly by the United States, by the Department of War, by the Office of Strategic Capital, through an intermediary, or under some other legal arrangement;
3. the legal instrument by which the interest was conveyed and the terms governing dividends, voting rights, disposition, valuation, liability, and governmental control;
4. the statutory authority for the United States Government’s veto power over appointments to the company’s board and any other governance rights associated with the interest;
5. whether the Department relies upon 10 U.S.C. §149 or upon some separate enacted authority, and, if upon separate authority, what provision Congress enacted;
6. how the Department reconciles the transaction with the FY2026 legislative history in which express equity-investment authority for the Office was proposed in the House but not included in the final congressional agreement;
7. whether any appropriated federal funds, guarantees, contingent liabilities, administrative expenditures, or other governmental financial commitments accompany the interest, separately from the private capital that the White House states will finance petroleum development in Venezuela; and
8. what reporting, audit, valuation, conflict-of-interest, disposition, and continuing congressional oversight requirements govern an equity interest that the White House values potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
These questions do not depend upon whether the underlying petroleum investment proves commercially successful or advantageous to the United States. Expected economic benefit cannot substitute for statutory authority.
Nor does the absence of a purchase price resolve the matter. Governmental ownership of valuable property can create rights, obligations, liabilities, administrative responsibilities, and future revenues irrespective of whether money was initially paid to acquire it.
Congress possesses both the authority and the institutional record necessary to determine whether the Executive Branch is exercising a power Congress enacted or one that was proposed but left unenacted.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain the operative agreement and the Department’s legal analysis and to determine the statutory basis upon which the Office of Strategic Capital has accepted and now exercises the equity and governance rights described by the White House.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Roger F. Wicker Chairman Committee on Armed Services United States Senate
The Honorable Jack Reed Ranking Member Committee on Armed Services United States Senate
228 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Ref. Congressional Oversight of the Office of Strategic Capital’s 35 Percent Equity Interest in the Venezuela Petroleum Arrangement
Dear Chairman Wicker and Ranking Member Reed:
I write to request congressional examination of the statutory authority under which the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital has accepted or holds the 35 percent equity interest described by the White House in connection with the recently announced petroleum arrangement involving Venezuela.
This question warrants particular examination by the Senate Armed Services Committee because the legislative history of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 records Congress’s consideration of the precise authority now implicated.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced that North American Blue Energy Partners had granted the Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent. The White House states that the interest was obtained at no cost to the American taxpayer and represents up to hundreds of billions of dollars in potential value and dividends for the United States.
The absence of a purchase price does not answer the statutory question. Authority to accept, hold, administer, exercise rights arising from, or receive distributions upon an equity interest must derive from law. A private company cannot confer statutory authority upon an office of the United States merely by purporting to grant property to it.
Section 149 of title 10 establishes the Office of Strategic Capital and assigns it substantial responsibilities concerning capital investment. Its capital-assistance program, however, defines “capital assistance” as a loan, loan guarantee, or technical assistance and defines an eligible investment by reference to such capital assistance.
Congress considered going further.
The House version of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act contained section 905. The joint explanatory statement states expressly that this provision “would provide equity investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital.” The Senate bill contained no similar provision, and the final congressional agreement did not include the House provision.
That legislative history should not be overstated. Failure to include a proposed provision does not, standing alone, establish a judicial holding that every conceivable equity transaction is unlawful. It does establish that express authority for the Office to make equity investments was presented to Congress and was not enacted as part of the final agreement.
The subsequent announcement that the Office possesses a 35 percent equity interest therefore presents a concrete question for the committees that negotiated that legislation: what enacted authority permits the Office to possess the interest now attributed to it?
The White House further states that the United States Government possesses veto power over appointments to the company’s board and that a majority of the board must consist of United States citizens. It characterizes the arrangement as conferring governance rights and economic ownership upon the United States Government.
These features make the statutory question more, not less, consequential. They concern governmental ownership and governmental control, not merely the facilitation of private investment.
I respectfully ask the Committee to determine:
1. the specific enacted statutory authority under which the Office of Strategic Capital accepted, acquired, or holds the 35 percent equity interest;
2. the legal form in which that interest is held and the governmental entity that legally owns it;
3. the operative instrument establishing the interest and the terms governing voting, dividends, valuation, transfer, disposition, liabilities, and governmental control;
4. the statutory authority for the United States Government’s veto power over appointments to the company’s board and any related governance rights;
5. whether the Department relies upon 10 U.S.C. §149 or another enacted provision as authority for the equity interest and, if another provision is relied upon, what provision that is;
6. how the Department reconciles its present position with the FY2026 legislative history in which the House proposed express equity-investment authority for the Office, the Senate contained no corresponding provision, and the final agreement did not include the House proposal;
7. whether federal appropriations, guarantees, administrative expenditures, contingent liabilities, or other governmental commitments accompany the interest, separately identifying them from the private-sector capital the Administration states will finance petroleum development in Venezuela; and
8. what congressional reporting, audit, valuation, ethics, disposition, and oversight requirements govern the interest and any revenues derived from it.
The distinction between private contractual capacity and governmental statutory authority is fundamental. A private company may have legal capacity to offer an equity interest. That does not establish that a federal office possesses legal authority to accept and hold it.
Likewise, the potential economic value of the transaction cannot resolve the question. If anything, an interest that the White House describes as potentially representing hundreds of billions of dollars in value and dividends warrants correspondingly clear congressional authority and oversight.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain the operative agreement and the Department’s legal analysis and to determine whether the equity and governance rights announced by the White House fall within authority Congress enacted.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Mike Lee Chairman Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate
The Honorable Martin Heinrich Ranking Member Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate
304 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Ref. Congressional Oversight of Department of Energy Authority Concerning Venezuela
Dear Chairman Lee and Ranking Member Heinrich:
I write to request congressional examination of the statutory authority underlying the Department of Energy’s expanding governmental role concerning Venezuela’s petroleum resources, electrical infrastructure, and economic reconstruction.
On September 2, 2026, the Department announced that Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Venezuela to oversee the signing of agreements involving Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova. DOE states that these arrangements will expand petroleum production, unlock billions of dollars in private-sector investment, modernize Venezuela’s electrical grid, and advance the Administration’s effort to rebuild critical energy infrastructure.
DOE further states that these agreements build upon President Trump’s August 28 announcement of what DOE calls a “historic binational agreement with Venezuela,” which DOE describes as establishing “U.S. majority control” of an estimated 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan petroleum reserves.
Congress has authorized the Secretary of Energy to conduct certain international energy activities. In particular, 42 U.S.C. §16341 directs the Secretary to carry out a program promoting Western Hemisphere energy cooperation, including activities intended to increase energy supplies, improve energy efficiency, and assist the development and transfer of energy-supply and efficiency technologies.
That authority is relevant and should be acknowledged. It does not, on its face, answer the separate question presented by DOE’s own description of the present arrangements: what enacted authority supports a governmental role involving “U.S. majority control” over another nation’s petroleum resources, supervision of long-term commercial agreements, or direction of that nation’s energy reconstruction?
The distinction between cooperation and governmental control is legally consequential.
The same is true of the distinction between private investment and public expenditure. DOE describes Chevron’s announced investment of more than $7 billion and other anticipated expenditures as private-sector investment. Those investments are not congressional appropriations. Conversely, the fact that private companies finance commercial projects does not transform governmental action by the Secretary or Department into private conduct.
If DOE is committing federal funds, assuming obligations, administering agreements, directing reconstruction, exercising governmental control, or otherwise undertaking functions beyond facilitating lawful private energy cooperation, each such governmental act requires an identifiable source of statutory authority and, where federal funds are involved, an applicable appropriation.
The Venezuelan side presents a separate question. DOE states that Eni and PDVSA entered a 25-year arrangement concerning the Junín 5 field and that Secretary Wright joined the Venezuelan interim President in witnessing an agreement between GE Vernova and CORPOELEC concerning Venezuela’s electrical system. DOE simultaneously describes an earlier arrangement as establishing United States majority control over approximately 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves.
Article 12 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible. Article 5 provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.
Those provisions do not make every commercial interest in lawfully produced petroleum inalienable, nor do I presume that every energy agreement requires a national referendum. They do require identification of the constitutionally competent Venezuelan authority by which long-term concessions and governmental rights affecting resources belonging to the Republic are created.
