The trump administration has control of Venezuelan oil $$ in a bank account opened in Qatar
Posted by Sia on January 29, 2026, 5:38 pm
Sia: This starts off with an AI description of situation. Opinion Article follows it.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm NOT buyin' what they are selling. It's SO opaque that there MUST be grifting going on. trump does nothing out of the goodness of anyone's heart!
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AI report:
As of January 2026, reports indicate that revenue from Venezuelan oil sales is being deposited into a bank account in Qatar under the control of the Trump administration, not a personal account of Donald Trump. The administration maintains this structure is to manage funds for the Venezuelan people, while critics raise concerns about the lack of transparency, control of disbursement, and potential for mismanagement.
Key details regarding these financial transactions:
The Account: Funds are deposited into a Qatari bank account to shield them from creditors with pending claims against the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, according to CNN and The Washington Post.
Administration Control: The White House, specifically the Secretary of State, holds authority over how these funds are dispersed.
Purpose: Administration officials state the money is for the benefit of the Venezuelan people, focusing on food and medical goods, says The Washington Post and ABC News.
Concerns: Critics have questioned the transparency of these transactions, with Representative Lloyd Doggett calling for answers regarding the legality and oversight of this arrangement, as noted by Congressman Lloyd Doggett | (.gov).
Transaction Flow: Initial payments, including $300 million, were funneled through authorized private banks before reaching the Qatari account, reports The Washington Post.
The arrangement is part of a broader, controversial effort by the U.S. to manage Venezuelan assets following political changes in the country, Politico and ABC News.
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ArticlePolitico tico
The U.S. couldn’t track billions in Iraq. Now, it’s controlling Venezuela’s oil cash. Unanswered questions and a lack of oversight hang over the U.S.’s use of Venezuela’s oil funds, according to former U.S. officials.
Venezuelan flags in Caracas5 (couldnt copy image) After Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro's removal earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. would sell Venezuela’s crude exports to “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.” | Carlos Becerra/Getty Images
By Megan Messerly, Aiden Reiter and James Bikales 01/22/2026 10:00 AM EST
Iraq’s reconstruction effort had a United Nations mandate, a special inspector general and international monitors overseeing its oil fund — and it still lost track of $8.7 billion.
Venezuela’s oil fund has Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a Qatari bank account.
Nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, his administration has already collected at least $500 million from oil sales, holding the money in a Qatari bank with the White House giving the secretary of state sweeping discretion over how it’s spent. There’s no independent auditor to track the money, no public accounting of how it will reach ordinary Venezuelans — and no timeline for when Venezuela might eventually regain control of its oil resources.
For some former U.S. officials from both parties who managed Iraq’s reconstruction, the Venezuelan arrangement brings back memories of problems they faced: Even with vastly more oversight and safeguards in place, the Iraqi rebuilding effort, called the Development Fund for Iraq, couldn’t properly account for where its money flowed.
“We had all kinds of people watching this stuff, but we still had a lot of corruption, a lot of bad decisions where the money should go,” said James Jeffrey, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012 under President Barack Obama. “The basic question is — if the U.S. government is actually marketing this oil, which it is — what is it going to do with the money?”
After Maduro’s removal earlier this month, Trump said that the U.S. would sell Venezuela’s crude exports to “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright later said those sales would continue “indefinitely.”
But the administration has yet to answer basic questions about how the fund will operate.
While Trump has issued an executive order authorizing Rubio to spend the money for “public, governmental, or diplomatic purposes” on behalf of Venezuela, seven former U.S. officials, in interviews, noted that language is broad enough to justify nearly anything. It’s also unclear whether the U.S. government plans to hand over the money directly to Venezuelans, give it with conditions attached, have the U.S. spend it based on Venezuelan requests or simply have American officials decide what the country needs.
“What does ‘for the benefit of the Venezuelan people’ mean if we’re controlling the money? Is it just like U.S. government officials will sign off on, ‘This money can go to this person in Venezuela, or this business or this investment’?” said Edward Fishman, who worked on Iran oil sanctions at both State and Treasury during the Obama administration, now director of the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There’s all kinds of risk of corruption and misuse of these funds.”
