In the year leading up to the Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela, corporate actors who stand to benefit from United States–backed regime change in the country — including fossil fuel magnates, international creditors, and cryptocurrency firms — spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the Trump administration on Venezuela, including over their economic access to the resource-rich nation.
Oil and gas giants Shell, Phillips 66, and Chevron noted in disclosures covering the first three-quarters of 2025 that they lobbied the Treasury Department regarding Venezuelan sanctions or licenses issued by its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC licenses serve as lucrative business waivers that circumvent US-imposed economic sanctions.
Chevron is currently the only US-based holder of a general waiver granting the fossil fuel firm permission to broadly operate in Venezuela’s vast oil fields, which represent about 17 percent of world’s global supply.
Disclosures filed on behalf of Mare Finance Investment Holdings, an Ireland-based creditor, reveal the company spent $240,000 lobbying in the first three-quarters of 2025 on a single issue: “Interest in OFAC licensing for purposes of enforcing portion of an award against Venezuelan assets.” That means the firm is likely seeking US permission to do business in the country so it can pursue settlement money it’s owed by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s government.
In 2017, months before Venezuela — reeling from US sanctions and economic turmoil — defaulted on tens of billions in outstanding bonds, court records show that Mare Finance spent $115 million to acquire the rights to an unpaid $500 million-plus settlement that the Venezuelan government owed a major glass manufacturer for its nationalization of two glass factories the company had invested in.
A lobbyist for Mare Finance did not respond to a request for comment.
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Auteur: Veronica Riccobene
