Venezuela and the US hail new oil deal

**Ankur Desai** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 3rd of September, these are our main stories. Venezuela and the US held a new oil deal which hands over a fifth of Venezuela's crude. But critics say it's neocolonialism and likely to entrench the current authoritarian leadership. Protests across Spain in support of the Spanish territory that's seen a steep rise in migrants. And New York's Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces a one-year ban on AI in schools for children up to the age of 14
Also in this podcast, we hear from southern Lebanon where Israel's occupation shows no sign of easing.

**Katie Razzle** (0:47)
And the lighting is incredibly low, that's to protect this fragile artwork. But there is enough light to see the drama of it, this epic story of Anglo-French relations.

**Ankur Desai** (1:01)
For the first time in almost a thousand years, the historic Bayeux Tapestry is set to go on display to the public here in the UK.
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, but since the late 1990s its oil production has declined by around 70 percent. The gap between rich and poor has widened and ordinary people have failed to benefit from the country's oil wealth. In January, President Trump forcibly removed President Nicolas Maduro from power but backed his deputy Delcy Rodriguez as Venezuela's leader. On Wednesday, a massive oil deal was signed in the capital Caracas. Between the US and Venezuela, it grants a US-led company licenses to exploit 17 oil fields amounting to 65 billion barrels of oil. After the signing ceremony in Caracas, the US Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, had this to say.

**Chris Wright** (1:57)
Today is a historic day in the transformation of Venezuela and the expansion of the possibilities for the Venezuelan people. President Trump's mission in Venezuela is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people of Venezuela.

**Ankur Desai** (2:19)
Seated to his left was the interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez. She said the deal would generate $200 billion in tax revenue.

**Delcy Rodriguez** (2:32)
When I talk about increasing production, I am talking about the well-being of the Venezuelan people. I mean making sure that increased production in our oil, gas and petrochemical industries translates into more jobs, higher wages, better public services, hospitals, schools and food. It means improving the well-being of a country that as a whole is seeking prosperity and a better future.
That is the transformation Venezuela needs.

**Ankur Desai** (3:03)
But others are more sceptical and have criticized the deal for giving away too much to the Americans. I spoke to our Latin America correspondent, Will Grant, who has previously lived in Venezuela, and asked just how is this huge deal going to work?

**Will Grant** (3:18)
It will be run through a company called North American Blue Energy Partners, run by a man called Alexander Betancourt. What I've been hearing from Venezuelans on the streets, through colleagues there, through journalists reporting in Caracas, is that there's a sense, particularly among ordinary people, that they simply don't know the details of what's being agreed, a sense, as you can imagine, for many, that the country's resources are being, as it were, gifted to Washington, which on the left runs so against the tenets of Hugo Chavez, his anti-Americanism, his antipathy to Washington during George Bush Jr.'s time in office. So yeah, it is a very, very difficult one to square with many ordinary people, although the United Socialist Party, the governing party in Venezuela has backed Delcy Rodriguez, the interim president.

**Ankur Desai** (4:14)
A lot of people will be wondering and be quite concerned about the benefit of this to ordinary Venezuelans, and how long is this likely to take as well?

**Will Grant** (4:23)
It's a huge deal in and of itself, and alongside it, there have been new deals signed between a number of international energy firms, including Chevron and the Venezuelan government, that are supposedly directed towards things like reconstructing and rebuilding the electrical grid, things like this that make it vital for Venezuela to get back to some kind of a normal footings, so that production can get back to the areas, not that it was sort of 15, 20 years ago, but simply what it was producing 40 years ago, 30 years ago.
So there's a lot of work that needs doing before this giant accord between Washington and Caracas can actually start to bear fruit. Of course, President Trump says that he believes it will start working within two to three years. Energy experts that we've heard from have said that it's more like a decade before there'll be any real fruit felt from these accords.