I therefore respectfully ask the Committee to determine:
1. the specific statutory authorities upon which DOE relies for Secretary Wright’s participation in and supervision of the Venezuela agreements announced on September 2;
2. whether DOE relies upon 42 U.S.C. §16341, the Department of Energy Organization Act, another enacted statute, presidential delegation, or some combination of authorities, and the scope DOE attributes to each;
3. the identity and legal character of the “historic binational agreement with Venezuela” that DOE states President Trump announced on August 28, including the parties, operative provisions, duration, and governmental obligations created by it;
4. how that instrument relates to the separately described agreement between the United States Government and North American Blue Energy Partners and to the petroleum concessions granted by Venezuelan interim authorities;
5. what DOE means legally by “U.S. majority control” over approximately 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan proven petroleum reserves and what governmental rights DOE itself possesses under that arrangement;
6. whether DOE has obligated or expended federal funds, assumed contingent liabilities, provided guarantees, committed personnel or resources, or undertaken other governmental financial obligations in connection with Venezuelan stabilization, reconstruction, petroleum development, or electrical infrastructure;
7. which announced expenditures constitute private-sector investment and which, if any, constitute obligations or expenditures of the United States Government;
8. what Venezuelan constitutional authority the United States relies upon for the long-term concessions and governmental rights involved; and
9. what reporting, audit, records-preservation, and continuing congressional oversight mechanisms apply to DOE’s participation.
The question is not whether greater petroleum production, reliable electricity, or private investment may benefit Venezuela or the United States. Those are policy and economic judgments. They cannot themselves determine the scope of authority Congress conferred upon an Executive department.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain the operative agreements and DOE’s legal analysis so that Congress can distinguish authorized international energy cooperation from any governmental authority over Venezuela’s resources or reconstruction that requires a separate statutory foundation.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Brett Guthrie Chairman Committee on Energy and Commerce U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Frank Pallone, Jr. Ranking Member Committee on Energy and Commerce U.S. House of Representatives
2125 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Ref. Congressional Oversight of Department of Energy Authority Concerning Venezuela
Dear Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone:
I write to request congressional examination of the statutory authority underlying the Department of Energy’s expanding governmental role concerning Venezuela’s petroleum resources, electrical infrastructure, and economic reconstruction.
On September 2, 2026, DOE announced that Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Venezuela to oversee agreements involving Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova. The Department states that the agreements will expand petroleum production, unlock billions in private-sector investment, modernize Venezuela’s electrical grid, and advance the Administration’s effort to rebuild critical energy infrastructure.
DOE further states that these agreements build upon President Trump’s August 28 announcement of what DOE describes as a “historic binational agreement with Venezuela,” which DOE says establishes “U.S. majority control” of approximately 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan petroleum reserves.
Congress has granted the Secretary authority to undertake specified international energy activities. Under 42 U.S.C. §16341, the Secretary is directed to promote Western Hemisphere energy cooperation through activities including increased energy production, improved efficiency, and assistance in the development and transfer of energy technologies.
The existence of that authority makes it important to identify its boundary rather than to assume either that DOE possesses no international role or that international energy cooperation confers unlimited governmental authority.
DOE’s September 2 announcement goes beyond describing technical cooperation. It places the Secretary personally in the supervision of agreements involving Venezuelan petroleum production and electrical infrastructure and connects those agreements to what DOE itself calls United States majority control over a substantial portion of Venezuela’s proven petroleum reserves.
I respectfully ask the Committee, exercising its jurisdiction over the Department of Energy, to determine the statutory basis and limits of that governmental role.
The financial record also requires clarification. DOE describes billions of dollars committed by Chevron and other companies as private-sector investment. Those expenditures should remain analytically distinct from federal appropriations, obligations, guarantees, administrative expenditures, or other commitments of the United States Government.
Private financing cannot supply governmental authority that Congress has not enacted. Conversely, governmental encouragement or facilitation does not convert private corporate capital into public expenditure. Both sides of that distinction are necessary if Congress and the public are to understand the actual financial commitments being made in Venezuela.
I therefore respectfully ask the Committee to determine:
1. the specific statutory authority for Secretary Wright’s participation in and supervision of the Venezuela agreements;
2. the extent to which DOE relies upon 42 U.S.C. §16341, the Department of Energy Organization Act, presidential delegation, or other enacted authority;
3. the identity, parties, terms, and legal status of the “historic binational agreement with Venezuela” that DOE states President Trump announced on August 28;
4. the legal meaning of DOE’s statement that this arrangement establishes “U.S. majority control” over approximately 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan petroleum reserves;
5. the governmental rights, obligations, supervisory functions, or financial commitments DOE itself possesses or exercises under the arrangement;
6. the relationship between the agreement described by DOE as announced on August 28 and the separately announced United States Government agreement with North American Blue Energy Partners;
7. all federal funds, personnel, guarantees, administrative resources, contingent liabilities, or other governmental commitments used or contemplated in connection with Venezuelan energy reconstruction;
8. the amounts that instead represent investments undertaken solely by Chevron, Eni, GE Vernova, North American Blue Energy Partners, or other private entities;
9. the Venezuelan constitutional authority upon which the United States relies for the long-term concessions and governmental rights involved; and
10. the mechanisms by which Congress can review the operative agreements, expenditures, legal opinions, and implementation of DOE’s activities.
The public interest is not served by collapsing governmental commitments and private investment into a single figure or by treating the economic desirability of an arrangement as evidence of legal authority.
Congress has established DOE’s powers by statute. If those statutes authorize the governmental functions now being exercised in Venezuela, the provisions should be identifiable. If additional authority is required, that determination belongs to Congress rather than arising from the accomplished fact of Executive action.
I respectfully ask the Committee to obtain the operative instruments and the Department’s legal analysis and to examine whether DOE’s activities remain within the authority Congress enacted.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
Letters to United Nations Officials
September 8, 2026
His Excellency António Guterres Secretary-General of the United Nations United Nations New York, NY 10017
Ref. Venezuela, Sovereign Authority, and Subsequent United States Governmental Arrangements
Dear Mr. Secretary-General:
I write concerning developments in Venezuela subsequent to the United States military action of January 3, 2026, and the principles of sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, and the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people that you placed before the Security Council on January 5.
In the remarks delivered on your behalf to the Council, you expressed concern that rules of international law had not been respected in connection with the January 3 military action. You recalled the Charter prohibition against the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a State and called for an inclusive democratic process in which Venezuelans could determine their own future, with full respect for the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people.
Developments since then raise a related but distinct question. The issue is no longer confined to the military action itself. The United States Government has announced long-term governmental and economic arrangements concerning Venezuela while the democratic transition that the United States itself says should ultimately establish representative government remains incomplete.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced a petroleum arrangement that it describes as giving the United States Government powerful governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed rights to acquire Venezuelan petroleum. According to the White House, Venezuelan interim authorities granted a private company, North American Blue Energy Partners, 100-year concessions covering 17 petroleum fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The White House further states that the United States Government possesses veto power over appointments to the company’s board and that a majority of its directors must be United States citizens. The arrangement is described as a central component of a program of stabilization, reconstruction, and eventual democratic transition.
Separate governmental action concerns Venezuelan sovereign revenues. Executive Order 14373 identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. Yet the Order provides for their sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
These arrangements present questions that extend beyond the domestic law of either country.
I do not ask the United Nations to adjudicate the meaning of the Constitution of Venezuela or the statutory powers of an agency of the United States. Those questions belong to the competent institutions of the respective legal orders. Their international consequences, however, cannot be separated entirely from the principles you articulated on January 5.
Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are therefore inalienable and imprescriptible.
These provisions do not mean that every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced is constitutionally inalienable. Nor do I presume that every energy agreement requires a national referendum. They do raise an antecedent question concerning the constitutional competence by which long-term concessions and governmental rights affecting resources belonging to the Republic are created.
That question acquires an international dimension when another State accepts governmental rights, economic ownership, control arrangements, or authority over sovereign revenues on the basis of those acts.
The distinction between effective governmental control and constitutional authority is therefore important. Recognition by another State cannot, by itself, resolve the internal constitutional competence of those who purport to bind a nation for generations. Nor can anticipated economic benefit answer a question concerning the source of sovereign authority.
The duration of the petroleum concessions makes the issue particularly consequential. A 100-year concession would extend far beyond the tenure of the authorities presently exercising power and beyond the democratic transition that the United States says remains to be completed.
A future democratic government may make its own decisions concerning Venezuela’s resources and international economic relations. The prospect of such a government, however, cannot simply be presumed to confer retrospectively the authority required for commitments undertaken before it exists.
I therefore respectfully ask that the subsequent governmental arrangements concerning Venezuela be considered in light of the principles expressed in your January 5 statement: respect for the Charter, the sovereignty and political independence of States, the rule of law, and the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people.
The question is not whether Venezuela should receive foreign investment, reconstruct its infrastructure, increase petroleum production, or maintain economic relations with the United States. It is whether governmental arrangements of exceptional duration and consequence preserve the principle that Venezuelans themselves remain the source of authority by which their Republic is bound.
The transition from intervention to stabilization and reconstruction does not make that principle less important. It makes the identification of lawful sovereign authority more important.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
The Honorable Mike Waltz Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations United States Mission to the United Nations 799 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017
Ref. United States Representations at the United Nations and Governmental Arrangements Concerning Venezuela
Dear Mr. Ambassador:
I write concerning the relationship between the position of the United States at the United Nations regarding Venezuela and the governmental arrangements subsequently announced by the United States concerning Venezuelan petroleum resources, sovereign revenues, stabilization, and reconstruction.