Administration officials argue Venezuela is very different from Iraq — and that the U.S. can help Venezuela rebuild in a way no other country can. But they acknowledge the administration is moving quickly, adding that they are reviewing existing legal structures and restrictions on Venezuelan banking and that even though the proceeds aren’t being deposited in the U.S. Treasury, they are in accounts controlled by the U.S. government.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the fund will be overseen, how Qatar was chosen to hold the funds or how the administration will ensure the oil revenues are used to benefit the Venezuelan people. Instead, an administration official focused on what the fund will do to help energy prices.
“We now have leverage — oil is on the market again, most of which will be sold to the United States, so this is another measure that will drive down domestic energy prices. We now have the leverage to stop narcoterrorism and the trafficking of deadly drugs,” said one administration official, granted anonymity to discuss strategy. “The president and his team are carefully crafting each deal to stabilize Venezuela and re-route oil profits back to the Venezuelan people to help their country recover from decades of mismanagement.”
The Treasury Department declined to comment, while the State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The lack of clarity around the current arrangement underscores the risks Trump has taken in seizing control of Venezuela’s oil industry at a moment when his administration is trying to focus its midterm messaging on the economy. Any hint of waste, corruption or mismanagement of the Venezuelan oil could undercut that pitch — hurting Venezuelans, damaging Republicans’ electoral hopes and tarnishing Trump’s legacy.
“The administration so far has been relatively successful seizing these tankers, but what happens if one of them escalates, and you get a U.S. service member killed or wounded or something. That’s a risk. There’s a cost,” Fishman said.
Unlike in Iraq, where the U.S. had the Coalition Provisional Authority on the ground managing reconstruction funds, the Trump administration is working with Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, who the U.S. sanctioned in 2018 for corruption and drug trafficking ties.
The Development Fund for Iraq also operated under a UN Security Council resolution, had international monitoring through an advisory board — and even had a special inspector general.
“If the regime puts in a request for the disbursement of a billion dollars, who’s going to track and audit that?” said Juan Zarate, who served as deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism and a senior Treasury official under President George W. Bush. “I’m not sure I would trust anything the regime does. This is a nefarious group still in power.”
Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, said handing money to the regime would be the “worst solution” for the Venezuelan people, and that it should be distributed through “reliable organizations,” like the World Food Program, Save the Children and the Catholic Church.
The U.S. handed control of Iraq’s fund back to Iraqi authorities about a year after taking control of it. Venezuela has no comparable timeline, with U.S. officials having laid out no clear plan for elections or a handoff of control.
In Iraq, the money sat at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where U.S. regulators and lawmakers could at least see how it was handled. This time, the funds are in a bank account in Qatar, outside Congress’ direct line of sight.
“That speaks to the opaque, non-transparent nature of everything that’s happened in Venezuela,” said John Feeley, who served as U.S. ambassador to Panama during the first Trump administration.
None of the biggest banks, which could host the funds in the U.S., have publicly expressed an interest in doing so. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup declined to comment.
Another useful corollary, experts said, is the escrow accounts set up for South Korea, Japan, China and other countries in the 2010s, which allowed them to abide by U.S. sanctions while still buying Iranian oil. The sanctions required allies to reduce their exposure to Iranian oil over time, and those countries were able to set up escrow accounts housed at domestic banks to stash Iran’s proceeds from its continued oil sales to the Asian nations. Iran could then use that revenue to purchase approved goods from those countries.
That infrastructure doesn’t appear to exist for Venezuela, where the structure came together in a matter of weeks.
Officials have given some short-term clarity on the estimated $140 billion owed to Venezuela’s creditors. The president’s recent executive order declared that funds “paid to or held by the U.S. in designated U.S. Treasury accounts” or funds “on behalf of the Venezuelan or its agencies or instrumentalities” are to be shielded from creditors’ demands — including oil companies that had their assets nationalized.
“That was a very, very smart move,” said Matt McManus, a visiting fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics, who spent decades working at the State Department, where he worked on Iraq and Venezuela. “You don’t want the funds necessary for Venezuela’s future to be clobbered by creditors, and you don’t want the first dollars going straight to oil companies. That would not help with the administration’s diplomacy with the Venezuelan people.”
José Ignacio Hernandez, who served as special attorney general in the interim Venezuelan government recognized by the U.S. in 2019, praised the creation of the oil fund and Trump’s executive order, noting the interim government led by Juan Guaidó had advocated the same strategy for the nation’s debt.
