On Friday, as three U.S. destroyers headed towards waters off of Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro mobilized 4.5 million militiamen in response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a one-word tweet: “#Guyana.”
The post included a screenshot of a statement from the Guyanese government, which echoed concerns from Washington about Venezuelan transnational organized crime, all but offering support for the military escalation. Those concerns are based on the debunked assertion that Maduro is the head of the “Cartel of the Suns,” using drugs and gang violence as a weapon of war against the U.S.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez responded by saying that Rubio’s tweet is proof that “who rules in Guyana” is not the Guyanese president, nor Rubio, but rather a multinational oil company — Exxon Mobil.
She may have a point. Yet many in the Washington establishment refuse to acknowledge Exxon’s influence.
Since 2015, Exxon has been leading the exploration of some 11 billion barrels of oil in Guyana, and Rubio has all but committed to a U.S. security guarantee for Guyana and Exxon. On a visit to Guyana in March, he warned Venezuela against attacking Exxon’s oil fields. “It would be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime if they were ever to attack Guyana or attack ExxonMobil,” Rubio said then.
Meanwhile, Exxon’s competitor Chevron has sought to engage with the Venezuelan government. Chevron has operated in Venezuela since the 1920s, almost uninterrupted, including during the governments of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro. The Trump administration has allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela under unknown conditions, pumping around 200,000 barrels of oil per day. Though the State Department is insistent that it is helping U.S. companies “without helping the Maduro regime,” critics of engagement with Venezuela claim the “Chevron model” is simply providing a lifeline to Maduro.
This proxy war has boiled over into the world of nonprofits. Washington-based think tanks more heavily-funded by Exxon tend to be more in favor of maximum pressure, whereas those that receive more funding from Chevron appear more supportive of the Chevron model.
It has become a common refrain among these critics that experts who are not sufficiently hawkish on Venezuela are deemed to be shills for Chevron, oftentimes without evidence. A Manhattan Institute fellow suggested recently that another D.C. think tank, the Center for Economic and Policy Research is being paid by Chevron to whitewash Maduro. But when RS contacted CEPR they responded categorically that they take no money from Chevron.
"CEPR does not receive any funding from Chevron or from Venezuela, or from any corporation or government. It’s a stated policy, in fact, on our website in various places, and we are proud that we — unlike so many think tanks in DC — do not take money from governments or corporations," CEPR said in a statement sent to RS on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Carrie Filipetti, the Executive Director of the Vandenberg Coalition, recently took to LinkedIn to explain why she resigned from the Atlantic Council’s Venezuela Working Group. Filipetti said she had left following what she considered to be “an outrageous missive they published that seemed to provide cover for Maduro's theft of democracy, freedom, and a future for millions of Venezuelans.” The reason for that push, she suggested, could be found “shining in capital letters on the terrace of the Atlantic Council's fancy new 80,000 sq ft building: Chevron.”
However, many critics of the Chevron model are themselves embraced by the oil lobby. Exxon has become a symbol of the maximum pressure campaign and an “enemy of the Venezuelan people” according to Maduro, for working with neighboring Guyana in territory disputed by Venezuela. Exxon donates at least $900,000 per year to DC’s top 20 think tanks, according to an RS analysis.
The Venezuelan government nationalized the country’s last privately owned oil fields in 2007, and while most multinational oil companies accepted the new laws for regulation, ConocoPhilips and ExxonMobil refused. Then-Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson valued the seized assets at some $10 billion, but a World Bank arbitration tribunal ordered Venezuela to pay only a fraction of that at $1.6 billion.
Exxon’s revenge came in the form of Venezuela’s next door neighbor: Guyana. In 2015, Tillerson — who became President Trump’s secretary of state two years later — began working with Guyana to explore 11 billion barrels of oil in waters claimed by Venezuela. Venezuela in turn began threatening to invade its neighbor in late 2023 over the disputed territory, known as Essequibo, sending troops to the border for military exercises and building highways needed for an invasion.