The question is distinct from whether the United States regards the former Maduro government as legitimate or whether its policies toward Venezuela are expected to produce economic or strategic benefits. It concerns the international legal principle that the governmental power of one State does not itself establish authority to exercise sovereign functions belonging to another.
The situation in Venezuela came before the Security Council following the United States military action of January 3, 2026. In that forum, questions of sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, self-determination, and the Charter obligations of Member States were placed directly before the United States and the Council.
Subsequent actions have expanded the question beyond the January military operation.
On August 31, the White House announced an arrangement that it describes as giving the United States Government powerful governance rights, economic ownership, and guaranteed low-cost rights to acquire Venezuelan petroleum. The White House states that Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The White House further states that the United States Government possesses veto power over appointments to the company’s board and that a majority of the board must consist of United States citizens.
Executive Order 14373 presents another dimension of the same problem. It recognizes specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. Yet it provides for sovereign disposition of those funds for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
The Administration describes the broader policy as proceeding through stabilization and reconstruction toward democratic transition.
That sequence raises a question the United States should be able to answer before the international institution in which it represents its adherence to the Charter.
What is the international legal basis upon which the United States distinguishes assistance to Venezuela from the acquisition or exercise of governmental and economic rights belonging to Venezuela?
The domestic constitutional questions are important but separate. Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible.
Those provisions do not make every commercial interest in petroleum once lawfully produced inalienable, and they do not establish that every energy agreement requires a referendum. They do establish the antecedent question of what constitutionally competent Venezuelan authority can create the concessions and governmental rights upon which the United States arrangements depend.
Recognition by the United States cannot itself answer that question. Effective control of governmental institutions is a fact; constitutional competence to bind a Republic is a question of authority.
The 100-year duration attributed to the petroleum concessions makes the distinction particularly consequential. Those concessions would survive the authorities that granted them, the present United States Administration, and the democratic transition that the United States itself says remains to occur.
A future Venezuelan election cannot simply be presumed to ratify retrospectively every governmental commitment made before that election. If the United States maintains that the present Venezuelan authorities possess constitutional competence to create these long-term rights, the basis for that conclusion should be capable of articulation independently of United States recognition.
I therefore respectfully ask the United States Mission to identify how the Government reconciles the arrangements announced since January with the Charter principles of sovereign equality and political independence and with the principle that the political future of Venezuela is to be determined by the Venezuelan people.
I further ask whether the United States regards the governance rights, economic ownership, administration of sovereign revenues, and other governmental functions it has announced as temporary incidents of a transition; contractual rights intended to survive that transition; or sovereign governmental powers exercised on behalf of Venezuela. The legal distinction among those possibilities is substantial.
Private-sector investment does not resolve it. Private capital may finance petroleum development or reconstruction, but it cannot itself supply sovereign authority to either government. Nor should private investment be confused with expenditures or obligations of the United States Government.
The United States has an interest in demonstrating at the United Nations that the principles it invokes concerning sovereignty and self-determination are principles of law rather than rules whose application depends upon the identity or power of the State concerned.
The Venezuelan people remain the source of Venezuela’s political future. The governmental arrangements made before they are again able to express that future through a credible democratic process should therefore be capable of justification under the same principles of sovereignty and political independence that the United States expects other States to observe.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
His Excellency Jérôme Bonnafont President of the United Nations Security Council Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations One Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza 245 East 47th Street, 44th Floor New York, NY 10017
Ref. Venezuela: Subsequent Developments Concerning a Matter Formally Placed Before the Security Council
Dear Mr. President:
I write concerning subsequent developments bearing upon a matter that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela formally placed before the United Nations following the United States military action of January 3, 2026.
On that date, the Permanent Representative of Venezuela transmitted identical letters to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council, subsequently circulated as documents A/80/586–S/2026/5. Venezuela characterized the United States military action as an armed aggression with implications for regional and international peace and security and invoked, among other principles, Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations.
On January 8, Venezuela transmitted further material, circulated as A/80/592–S/2026/19, containing statements by several groups of States concerning the January 3 action.
I recognize that the allegations contained in those communications are the position of Venezuela and that their circulation as United Nations documents does not constitute an adjudication of their legal merits. Their significance for the present submission is procedural and documentary: the situation between Venezuela and the United States was formally placed before the Security Council, and the Council convened on January 5 under the agenda item “Threats to international peace and security.”
At that meeting, the Secretary-General expressed concern that rules of international law had not been respected in connection with the January 3 military action. He recalled the Charter principles of sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, and the prohibition of the threat or use of force. He further called for an inclusive democratic process respecting the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people.
France took a position of particular relevance to the developments that have followed.
Speaking before the Council, the representative of France stated that the military operation resulting in the capture of Nicolás Maduro contravened the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use of force. France reaffirmed its commitment to the Charter and declared that Venezuela’s transition must be peaceful, democratic, respectful of the choices of the sovereign Venezuelan people, and “led by and for the Venezuelans.”
France now holds the presidency of the Security Council for September 2026. I therefore respectfully submit that subsequent governmental arrangements concerning Venezuela warrant consideration against the principles already placed before the Council and expressly affirmed by France.
The circumstances have materially developed since January.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced a petroleum arrangement that it describes as granting the United States Government governance rights, economic ownership, guaranteed petroleum acquisition rights, and veto power concerning appointments to the board of the private enterprise involved. According to the White House, Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 petroleum fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The United States Government has separately established arrangements governing Venezuelan natural-resource revenues. Executive Order 14373 recognizes specified funds as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. At the same time, the Order provides for their sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
The United States Department of Energy has since described an arrangement concerning those petroleum resources as establishing “U.S. majority control” over approximately 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan proven reserves and has announced the participation of the United States Secretary of Energy in agreements concerning petroleum production and the reconstruction of Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure.
The United States presents these measures as components of stabilization, economic reconstruction, and an eventual democratic transition.
Those subsequent developments raise a question that was not before the Council in its present form on January 5.
The issue is no longer limited to the legality of the military action that precipitated the Council’s meeting. It now concerns the governmental and economic arrangements being established in its aftermath, their intended duration, and their relationship to the sovereign authority of the Venezuelan people during a transition that the United States itself acknowledges remains incomplete.
Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible.
I do not ask the Security Council to adjudicate the meaning of those provisions. Nor do I contend that every commercial transaction involving lawfully produced petroleum requires direct popular approval. The constitutional provisions identify an antecedent question whose international consequences are relevant here: by what sovereign authority are governmental rights and concessions of exceptional duration being created and accepted during a transition that has not yet restored the democratic expression of the Venezuelan people?
A 100-year petroleum concession is not intrinsically transitional. It purports to create rights capable of surviving the officials who granted them, the present United States Administration, and generations of future Venezuelan governments.
The same distinction applies to governmental control. Assistance to a State during a transition is one thing. Acquisition by another State of governance rights, economic ownership, control over natural-resource arrangements, or authority concerning sovereign revenues presents a different question.
That distinction becomes especially significant in light of France’s January position that the Venezuelan transition must be “led by and for the Venezuelans.”
If that principle is to retain substantive meaning, the transition cannot be defined solely by the identity of the officials presently exercising governmental functions. It must also encompass the source and limits of their authority to bind the Venezuelan people through commitments extending far beyond the transitional period itself.
I do not submit that the January communications from Venezuela predetermined the Council’s legal conclusion. They did not. I submit instead that they established a formal documentary record before the Council concerning the consequences of United States action for Venezuelan sovereignty and international peace and security. The governmental arrangements announced since then constitute subsequent developments directly relevant to that record.
Nor does opposition to the former Maduro government resolve the question. France itself demonstrated on January 5 that these propositions are not contradictory: it rejected Nicolás Maduro’s democratic legitimacy while simultaneously insisting upon the Charter, the prohibition on the use of force, Venezuelan sovereignty, and a transition determined by Venezuelans themselves.
That distinction is important. International law does not require a State to approve the government of another State before respecting the sovereignty of its people.
I therefore respectfully request, during France’s presidency of the Security Council, that these subsequent developments be brought to the attention of the members of the Council in connection with the matter already considered on January 5 and the documentary record established by S/2026/5 and subsequent communications.
In particular, I respectfully submit for the Council’s consideration whether governmental and economic arrangements of exceptional duration, undertaken before the completion of the democratic transition invoked to justify them, are consistent with the principles of sovereign equality, political independence, self-determination, and respect for the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people that were placed before the Council in January.
The question does not require endorsement of Nicolás Maduro, opposition to foreign investment, or rejection of Venezuela’s economic reconstruction. It requires only that the means employed to accomplish those objectives remain subject to the principles of law governing relations among States.
