Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Total, France speaking in the Future of Fossil Fuels session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 22 January. Congress Centre - Situation Room. Copyright by World Economic Forum/Sikarin Fon Thanachaiary
President Donald Trump’s decision last month to invade Venezuela has not persuaded Total Energies, one of the Big Oil companies Trump urged to return to the country, that overthrowing former President Nicolás Maduro will be good for business.
Although Trump is insisting Big Oil will invest heavily in US-occupied Venezuela because they “have Trump as a president,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné told reporters that his company initially quit the country in 2022 for reasons that Trump's invasion has not changed.
"It was too expensive and too polluting," Pouyanné explained, "and that is still the case.”
Pouyanné is not alone among Big Oil CEOs to not back Trump's Venezuela policy. After visiting the White House and speaking with Trump, Exxon CEO Darren Woods made headlines for saying that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current state. Trump responded by raging at Woods, threatening to sideline Exxon because its leader was, in Trump's words, “playing too cute.”
Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton predicted in January that, despite Trump’s claim oil companies would happily invest in Venezuela, his own actions raised questions about the financial wisdom of doing so.
“If I were an oil company executive being pressured by Trump to invest billions of dollars of capital expenditures to revive Venezuela's oil infrastructure, I would want a regime in place committed to the rule of law,” Bolton said.
This lack of political stability can, according to critics, be laid at Trump’s feet. Earlier this month retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling wrote in the conservative publication The Bulwark that although he had no criticisms of Trump’s initial invasion, he believes the administration is flying blind when it comes to how to reconstruct the country.
"One month ago, the United States launched a dramatic military operation in Caracas that ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife," Hertling said. "The military strike was fast, precise, and unmistakably American in its execution. Within hours, President Trump and various Cabinet officials stood before cameras to declare success, describe the removal of a criminal regime, and suggest the beginning of a new chapter for Venezuela."
Hertling continued, "They implied the end of Venezuela's longstanding authoritarian leadership. Tactically, it was executed with precision. But the immediate aftermath revealed a strategic uncertainty. Even in the (Trump) Administration's first press briefings, it was unclear who was in charge in Caracas, what authority Washington claimed to exercise, and what political end state the United States was pursuing. That ambiguity has not improved with time."