Filipetti’s own organization, the Vandenberg Coalition, was founded by Elliott Abrams, who the London Observer reported was “the crucial figure” in a 2002 attempted coup against Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez. In an email, the organization told RS that it does not accept corporate or foreign donors, though it does not publicly disclose its funders. “The issue is not that Chevron, Exxon, or any other company gives money to think tanks,” Filipetti told RS, ”the issue arises when a company has a direct financial stake in the outcome of a particular policy on which the think tank is active.”
Both Exxon and Chevron clearly have a financial stake in policy towards Guyana and Venezuela. Exxon’s own executives have acknowledged on numerous occasions their direct financial stake. Asked about Venezuela’s claims over the region, Exxon CEO Darren Woods made clear where the company stands. “We can do what we can do, which is making sure that we’re helping the government of Guyana by producing the resources efficiently,” he said.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — where Zarate is a non-resident senior adviser — receives over $250,000 annually from ExxonMobil. Despite also accepting over $250,000 every year from Chevron, CSIS has been among the loudest critics of the Chevron Model of joint ventures in Venezuela and even lists Exxon CEO Darren Woods on its Board of Trustees. When a Venezuelan ship approached an Exxon oil facility demanding information in March, CSIS fellows expressed military support to protect Exxon’s interests, saying that “[a] coordinated response…which aims to deter Venezuela from further military action towards its neighbor, is sorely needed.”
Last December, Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado spoke at a CSIS event about Maduro’s “oil lifeline” provided by Western companies such as Chevron. In her remarks, she promised to “develop the energy sector, oil gas, and renewables to make Venezuela the most attractive energy partner in the Western Hemisphere.” After the event, several CSIS fellows voiced support for “returning to a pressure campaign” against Venezuela, starting with more sanctions and revoking Chevron’s oil license.
Many CSIS fellows have also been supportive of the maximum pressure campaign against Venezuela, even potential U.S. military intervention. In 2019, Grayzone confirmed that CSIS hosted a private roundtable titled “Assessing the Use of Military Force in Venezuela” attended by former National Intelligence Council and National Security Council officials.
Cristina Burelli resigned as a Senior Associate Non-Resident fellow at CSIS two years ago, alleging that the think tank censored her over criticism of Guyana, the country hosting Exxon’s oil fields. Burelli’s research concluded that Guyana has “enabled and encouraged the destruction of ecosystems in the Disputed Area west of the Essequibo River.” Her article was published and taken down the same day, August 17, 2022.
Commenting on Filipetti’s LinkedIn post, Burelli said that shortly before the piece was published, CSIS President John Hamre “hosted President Irfaan Ali of Guyana at an event sponsored by Exxon,” adding that “[t]oo many ‘think tanks’ in DC are no longer places to think—they’ve become pay-to-play platforms.”
The Manhattan Institute also has longstanding ties to ExxonMobil, having received $1.3 million in funding from the oil conglomerate since 1998. In an article last year titled “Drill, America, Drill!” a contributing editor to the organization’s City Journal publication wrote that “[t]he people of Guyana are on track to join those in Norway and Qatar near the top of the world’s per capita GDP rankings because of the remarkable volume and velocity of their own new offshore oil production.”
In an article in January, another contributing editor held up Exxon’s venture in Guyana as a model: “In recent years, the pace at which industry brings newly identified offshore resources into production has accelerated dramatically. Consider Guyana, where an Exxon-led offshore development went from discovery to production in less than five years.”
Those critical of U.S. engagement with Venezuela have been quick to point out Chevron’s funding of the nonprofit world, but conveniently avoid mentioning funding from one of its biggest competitors, Exxon. While there are plenty of other competing oil companies that fund think tanks, the two oil giants have become emblematic of the binary policy options towards Venezuela that have defined, and will continue to define, the Chavismo era: engagement, or maximum pressure?
Quincy Institute researcher Lee Schlenker contributed to this article
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