France stated before the Council that those principles must be applied “at all times and in all places.” The developments since January provide an occasion to apply that proposition to the transition now occurring in Venezuela.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
Letters to Selected Press, Requesting Independent Journalistic Examination
September 8, 2026
Editors The Washington Post 1301 K Street NW Washington, DC 20071
Ref. Venezuela: The Unresolved Question of Authority Behind the United States Petroleum Arrangement
Dear Editors:
Your September 8 report, “Rubio enjoyed major support among Venezuelans. Then came Trump’s oil deal,” by Adam Taylor, Samantha Schmidt, and Helena Carpio, places in the public record a temporal and constitutional question that deserves further investigation. The United States is entering long-term governmental and economic arrangements concerning Venezuela while the democratic government that American officials say should ultimately govern the country remains prospective.
I write as a Venezuelan-born naturalized American citizen who has been examining the public constitutional and statutory record surrounding these actions. I do not write in defense of Nicolás Maduro, nor to oppose economic reconstruction, petroleum development, or American investment in Venezuela. My concern is narrower: the distinction between the capacity of governments and private parties to accomplish an act and the lawful authority by which they may do so.
Your report makes that distinction especially concrete. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Sergio Novelli that “There is much more to be done, including the issues of democracy and elections.” Asked before departing on his Latin American trip about the Venezuela oil arrangement, he further said that the petroleum fields would generate royalties and revenues for the Venezuelan people “eventually, through a democratically elected government, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
Those statements need not be characterized as a contradiction. They establish two different temporal facts. Long-term petroleum and governmental arrangements exist in the present; the democratically elected Venezuelan government through which Secretary Rubio says the revenues will eventually benefit the Venezuelan people remains a future objective. The unresolved question lies between those facts: if the democratically elected government remains prospective, what is the source of authority by which commitments intended to endure for a century are being made in the present?
The documentary record permits that question to be examined without speculation.
On August 31, the White House announced that Venezuelan interim authorities had granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 petroleum fields with approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. The White House simultaneously described the United States Government as receiving “powerful governance rights,” “economic ownership,” guaranteed low-cost petroleum off-take, and veto authority concerning appointments to the company’s board.
The arrangement contains another feature deserving scrutiny. The White House states that NABEP granted the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent, potentially representing hundreds of billions of dollars in value and dividends.
Congress’s own record makes that transaction particularly significant.
The current text of 10 U.S.C. §149 gives the Office of Strategic Capital investment-related responsibilities but defines “capital assistance” as a loan, loan guarantee, or technical assistance. During consideration of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the House included section 905, which, according to the Joint Explanatory Statement, “would provide equity investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital.” The Senate contained no similar provision. The final congressional agreement did not include the House provision.
That legislative history does not by itself constitute a judicial determination that every conceivable federal equity transaction is unlawful. It does, however, produce a concrete question for independent reporting: what enacted authority does the Administration contend permits the Office of Strategic Capital to accept, hold, administer, and derive value from the 35 percent equity interest announced by the White House?
There is an equally important Venezuelan question.
Article 5 of Venezuela’s Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 places hydrocarbon deposits within the Republic’s public domain and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible.
Article 12 should not be overstated. It does not necessarily make every commercial interest in petroleum after lawful extraction inalienable. Nor do I suggest that every Venezuelan energy contract requires a referendum. The antecedent question is instead one of constitutional competence: what authority permits officials exercising power during a transition to grant 100-year concessions and governmental rights concerning resources belonging to the Republic?
The duration matters. One hundred years is not a transitional interval. The concessions would survive the officials who granted them, the present American Administration, the contemplated Venezuelan democratic transition, and generations of future governments.
There is also a separate question concerning Venezuelan revenues. Executive Order 14373 states that specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues remain property of the Government of Venezuela and that the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. Yet it provides for their sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
Each element may have an explanation grounded in enacted law and operative agreements. If so, those authorities should be identifiable.
I respectfully ask The Washington Post to examine the documentary chain independently and seek answers to several questions: What is the complete operative petroleum agreement? What enacted statute authorizes the Office of Strategic Capital equity interest? What governmental rights does “economic ownership” actually convey? What is the legal character of the United States board veto? What Venezuelan constitutional authority supports concessions extending for a century? Which expenditures are genuinely private investment and which create federal obligations or governmental liabilities? And how are commitments intended to survive a transition reconciled with Secretary Rubio’s acknowledgment, reported by the Post, that democratically elected government remains prospective?
These questions need not be partisan. They do not depend upon approval of Maduro, President Trump, the Venezuelan interim authorities, or the petroleum companies involved. Nor should the existence of questions be treated as an accusation of wrongdoing against private participants.
They concern something more durable than the individuals presently holding office: whether governmental power is being exercised pursuant to authority that can be identified in law.
The documents are public. The consequences may endure for a century. Independent examination by the press is therefore warranted.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
Editors The New York Times 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
Ref. Venezuela: A Documentary Question Concerning Sovereign Authority, Petroleum, and the United States Government
Dear Editors:
I respectfully submit for independent examination a developing matter concerning United States actions in Venezuela whose importance extends beyond the policy merits of the Administration’s approach to that country.
The question is one of authority.
Since the United States military action of January 3, 2026, the Administration has moved from intervention into stabilization, petroleum development, economic reconstruction, and what it describes as an eventual democratic transition. The public record now documents governmental arrangements of extraordinary duration and consequence undertaken during that interval.
On August 31, the White House announced an agreement concerning Venezuelan petroleum under which Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The White House describes the United States Government as receiving “powerful governance rights,” “economic ownership,” guaranteed low-cost petroleum off-take, and veto authority concerning appointments to the company’s board. It further states that NABEP granted the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in the company’s corporate parent.
These descriptions raise questions in two separate legal systems.
Under United States law, 10 U.S.C. §149 establishes the Office of Strategic Capital and gives it substantial investment-related responsibilities. The statute nevertheless defines “capital assistance” as a loan, loan guarantee, or technical assistance, and defines an eligible investment by reference to that capital assistance.
The legislative history adds an unusual fact. During consideration of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the House adopted a provision that the Joint Explanatory Statement says “would provide equity investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital.” The Senate contained no similar provision. The final agreement did not include the House provision.
The omission does not establish, without more, that every conceivable equity transaction by the federal government is unlawful. It does establish something narrower and independently verifiable: Congress considered express equity-investment authority for this particular office and did not enact that provision in the final agreement.
What statutory authority, then, does the Administration contend permits the Office to accept and hold the 35 percent equity interest announced by the White House? If another enacted statute supplies that authority, identifying it should resolve the question.
Venezuelan law presents a different inquiry.
Article 5 of Venezuela’s Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible.
Those provisions should be read carefully. Article 12 does not necessarily make every commercial interest in petroleum following lawful extraction inalienable, and I do not suggest that every petroleum contract requires direct popular approval.
The more fundamental issue precedes either proposition: what constitutionally competent Venezuelan authority may create concessions and governmental rights of exceptional duration concerning the Republic’s petroleum resources?
The 100-year term makes that question difficult to dismiss as an incident of temporary administration. The concessions are designed to survive the present interim authorities and bind Venezuelan governments that do not yet exist.
At the same time, the United States continues to describe democratic transition and elections as future objectives.
There is a further governmental arrangement worthy of examination. Executive Order 14373 identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States possesses them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. The same Order provides that they are held pending sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
The juxtaposition deserves careful reporting rather than premature conclusion. Custody is not ownership. Private investment is not congressional appropriation. Recognition of an interim government is not necessarily constitutional competence to bind a nation indefinitely. Effective control is not synonymous with lawful authority.
The international record supplies another dimension. Venezuela formally placed the January 3 United States military action before the United Nations in documents A/80/586–S/2026/5. On January 5, the Secretary-General told the Security Council that he remained deeply concerned that rules of international law had not been respected and invoked sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, and the prohibition against the threat or use of force.
None of that adjudicates the legality of the subsequent petroleum arrangement. It establishes that the international consequences of United States action concerning Venezuelan sovereignty were already formally before the United Nations before the century-long petroleum arrangements were announced.
I therefore respectfully ask The New York Times to investigate the complete legal and documentary chain rather than accept either the Administration’s characterization or its opponents’ conclusions.
The operative agreements should be obtained. The statutory authority for the federal equity interest should be identified. The legal meaning of “governance rights,” “economic ownership,” and “U.S. majority control” should be established. Federal financial commitments should be distinguished from private investment. The Venezuelan authority supporting century-long concessions should be examined. And the relationship between commitments made now and democratic authority expected later should be confronted directly.
The inquiry requires neither hostility toward the United States nor defense of the government it displaced. Constitutional government depends upon a more elementary proposition: desirable objectives do not create governmental authority merely because those possessing power are capable of achieving them.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
Opinion Editor The Reader’s Forum Miami Herald 11410 NW 20th Street Suite 222 Miami, FL 33172
Ref. Venezuela’s Oil Agreement and the Democratic Authority That Has Yet to Exist
Dear Editor:
For Venezuelans in South Florida, the debate over the United States petroleum arrangement with Venezuela presents a choice that should not be reduced to support for Nicolás Maduro on one side and support for American intervention on the other.
There is a third and more fundamental position: Venezuela’s future should belong to Venezuelans, and the authority to bind that future should be established before commitments lasting generations are treated as accomplished facts.
