Halliburton Admits U.S. Drove Them Out of Venezuela

President Donald Trump met with major U.S. oil companies to discuss Venezuela’s oil future. But during the meeting, one executive acknowledged that his company didn’tleave Venezuela because of the Venezuelan government, but due to U.S. sanctions imposed by Trump himself six years ago.

Halliburton Company’s CEO confirmed their operations in Venezuela ended in 2019 after sanctions made it legally impossible to stay, despite decades working in the country and hundreds of Venezuelan workers employed by the company.

The contradiction is not unique to Venezuela. The same dynamic has played out in Cuba: the U.S. imposes “maximum pressure” sanctions that drive out U.S. companies, destroy the economy, and immiserate the population. Then the U.S. points to the resulting collapse as proof of failure and the reason why the doors need to be opened to U.S. companies — except the U.S. was the one that closed them in the first place.

TRANSCRIPT

“We are the largest American oilfield services company. We’re the second largest in the world. We’ve been in business over one hundred years. We started operations in Venezuela in 1938, a long time in Venezuela,” said Jeff Miller, CEO of Halliburton Company.

“I personally lived there for four years and raised my kids there, so I’m quite familiar with Venezuela, and I just couldn’t express more gratitude for the opportunity to return to Venezuela under the stability that I know this team and your team are able to deliver,” Miller added.

“When did you leave? When did you leave Venezuela?” asked Donald Trump, President of the United States.

“As a company, we left under the sanctions in 2019. We had intended to stay, and then when the sanctions went into place, we were required to leave,” explained the Halliburton CEO.

“But we’re very much interested in returning,” he concluded.