Venezuela's Oil Pride Cracks as the U.S. Moves to Control Its Reserves

The U.S. government is taking control of a huge portion of Venezuela's oil, and the shift is rattling a conviction Venezuelans have held for generations: that the crude beneath their feet was theirs. Nationalist beliefs about sovereign control of the reserves are giving way to a messier set of views, according to The New York Times.

Leonardo Silva, 38, who works at a Caracas foundation helping people with disabilities, grew up believing virtually free gasoline was a birthright and that being born atop the bounty was like winning the lottery. His children don't see it that way. 'To them oil isn't important, it's secondary,' he said. 'They don't have that culture of us being a rich country. They just know that if you don't work, you don't eat.'

Oil has shaped Venezuela for more than a century to a degree rare outside the Middle East, woven into the social fabric alongside baseball, beauty pageants and the veneration of liberation hero Simón Bolívar. Silva's generation treated oil as a cornerstone of national identity, back when a booming economy gave the country a privileged tier in the global order.

That pride has been worn down by a decade of upheaval. Production plummeted amid mismanagement, political purges, corruption and sanctions, and economic need is now driving the re-evaluation of both oil and the country's dependence on it. The Times piece, published Nov. 14, 2026, is by Simon Romero, a former Caracas bureau chief who has covered energy politics across Latin America, and Isayen Herrera, who reports on Venezuela.