I am a Venezuelan-born naturalized American citizen. I oppose any attempt to restore the former Maduro government. I also recognize the importance of investment, increased petroleum production, restoration of Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure, and economic recovery after decades of institutional and economic deterioration.
But economic desirability and constitutional authority are different questions.
On August 31, the White House announced what it calls the largest oil agreement in history. According to its own account, Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions for 17 petroleum fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The White House says the arrangement gives the United States Government powerful governance rights, economic ownership, guaranteed low-cost petroleum off-take, and veto authority concerning appointments to the company’s board. It also says NABEP granted the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent.
Two days later, the Department of Energy described the arrangement as establishing “U.S. majority control” of approximately 65 billion barrels while announcing Secretary Chris Wright’s participation in agreements involving Chevron, Eni, and GE Vernova to increase petroleum production and reconstruct Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure.
The private investment may be beneficial. That does not answer the question of governmental authority.
Article 5 of Venezuela’s Constitution states that sovereignty resides intransferably in the people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 places hydrocarbon deposits within the Republic’s public domain and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible.
Article 12 should not be converted into a claim that every barrel of petroleum lawfully extracted can never become the subject of commerce. Nor does every energy contract require a referendum. The prior question is simpler: what constitutionally competent authority can grant concessions over Venezuela’s petroleum resources for a century?
One hundred years is not a transition.
The concessions could remain in force through governments elected by Venezuelans who had no opportunity to approve the political circumstances in which those commitments originated. Yet American officials continue to describe democratic elections and a fully democratic Venezuelan government as objectives still to be achieved.
That sequence deserves examination.
There is an American statutory question as well. The White House says the Office of Strategic Capital received a 35 percent equity interest. Current federal law gives that Office investment-related responsibilities but defines its capital-assistance mechanism in terms of loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance.
More strikingly, the House of Representatives included in its Fiscal Year 2026 defense authorization bill a provision expressly providing equity-investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital. The Senate contained no similar provision, and the final congressional agreement did not include the House proposal.
That fact does not by itself prove that the announced equity interest is unlawful. It makes the question unavoidable: what enacted authority does permit it?
Another question concerns Venezuelan petroleum revenues now held by the United States. Executive Order 14373 acknowledges that specified funds remain property of the Government of Venezuela and says the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. Yet their public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes are determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of Venezuela.
These are questions capable of documentary answers.
The complete petroleum agreements can be disclosed. The statutory authority for the federal equity interest can be identified. The meaning of “U.S. majority control” can be explained. Private investment can be separated from federal expenditure and liability. And the Venezuelan constitutional authority for commitments extending a century can be stated and examined.
Venezuelans should not have to choose between the authoritarian government from which they sought liberation and unquestioning acceptance of whatever arrangements follow its displacement.
Democracy means more than replacing one set of officials with another. It means preserving for Venezuelans the sovereign capacity to determine the institutions, resources, and obligations through which their country will be governed.
Economic recovery matters. Investment matters. Stable relations with the United States matter. But none requires abandoning the question of authority.
Indeed, if these arrangements are lawful, transparent examination should strengthen them rather than threaten them.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
September 8, 2026
Editors The Philadelphia Inquirer 100 S. Independence Mall West Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19106
Ref. Venezuela: A Request for Independent Examination of United States Governmental Authority
Dear Editors:
I write as a Venezuelan-born naturalized American citizen with a residence in the Philadelphia area concerning a matter that I have also placed before my elected representatives in Congress and appropriate federal officials.
My purpose is not to defend Nicolás Maduro, oppose Venezuela’s economic reconstruction, or contest the desirability of foreign investment. It is to ask whether governmental actions of exceptional duration and consequence now being undertaken by the United States concerning Venezuela rest upon authority that can be identified in law.
The public documentary record presents questions that warrant independent journalistic examination.
On August 31, 2026, the White House announced a petroleum arrangement under which Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 petroleum fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The White House describes the United States Government as receiving powerful governance rights, economic ownership, guaranteed low-cost petroleum off-take, and veto authority concerning appointments to the company’s board. It further states that NABEP granted the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity interest in its corporate parent, potentially representing hundreds of billions of dollars in value and dividends.
That equity interest raises a specific congressional question.
Under 10 U.S.C. §149, the Office of Strategic Capital possesses substantial investment-related responsibilities, but its statutory capital-assistance mechanism is defined in terms of loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance.
During consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, the House included a provision that, according to the congressional Joint Explanatory Statement, “would provide equity investment authority for the Office of Strategic Capital.” The Senate contained no similar provision. The final congressional agreement did not include the House provision.
That legislative history does not, by itself, establish that every conceivable federal equity transaction is unlawful. It establishes a narrower and verifiable fact: Congress considered express equity-investment authority for this Office and did not enact that provision in the final agreement.
The resulting question should have a documentary answer: what enacted authority permits the Office of Strategic Capital to accept, hold, administer, and receive value from the 35 percent equity interest announced by the White House?
A separate question arises under Venezuelan law.
Article 5 of Venezuela’s Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it. Article 12 provides that hydrocarbon deposits belong to the Republic, constitute property in the public domain, and are inalienable and imprescriptible.
Those provisions should not be overstated. Article 12 does not necessarily make every commercial interest in petroleum following lawful extraction inalienable. Nor do I contend that every Venezuelan energy contract requires a national referendum.
The antecedent question is one of constitutional competence: what authority permits officials exercising power during a transition to grant petroleum concessions lasting 100 years and to create governmental rights intended to survive that transition?
One hundred years is not a transitional interval.
The concessions would extend beyond the tenure of the Venezuelan officials who granted them, beyond the present American Administration, beyond the democratic transition that the United States says remains to be completed, and through generations of future Venezuelan governments.
There is an additional question concerning Venezuelan sovereign revenues. Executive Order 14373 identifies specified Venezuelan natural-resource revenues as property of the Government of Venezuela and states that the United States holds them solely in a custodial and governmental capacity. Yet the Order provides for their sovereign disposition for public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes determined by the United States Secretary of State on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.
The Department of Energy has since described the broader petroleum arrangement as establishing “U.S. majority control” over approximately 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan proven reserves. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has participated in agreements concerning petroleum development and reconstruction of Venezuela’s electrical infrastructure.
Here another distinction is essential. The investments publicly announced by Chevron, Eni, GE Vernova, and other private actors should not be characterized as congressional appropriations merely because United States officials facilitated or participated in the arrangements. Conversely, private financing cannot convert the exercise of governmental authority into private conduct or confer powers upon a federal agency that Congress has not granted.
The international record now adds another dimension. Venezuela formally placed the January 3 United States military action before the United Nations Security Council. On January 5, the Secretary-General invoked the principles of sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, and the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people. France, now holding the September presidency of the Security Council, stated at that meeting that Venezuela’s transition should be peaceful, democratic, respectful of the choices of its sovereign people, and led by Venezuelans themselves.
None of these facts independently establishes a judicial conclusion that the subsequent petroleum arrangements are unlawful. Together, however, they establish questions sufficiently concrete to be investigated.
The operative agreements can be obtained and examined. The statutory authority for the Office of Strategic Capital equity interest can be identified. The legal meaning of “governance rights,” “economic ownership,” and “U.S. majority control” can be established. Private investment can be distinguished from federal expenditure, guarantees, administrative costs, and governmental liabilities. The constitutional authority asserted by the Venezuelan officials granting century-long concessions can be examined. And the relationship between commitments undertaken during the present transition and the authority of a future democratically elected Venezuelan government can be investigated.
I have raised these questions with federal officials and members of Congress because they concern governmental accountability. I raise them separately with The Philadelphia Inquirer because an independent press serves a different function. Government should not be the sole institution responsible for examining the legal authority underlying its own conduct.
This inquiry need not begin with a conclusion. It requires neither support for Maduro nor opposition to President Trump. It requires only a willingness to follow the documentary record and ask whether the governmental authority claimed is the governmental authority that law actually provides.
If the necessary authority exists, its identification would strengthen the public record. If it does not, the magnitude and duration of the arrangements make that absence a matter of public consequence.
The distinction is fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform it.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
SUBSEQUENT CORRESPONDENCE TO CONGRESS
On September 15, 2026, the following letter was addressed to Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi in response to his September 4 congressional inquiry concerning the governmental agencies, funds, financing mechanisms, guarantees, insurance, and other taxpayer-supported resources associated with the United States petroleum arrangement concerning Venezuela. The letter places before him the documentary record published here and identifies related questions of constitutional and statutory authority that extend beyond the source of private investment.
LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI
September 15, 2026
The Honorable Raja Krishnamoorthi United States House of Representatives 2367 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Re: Constitutional and Statutory Authority Concerning United States Actions in Venezuela
Dear Representative Krishnamoorthi:
I write in connection with your September 4, 2026 inquiry requesting disclosure of the United States government agencies, funds, financing mechanisms, guarantees, insurance, or other taxpayer-supported resources that may be used in connection with the recently announced Venezuela petroleum arrangement.