A U.S.-controlled oil fund is the “only way through which… the current corrupt mechanisms in place can be used to the benefit of the immediate reconstruction of Venezuela,” said Hernandez, who is now senior specialist at advisory firm Aurora Macro Strategies.
But in the longer term, it is unclear whether proceeds can be used to pay off an estimated $140 billion in Venezuelan debt. In Iraq, the U.S. government and various international bodies pushed Iraq’s creditors to take a major haircut on the payments they were owed, a move that if replicated in Venezuela is likely to rile Wall Street and complicate the administration’s efforts to entice oil companies back to the country.
The myriad unknowns have experts skeptical that ordinary Venezuelans will benefit much from the cash piling up in a U.S.-controlled Qatari account.
“So much is going to have to break well,” said Helima Croft, head of commodities at RBC Capital Markets and a former CIA analyst. “There are so many fundamental questions that have not been resolved.”
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YOUR THOUGHTS?
Qatari Riyal is what I use at my grocer and petrol outlets. How about you?
I was laying out the master plan without a clear declaration intentionally.
Regardless of the currency used to value the oil it will never be in US Treasury control and likely be funneled into crypto currencies.
All currency is essentially digital but transfers are controlled between banking systems. Very centralized.
Crypto uses Blockchain tech to transfer 'currency'. Blockchain is decentralized with extra encryption and a ledger of transfers is shared among all in the chain. By supplying a node in the chain you become part of the banking system and earn 'coin' for the service.
For the most part the owner of the wallet* is mostly anonymous but all transactions are public
*(Wallet is like a bank account you keep digitally)
Crypto has exchanges like FIAT Currency in the world banks. Conversion is another way to obfuscate funds transfer.
JP Morgan is being sued by Trump but something tells me their work in Qatar with crypto will help move money to Trump MEMECoin.
At any rate I take in lots of information on the web I forget sometimes that information moves at different paces for everyone. I'll try to be clearer with my Snark.
A Jack of all trades is master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
... And many thanks for the masters in skill for setting our standard of work to instill.
Yeah, I kinda figured that, but then he went off in
Posted by Sia on January 30, 2026, 12:34 pm, in reply to "He's joking..." ADMIN
a whole nuther direction that I didnt know where he was coming from. I didn't want to answer until I understood what he was talking about. It seemed like sarcastic joking, but I'm never certain with his posts when they go off in an unfamiliar direction.
Something like that launched my deliberately incomprehensible post
Trump is a Felonthropist. When he "retreats," it is to seek another crime avenue to the same end, or is an outright lie while he continues the pursuit unchanged, but duping others into thinking he did. He's doing that right now with the leadership of Minnesota.
People haven't caught on, and politicians are among the very stupidest people. You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
In a previous thread I was being silly. I framed my comment in a quasi-musical way to purposefully sound obnoxious in a funny way I hoped you would appreciate. Because you can't listen away from a symphony. LOL
I was thinking of it sort of like the soundtrack of my life. And I had more chaos to compose after my 2 things I shared. Because life happens to all of us.
The 4 part trilogy mention was vague hint to Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I should've mentioned Vogon Poetry as a muse.
A Jack of all trades is master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
... And many thanks for the masters in skill for setting our standard of work to instill.
Cuckophany in P flat major at its finest! There are few unambligulatory retroexperiences possible in music more trumpvaldean than that. Rivals eating an Elon Musketeers bar harvested from the snack bar of a theatre featuring My Lania(rd Got Stuck in my Twat).You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
While people try to keep up with all the ridiculous, illegal and outrageous things that he and his rich ‘aristocrat’ friends say and do… they just laugh all the way to the bank, making a mockery of our entire government, Constitution, justice system, ‘freedom’ and democracy, including all those who voted for him. They just can’t get enough laughs and giggles while duping and stealing from ALL of us.
what he is referring to with his reference to "crypto" stuff.
"JP Morgan is helping Qatari Banks adopt blockchain tech used in crypto exchange."
... but I don't understand all this "crypto" stuff. It's Greek to me, and most likely to most people as well. That's probably another way they get away with so much crap, because it's so cryptic. And it seems that dt/they have some strange alliance with Qatar in these shady dealings.
I wonder if he was referring to TikTok and trump's new bitcoin game "world liberty fincial"
Posted by Sia on January 30, 2026, 4:42 pm, in reply to "I'm not sure...." ADMIN
on January 29, 2026, 5:38 pm
