President Donald Trump’s effort to assert control over Venezuela’s oil could collide with China’s debt and oil-linked claims embedded in contracts signed years ago, according to an Associated Press report. The potential friction is expected to surface as U.S. officials move to seize and manage sanctioned tanker shipments and begin sales of Venezuelan crude, while China seeks to protect economic ties after the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro.
Some experts expect Trump to try to work with Beijing to stabilize trade relations, the report said. Trump is expected to visit Beijing in April as part of efforts to preserve a fragile trade truce with China, which he and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to in late 2025, backing off on sky-high tariffs and export controls for a one-year period.
Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the administration appears focused on avoiding escalation with Beijing while keeping leverage on Washington’s terms. “The administration appears focused on avoiding unnecessary escalation or new irritants with Beijing while keeping leverage firmly on Washington’s terms,” Singleton said, adding that he doubted Trump would risk turning Venezuela into a “flashpoint” that complicates trade dynamics or Trump’s engagement with Xi.
The report said China is owed at least $10 billion from Venezuela, based on various estimates. It said Maduro had reduced parts of that debt by shipping oil to China, and that it is possible an interim Venezuelan government complying with U.S. demands could question the legality of loans-for-oil deals and cease payments.
China also has direct stakes in Venezuela’s oil, the report said, citing a research note by Morgan Stanley. It said two major Chinese state-owned enterprises, China National Petroleum Corp. and Sinopec, are entitled to 4.4 billion barrels of oil reserves in Venezuela—its highest for any foreign country—according to that note. The report also said U.S. companies have claims for tens of billions of dollars from when Caracas nationalized the oil industry, and that it is unclear how those “IOUs” will be honored and in what order.
On the U.S. side, the report said the U.S. seized two sanctioned oil tankers this week as part of a plan to assert control over Venezuelan oil shipments. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. will handle the sales of Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely,” depositing proceeds into U.S.-controlled accounts that will ultimately “flow back into Venezuela to benefit the Venezuelan people.”
The AP report said the administration plans to kickstart those sales with 30 million to 50 million barrels taken from Venezuela’s crude storage facilities. Asked for more detail, a Trump administration official not authorized to comment publicly and speaking on condition of anonymity said U.S. policy was to wind down “adversarial outside influence” in the Western Hemisphere.
The report framed the push for U.S. leverage over a crucial natural resource as coming after China used trade pressure in the previous year, including choking off critical supplies of rare-earth magnets and using its purchase of American soybeans as leverage in the trade war. It said Trump and Xi had met in South Korea in October and agreed to the one-year truce, and it described China’s approach as having been shaped by the broader trade context.
On the debt question, the report cited AidData, a research lab at Virginia’s College of William & Mary that tracks Beijing’s overseas lending. It said between 2000 and 2023, Venezuela was the fourth-largest recipient of Beijing’s official credit, receiving $106 billion in loans from China’s official-sector creditors, per AidData. AidData executive director Brad Parks said Caracas stopped reporting debt details several years ago, meaning the outstanding amount could be higher, and he said U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil may have delayed loan repayments.
The AP report said the loans were set up under an arrangement in which they would be paid down with proceeds from oil exports. It also said the capture of Maduro had prompted comparisons in China to Libya, where Chinese businesses faced losses after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, and it reported that Cui Shoujun, a professor of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing, told guancha.cn that the transition government in Caracas could deem agreements under Maduro unlawful and the debt to China illegal.
Beyond oil, the report said Chinese firms have invested in telecommunications, railways and ports in Venezuela, all now at risk, citing a Jefferies report. Jefferies also said Beijing would likely manage disruptions because Venezuelan oil counts for only a small percentage of China’s oil imports, and because Beijing has diversified its energy supplies and pivoted to electrification.
The report said that hours before Maduro was captured by U.S. forces, he hosted a high-level Chinese diplomat at the presidential palace and praised the ties between the countries dating to Hugo Chávez. It also said Venezuela is the only Latin American country with a high-level strategic partnership with China, and that Maduro’s ouster is expected to curtail China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere in line with goals outlined in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy.
On Beijing’s response, the report said Chinese officials were “deeply shocked” by what it described as the “blatant use of U.S. force against a sovereign state” and condemned actions against Maduro, calling for the immediate release of Maduro and his wife. It said He Yadong, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce, told reporters that no nation has the right to interfere with economic and trade cooperation between China and Venezuela, which he said are protected by international and domestic laws.
Singleton said Beijing does not have the clout in the Western Hemisphere as it is sometimes portrayed, adding: “Beijing can protest diplomatically,” but “it cannot protect partners or assets once Washington decides to apply direct pressure.”