Between September 6 and September 9, I submitted related correspondence to the President, the Secretaries of State, War, and Energy, and the chairs and ranking members of congressional committees possessing jurisdiction over foreign affairs, the Armed Forces, energy, and federal expenditures. I am submitting this additional letter because your inquiry independently reaches several of the questions raised in that correspondence.
My concern is not whether private investment in Venezuela should occur. The White House has characterized the contemplated investment of as much as $100 billion in Venezuelan petroleum infrastructure as private capital and has stated that it will entail no cost to American taxpayers. Private investment, however, is analytically distinct from governmental expenditure, federal financial exposure, and the exercise of governmental authority.
The same announced arrangement attributes to the United States Government an economic interest, rights concerning petroleum purchases, and authority affecting corporate governance. Those governmental rights raise questions different from the source of the private investment itself. They require identification of the constitutional and statutory authority under which an agency or instrumentality of the United States may acquire, accept, administer, or exercise them.
Executive Order 14373 presents a related but separate question. The Order describes designated Venezuelan oil revenues as sovereign property of Venezuela held by the United States in a custodial and governmental capacity. If any such Venezuelan sovereign revenues are to finance stabilization, reconstruction, petroleum infrastructure, governmental administration, or other activities, the public record should distinguish those funds from congressional appropriations, private capital, and any financial obligation undertaken by the United States Government.
A further question arises from Venezuela’s own constitutional order. Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution places sovereignty in the Venezuelan people, while Article 12 places hydrocarbon deposits within the public domain and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible. Recognition by the United States of Venezuelan governmental authorities does not itself determine the constitutional competence those authorities possess under Venezuelan law to undertake commitments affecting the Republic’s sovereign resources.
I therefore respectfully ask that your continuing inquiry consider, in addition to the questions contained in your September 4 letter:
What enacted statutory authority permits any federal department, agency, office, or instrumentality to acquire or exercise the governmental economic and corporate-governance rights announced in connection with the petroleum arrangement?
What federal funds, guarantees, insurance, credit support, contracts, personnel, or other governmental resources have been committed or may be committed, separately from private-sector investment?
Are Venezuelan sovereign revenues held pursuant to Executive Order 14373 being used, pledged, committed, or contemplated for stabilization, reconstruction, petroleum development, or governmental administration, and under what legal authority?
What operative agreements establish the respective rights and obligations of the United States Government, Venezuelan authorities, and the private parties participating in these arrangements?
What legal determination has been made concerning the constitutional competence of the Venezuelan authorities entering commitments affecting petroleum resources and sovereign revenues of the Republic?
These questions do not presume their answers. They seek to distinguish private investment from public expenditure, Executive policy from enacted statutory authority, presidential recognition from Venezuelan constitutional competence, and governmental capacity from lawful governmental authority.
I am attaching my published documentary record, Constitutional Authority and Venezuela: A Public Record of Correspondence, which contains the correspondence and official documents upon which these questions are based. The publication is available at:
Your September 4 inquiry now places several of these questions independently within congressional oversight. I respectfully submit the record for consideration in connection with that continuing inquiry.
The distinction remains fundamental: the capacity to accomplish an act does not establish the lawful authority to perform that act.
Respectfully,
Ricardo F. Morín
THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The constitutional powers of the United States do not operate in foreign affairs with equal scope, independence, or immediacy. The President conducts diplomacy, recognizes foreign governments, serves as Commander in Chief, and exercises constitutional and statutory authorities that do not in every instance depend upon prior congressional authorization. Congress possesses different and substantial powers: it legislates, controls appropriations, regulates foreign commerce, exercises oversight, and holds enumerated powers concerning war and the Armed Forces. The federal judiciary may determine the legality of governmental action when a controversy capable of judicial resolution properly comes before it.
These powers coexist, but they do not become effective through the same institutional process or at the same moment. The President may exercise certain foreign-affairs powers through Executive action. Congress, when legislation is required to authorize, condition, prohibit, or defund governmental action, must act collectively through the legislative process. A federal court cannot intervene merely because a constitutional question exists; a controversy within its jurisdiction must first come before it.
The resulting constitutional arrangement is therefore not symmetrical. Executive action may establish consequential facts before Congress has enacted a restraint and before a federal court has occasion to determine the limits of the authority asserted. Congress may possess the constitutional power to legislate, appropriate, investigate, authorize, prohibit, or withhold funds, but possession of those powers does not make their restraint contemporaneous with Executive action. Judicial review may remain available in principle without producing an adjudication while the governmental action proceeds.
The distinction is particularly consequential in foreign relations because “foreign affairs” does not constitute a single governmental power. Recognition of a foreign government, diplomatic negotiation, administration or disposition of foreign sovereign revenues, acquisition of governmental economic or governance rights, acceptance of a federal equity interest, expenditure of United States funds, deployment of American personnel, and participation in the stabilization, reconstruction, or administration of another State present different questions of constitutional and statutory authority. Authority sufficient for one does not necessarily supply authority for another.
The actions concerning Venezuela give this distinction a concrete referent. Recognition of Venezuelan authorities may fall within presidential authority that does not depend upon congressional concurrence. That proposition does not determine the statutory authority for a federal office to acquire an equity interest, the authority to expend federal funds, the legal basis for administering Venezuelan sovereign revenues, or the constitutional and statutory authority required for other governmental commitments. Nor does presidential recognition of Venezuelan officials determine the competence that Venezuela’s own constitutional order gives those officials to bind the Republic.
The absence of a specific congressional authorization therefore cannot by itself establish that every Executive action concerning Venezuela is unauthorized. Conversely, the existence of independent presidential authority in foreign affairs cannot establish that every governmental action undertaken in the name of foreign policy belongs to that authority. The inquiry must remain particular: which actions arise from powers the Constitution assigns independently to the President; which arise from authority Congress has enacted; which depend upon the interaction of presidential and congressional powers; and which require authority that has not been identified?
The institutional record introduces a further difficulty. Members of Congress have raised objections and proposed restrictions concerning United States action in Venezuela, but proposals that have not been enacted impose no binding statutory restraint. No judicial decision identified in this record has determined the limits of the governmental authority exercised or asserted in the arrangements examined here. Meanwhile, governmental actions and long-term arrangements concerning Venezuelan petroleum, sovereign revenues, reconstruction, and political transition have proceeded.
The absence of a binding congressional restraint does not establish Executive authority. The absence of a judicial decision does not establish illegality. An Executive assertion of authority does not establish its own constitutional limits. Each proposition describes an institutional fact; none can substitute for the legal authority whose identification this record seeks.
The problem disclosed by those facts reaches beyond institutional inaction. It concerns the relation between the immediacy with which governmental power can act and the time required for constitutional restraint to acquire legal effect.
A constitutional order may divide governmental power in law while permitting one institution to establish consequential facts before the institutions possessing powers of restraint make those restraints effective. The existence of checks and balances then presents a question different from their formal allocation: whether those checks remain capable of governing the power they were constituted to check.
The contradiction therefore has two boundaries. Within the United States, Executive power may act while congressional restraint and judicial review have yet to acquire operative effect. Beyond the United States, that Executive power encounters a sovereignty that neither presidential recognition nor American military command can create, enlarge, or transfer. The constitutional autonomy of the American Executive may determine how the United States acts; it cannot, by itself, determine what belongs to Venezuela.
There the distinction with which this record began becomes unavoidable. Power may establish possession, control, compliance, or accomplished fact. None is synonymous with sovereign authority. If the constitutional authority of Venezuela ends where a transfer of sovereignty is forbidden, the superior capacity of another State to compel the act cannot supply the authority that the Venezuelan constitutional order has withheld. It demonstrates power precisely where authority remains in question.
Ricardo Morín Untitled #3: Governing by Exception 10″x12″ Watercolor 2003
By Ricardo F. Morín
October 10, 2025
Bala Cynwyd, Pa
Power unexamined becomes its own justification—Anonymous civic maxim.
Prologue
Governance is the moral discipline of order—the effort to keep authority aligned with conscience so that power remains a function of justice, not an instrument of self-interest. Government enacts that discipline: necessary, fallible, and ever in danger of mistaking permanence for legitimacy.
1
Political history rarely unfolds as a straight line. It accumulates as a palimpsest in which new regimes—imperial, republican, authoritarian, and democratic—write their doctrines over the residues of previous orders. Institutions and laws rarely vanish; they survive as layers of precedent and practice that later governments reinterpret to serve new purposes. The present political moment in the United States should be examined within that structure of accumulation. What appears to be a radical break with constitutional tradition is, in fact, the latest rewriting of an existing template. The mechanisms that once safeguarded the republic now expand the reach of executive power; these mechanisms reveal how continuity and rupture coexist in the same act.
