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“A decision for peace”: Venezuela’s military leadership backs oil deal with US Image: iStock
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“A decision for peace”: Venezuela’s military leadership backs oil deal with US

From El Universal · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • Venezuela’s defense minister Gustavo González López said the country’s military leadership supports a 25-year oil agreement with the United States.
  • The agreement, backed by Venezuela’s parliament, would give US interests access to more than 20% of the country’s oil reserves and seeks to raise production by 1.5 million barrels a day.
  • Officials said the deal could create about 3.6 million jobs and generate more than $209 billion for Venezuela at an oil price of $65 per barrel.

Venezuela’s military leadership has thrown its support behind a sweeping oil agreement with the United States, with Defense Minister Gustavo González López insisting that the deal represents cooperation for peace rather than submission.

“Transforming a political difference into an economic cooperation agreement is simply a decision to move toward peace, not subordination,” González López said after meeting interim leader Delcy Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. He said the military backed all of Rodríguez’s decisions aimed at bringing prosperity and described the agreement as a path to more jobs and higher production.

Transforming a political difference into an economic cooperation agreement is simply a decision to move toward peace, not subordination. We fully agree and support all the decisions of our commander in chief, Delcy Rodríguez, to achieve prosperity.

— Gustavo González LópezVenezuela’s defense minister explained the military leadership’s support for the oil agreement.

“If you asked me to describe this agreement in one word, it would be prosperity and well-being for the country, and for us as well,” he added.

If you asked me to describe this agreement in one word, it would be prosperity and well-being for the country, and for us as well.

— Gustavo González LópezHe described the expected benefits of the deal.

Venezuela’s parliament also endorsed the agreement on Tuesday, with support from lawmakers aligned with the ruling Chavista movement and opposition dissidents. The deal would remain in force for 25 years and aims to increase production by 1.5 million barrels a day. Lawmaker Miguel Pérez Abad, who introduced the proposal, called it the most important oil agreement of the past 100 years and said oil activity could generate about 3.6 million direct, indirect and additional jobs.

The agreement followed a rapprochement between Rodríguez’s government and Donald Trump’s administration that began almost eight months earlier, after Nicolás Maduro was captured in January. Rodríguez said the plan would develop 17 strategic fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. Using a reference price of $65 per barrel, she said Venezuela could receive $209.335 billion under the agreement.

The most important oil agreement of the past 100 years.

— Miguel Pérez AbadThe Venezuelan lawmaker assessed the agreement’s scope and implications.
About this summary

Originally published by El Universal in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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