U.S. Takes Control of a Large Share of Venezuela's Oil

The U.S. government is taking control of a huge portion of Venezuela's oil, according to The New York Times. The move places a major part of the country's most important resource under the control of a foreign government.

Oil has shaped Venezuela for more than a century, to a degree that is rare outside the Middle East. That history has left Venezuelans with long-held nationalist convictions about the resource, starting with the need for sovereign control. Sovereign control means the country itself holds authority over its own natural wealth.

Those convictions sit alongside a sharp decline in output. Venezuela's oil production plummeted because of mismanagement, political purges, corruption and sanctions. Sanctions are restrictions that governments impose on trade and financial dealings with another country, and they are one of the factors cited in the decline.

The U.S. government's control over the oil is the latest step in a long relationship between the two countries' energy sectors.