2
During the first half year of the Trump administration’s return to office, the political system of the United States has entered a state of controlled dislocation. Executive directives have overridden congressional appropriations, suspended statutory programs, and reorganized entire departments under provisional authority. A government shutdown, declared an administrative necessity, has become a method for restructuring the State. Mass dismissals, selective funding freezes, and the redefinition of agency mandates have become coordinated tools for concentrating authority in the executive branch. These are not isolated disputes between branches of government. These actions reveal a coherent strategy of reconfiguration, executed through administrative acts that appear lawful but are designed to disfigure the balance of powers from within.
3
The guiding principle of this transformation is the normalization of exception. Powers that earlier generations considered temporary—emergency measures to be used only under extreme threat—have become ordinary instruments of governance. The invocation of the Insurrection Act, intended for rebellion or lawless obstruction, now functions as justification for domestic military deployment in states governed by political opposition. The use of this authority is framed as a response to rising crime, even when verified data show a national decline. In this inversion of logic, the declaration of emergency precedes its necessity. The government generates the crisis it claims to confront and allows coercive measures to appear both inevitable and legitimate. What dissolves in this process is not only institutional restraint but the moral discipline of order—the very principle that once bound authority to conscience: i.e. the active faculty of perception through which recognition becomes responsibility and seeing acquires ethical weight.
4
This redefinition of authority as authoritarianism is reinforced by judicial doctrine. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States established that a president enjoys absolute immunity for “core official acts” and presumptive immunity for all other actions undertaken in an official capacity. This ruling altered the meaning of accountability. It placed the office of the president above ordinary legal scrutiny by presuming legality wherever official duty could be claimed. The decision inverted the constitutional order that once defined the presidency as a position constrained by law. Under this new interpretation, legality flows from function rather than from statute. The Court did not invent executive supremacy; it legalized its evolution. By insulating the executive office from the consequences of its acts, the judiciary, perhaps unintentionally, became an instrument of the very transformation it was designed to prevent.
5
Measured against the triad of government powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—the present equilibrium reveals a pronounced distortion. Each branch retains its formal outline, yet its interior authority has thinned.Congress’s control of the purse has been undermined by impoundment and selective disbursement. Administrative agencies have been hollowed out through abrupt firings and structural reorganizations. The judiciary, bound by its own doctrines of deference and immunity, finds itself unable to intervene effectively. What remains of institutional balance depends less on constitutional principle than on administrative inertia. The machinery of government continues to function, but its continuity now rests on habit rather than on law.
6
This condition does not yet constitute overt dictatorship. It represents a subtler phenomenon—a system that operates through legal forms but concentrates power in practice. Authority remains constitutional in appearance while using those same procedures to entrench unilateral control. The pattern can be recognized not through proclamations but through measurable actions: decrees replacing legislation, “temporary” orders renewed without expiration, funds withheld from political adversaries, and federal troops dispatched to jurisdictions where disorder has not been empirically established. Each measure, taken alone, seems limited and justified. Together they form an architecture of exception—an invisible framework that reorganizes power without declaring revolution. Beneath this architecture lies the decline of the moral discipline of order, where legality endures but conscience recedes.
7
A forensic approach must therefore focus not on accusation but on diagnosis. The purpose is to identify where practice diverges from principle, and where legal continuity conceals political mutation. The question is not whether democracy has vanished, but how far the republic has drifted from its own operational norms. This drift can be measured empirically through ordinary data: the number of appropriations ignored or delayed, the duration and scope of emergency declarations, the ratio of confirmed officials to acting appointees, and the frequency with which presidential immunity is invoked to block review. Each indicator marks a step away from the rule of shared power that defines constitutional democracy.
8
The concept of the republic, in its classical and Enlightenment sense, presupposed a balance between power and virtue: the rule of law safeguarded by citizens free from dependence. In contemporary practice, that idea has been reduced to a partisan label. The republicanism that once demanded civic responsibility now coexists with mechanisms—PAC financing (Political Action Committee: An organization that raises and spends money to elect political candidates), factional loyalty, corporate influence—that transform governance into an instrument of private interest. Thus the very word that once signified restraint now conceals its opposite: a system where representation serves its sponsors more faithfully than its citizens.
9
History suggests that constitutional systems rarely collapse through open defiance. They decline through adaptation. The Roman Republic did not abolish its institutions; it gradually converted them into imperial offices. Modern democracies follow similar paths when crisis is used to justify the consolidation of power. Executive authority expands, legislative restraint weakens, and judicial caution hardens into complicity. The American case fits this pattern. The existing framework of the Constitution remains in place, yet its meaning shifts incrementally through interpretation, precedent, and administrative habit. The transformation proceeds without formal amendment because each deviation is defended as continuity.
10
The metrics of decline are structural rather than moral.When legality depends on will—the self-legitimating impulse of power once detached from moral accountability—and will is shielded from scrutiny, the architecture of restraint loses coherence.Here the moral discipline of governance yields to the self-justifying logic of power.What follows is not anarchy but organized dislocation—a condition in which institutions operate as before yet serve opposite purposes; in truth it is anarchy disguised as its own absence.Procedures are observed; substance is inverted.The outward appearance of democracy persists, while its inner logic is replaced by a system that governs through perpetual exception.
11
The task for observers and citizens alike is not to forecast collapse but to recognize mutation. Political systems rarely announce their turning points; they disguise themselves as routine. The test of civic intelligence is the capacity to detect when law becomes vocabulary, when oversight becomes performance, and when the state of exception ceases to be temporary. The republic continues to function, but it functions under altered premises. The preservation of legality therefore depends not only on the design of institutions but also on the vigilance of those who interpret them. Justice endures only where institutions remember that they exist to limit power, defend the vulnerable, and preserve the moral foundation from which authority derives its right to act.
12
The endurance of the republic will therefore depend not on the spectacle of its elections but on the recovery of its first obligation: to keep authority answerable to the moral idea from which it draws its right to act. Justice endures only where institutions remember that they exist to limit power, defend the vulnerable, and preserve the moral discipline of order through which freedom remains lawful and law remains human. When that memory fades, what remains is administration without soul—a government still standing, but no longer governing.
Cover design for the essay “The Politics of Erasure: Authoritarianism and Spectacle.” The composite image juxtaposes surveillance, militarization, propaganda, and mass spectacle to underscore how authoritarian regimes render lives expendable while legitimizing control through display.
By Ricardo Morín, In Transit to and from NJ, August 22, 2025
Authoritarianism in the present era does not present itself with uniform symbols. It emerges within democracies and one-party states alike, in countries with declining economies and in those boasting rapid growth. What unites these varied contexts is not the formal shape of government but the way power acts upon individuals: autonomy is curtailed, dignity denied, and dissent reclassified as threat. Control is maintained not only through coercion but also through the appropriation of universal values—peace, tolerance, harmony, security—emptied of their content and redeployed as instruments of supression. The result is a politics in which human beings are treated as expendable and spectacle serves as both distraction and justification.
In the United States, the Bill of Rights secures liberties, yet their practical force is weakened by structural inequality and concentrated control over communication. After the attacks of September 11, the USA PATRIOT Act authorized sweeping surveillance in the name of defending freedom, normalizing the monitoring of private communications (ACLU 2021). Protest movements such as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2020 filled the streets, but their urgency was absorbed into the circuits of media coverage, partisan argument, and corporate monetization (New York Times 2020). What begins as protest often concludes as spectacle: filmed, replayed, and reframed until the original message is displaced by distractions. Meanwhile, the opioid epidemic, mass homelessness, and medical bankruptcy reveal how millions of lives are tolerated as expendable (CDC 2022). Their suffering is acknowledged in statistics but rarely addressed in policy, treated as collateral to an order that prizes visibility over remedy.
Venezuela offers a more direct case. The Ley contra el Odio (“Law against Hatred”), passed in 2017 by a constituent assembly lacking democratic legitimacy, was presented as a measure to protect tolerance and peace. In practice, it has been used to prosecute journalists, students, and citizens for expressions that in a democratic society would fall squarely within the realm of debate (Amnesty International 2019). More recently, the creation of the Consejo Nacional de Ciberseguridad has extended this logic to place fear and self-censorship among neighbors and colleagues (Transparencia Venezuela 2023). At the same time, deprivation functions as a tool of discipline: access to food and medicine is selectively distributed to turn scarcity into a means of control (Human Rights Watch 2021). The state’s televised rallies and plebiscites portray unity and loyalty, but the reality is a society fractured by exile, with over seven million citizens abroad and those who remain bound by necessity rather than consent (UNHCR 2023).
Russia combines repression with patriotic theater. The 2002 Law on Combating Extremist Activity and the 2012 “foreign agents” statute have systematically dismantled independent journalism and civil society (Human Rights Watch 2017), while the 2022 law against “discrediting the armed forces” criminalized even the description of war as war (BBC 2022). Citizens have been detained for carrying blank signs, which demonstrates how any act, however symbolic, can be punished if interpreted as dissent (Amnesty International 2022). The war in Ukraine has revealed the human cost of this system: conscripts drawn disproportionately from poorer regions and minority populations are sent to the frontlines, their lives consumed for national projection. At home, state television ridicules dissent as treason or foreign manipulation, while parades, commemorations, and managed elections transform coercion into duty. The official promise of security and unity is sustained not by coexistence but by the systematic silencing of plural voices, enforced equally through law, propaganda, and ritual display.
China illustrates the most technologically integrated model. The 2017 Cybersecurity Law and the 2021 Data Security Law require companies and individuals to submit to state control over digital information and extend surveillance across every layer of society (Creemers 2017; Kuo 2021). Social media platforms compel group administrators to monitor content and disperses the responsibility of conformity to citizens themselves (Freedom House 2022). At the same time, spectacle saturates the landscape: the Singles’ Day shopping festival in November generates billions in sales, broadcast as proof of prosperity and cohesion, while state media showcases technological triumphs as national achievements (Economist 2021). Entire communities, particularly in Xinjiang, are declared targets of re-education and surveillance. Mosques are closed, languages restricted, and traditions suppressed—all in the name of harmony (Amnesty International 2021). Stability is invoked, but the reality is the systematic denial of dignity: identity reduced to an administrative category, cultural life dismantled at will, and existence itself rendered conditional upon conformity to the designs of state power.
Taken together, these cases reveal a common logic. The United States commodifies dissent and normalizes abandonment as a permanent condition of public life. Venezuela uses deprivation to enforce discipline and the resulting compliance is publicly presented as loyalty to the state. Russia demands sacrifice and transforms coercion into patriotic duty. China fuses surveillance and prosperity and engineers conformity. Entire communities are suppressed in the name of harmony. The registers differ—commercial, ritualistic, militarized, digital—but the pattern is shared: dissent is stripped of legitimacy, lives are treated as expendable, and universal values are inverted to justify coercion.
References
ACLU: “Surveillance under the USA PATRIOT Act”. New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2021. (This article documents how post-9/11 legislation expanded state surveillance in the United States and framed “security” as a justification for reducing privacy rights.)
Amnesty International: “Venezuela: Hunger for Justice. London: Amnesty International”, 2019. (Amnesty International reports on how Venezuela’s Ley contra el Odio has been used to prosecute citizens and silence dissent under the rhetoric of tolerance.)
Amnesty International: “Like We Were Enemies in a War: China’s Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang”. London: Amnesty International. 2021. (Amnesty International provides evidence of mass detention, surveillance, and cultural repression in Xinjiang carried out in the name of “harmony” and stability.)
Amnesty International: “Russia: Arrests for Anti-War Protests”. London: Amnesty International, 2022. (Amnesty International details the systematic arrest of Russian citizens, including those holding blank signs, under laws claiming to protect peace and order.)
BBC: “Russia Passes Law to Jail People Who Spread ‘Fake’ Information about Ukraine War.” March 4, 2022. (News coverage of Russia’s 2022 law criminalizing criticism of the war shows how “discrediting the armed forces” became a punishable offense.)
CDC.: “Opioid Overdose Deaths in the United States. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”. 2022. (The CDC provides statistical evidence of widespread loss of life in the U.S. and underscores how entire populations are treated as expendable in public health.)
Creemers, Rogier: “Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China”: Translation with Annotations. Leiden University, 2017. (An authoritative translation and analysis of China’s 2017 Cybersecurity Law illustrate how digital oversight is institutionalized.)
UNHCR: “Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Venezuela: Regional Overview”. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2023. (This report offers figures on the Venezuelan exodus and highlights the mass displacement caused by deprivation and repression.)
The war in Ukraine is often presented as a geopolitical confrontation between the West and Russia, but this interpretation can obscure a deeper reality: the rise of authoritarianism as a global force. Noam Chomsky, one of the most influential voices in the critique of U.S. foreign policy, has argued that U.S. hegemony is the primary factor driving the conflict. His approach, rooted in Cold War logic, has been essential for understanding global power dynamics. However, one must question whether this framework remains sufficient to analyze the coordinated expansion of authoritarian regimes in the world today.
The issue is no longer simply whether U.S. policy contributed to Russia’s aggression, but whether democracies can withstand the deliberate advance of governments seeking to consolidate power at any cost. What is at stake transcends Ukraine’s sovereignty: it is the survival of democracy in the world.
Chomsky argues that NATO’s expansion and U.S. financial dominance exacerbated tensions with Russia and limited diplomatic options. His vision proposes a world in which power is distributed between the United States, Europe, China, and Russia, which he believes would create a more stable and just balance. This perspective has been crucial in questioning the excesses of U.S. interventionism. In the present world, however, where authoritarianism is not only reacting to the West but also actively seeking to reshape the global order, is a framework based solely on containing U.S. hegemony sufficient?
The rise of authoritarian regimes is not merely a response to Western influence; it is a deliberate strategy to consolidate power. While Chomsky has emphasized the importance of distributing global power, it is crucial to analyze the nature of those who would fill this void. Russia and China are not simply seeking a multipolar stability; their actions reflect an attempt to exert absolute control, without democratic constraints. Chomsky’s critique helps us understand the roots of international conflicts, but it may need to be expanded to account for how these regimes are transforming the very structure of global politics.
One challenge in applying Chomsky’s traditional analysis to the present is that contemporary authoritarianism no longer aligns solely with past ideological divisions. It is no longer a struggle between socialism and capitalism, or left and right. Rather, these regimes share a common objective: dismantling democratic institutions to ensure their permanence in power.
Putin, for instance, invokes Soviet nostalgia while prohibiting any critical reassessment of Stalinism. China blends State capitalism with absolute political control. Hungary and India, once considered democracies aligned with the West, have adopted authoritarian models. Meanwhile, the U.S. far-right, which historically opposed communism, has begun to adopt the Kremlin’s narrative, portraying it as a defender against “globalist elites.”
This ideological alignment makes modern authoritarianism more dangerous than ever. It not only transcends traditional power blocs but is also reinforced through strategic alliances, mutual support, and the erosion of democracies from within. This is perhaps most evident in the United States. The presidency of Trump revealed an unexpected vulnerability: the possibility that authoritarianism could thrive within the world’s most influential democracy. Here, the debate is no longer reduced to a question of isolationism or interventionism, but to the real risk of autocratic tactics being normalized in domestic politics.
The Trump administration sent contradictory signals regarding the Kremlin, weakening the principle of deterrence. Rather than establishing a clear stance against authoritarian expansion, its ambiguity allowed regimes like Putin’s to interpret the lack of firmness as an opportunity to act with impunity. Figures such as Marco Rubio have advocated for an unequivocal stance that would reinforce U.S. strategic credibility, while the inconsistency in the Trump administration’s foreign policy contributed to the perception that the West was divided and hesitant.
This weakening of democratic leadership has not occurred in a vacuum. The globalization of authoritarianism is a phenomenon in which autocratic regimes not only directly challenge democracies but also back one another to evade sanctions, subvert international pressure, and consolidate their internal rule. The invasion of Ukraine must be understood within this framework: it is not just a regional conflict or a reaction to NATO, but a calculated move within a broader strategy to weaken global democracy.
For decades, critics like Chomsky have been instrumental in highlighting the effects of U.S. dominance on global politics. His analysis has allowed us to understand how U.S. hegemony has influenced numerous conflicts. However, the evolution of authoritarianism raises questions that require expanding this perspective. The greatest threat to democracy is no longer exclusively U.S. power, but the consolidation of a global autocratic model advancing through coordinated strategies.
Blaming the U.S. for every geopolitical crisis may overlook a crucial shift: authoritarian regimes have moved from being a reaction to Washington’s influence to becoming an active strategy to replace the Western democratic model. Recognizing this shift does not absolve the U.S. of its failures in foreign policy, but it does demand an understanding that countering authoritarianism requires more than constant criticism of its hegemony. It requires recognizing that democracy faces a coordinated and unprecedented threat.
Chomsky’s vision of a multipolar world is, in theory, appealing. However, what would this imply in practice if the actors filling the void left by the U.S. are not interested in preserving democracy? The real challenge is not merely containing Putin’s territorial ambitions but preventing his model of governance—based on dismantling democratic institutions—from gaining traction in the West.
Chomsky remains one of the most incisive critics of U.S. foreign policy, and his work has been fundamental in understanding the effects of power on international relations. His analysis has shed light on the flaws of interventionism and the dynamics of global hegemony. The world, however, has changed, and so have the challenges facing democracies. Today, the crisis in Ukraine is no longer limited to a debate over NATO, U.S. intervention, or Western hypocrisy. It is part of a broader struggle between democracy and autocracy, a struggle that does not end at Ukraine’s borders but extends to the very political institutions of the West.
If we fail to recognize this shift, we risk not only losing Ukraine but also underestimating the scope of the threats facing democracies worldwide. Neutrality is no longer an option when the challenge is the survival of free societies. Beyond the mistakes of the West, the rise of authoritarianism demands a response that goes beyond constant criticism of U.S. hegemony and instead embraces the active defense of democratic values wherever they are under threat.
