Hmm. That's not the question I asked you. I asked who was in charge of their oil exports. I'll answer for you - Trump is.

No, he's not. The Venezuelan government is still in charge of their oil production and exports. He's in charge of the 50 million bpd that the Venezuelan government agreed to have the U.S. take (ie that he used the naval fleet to force from them) and which control has been turned over to him. And BTW, that oil is continuing to be sold to China:

reuters.com - Vitol trafigura offer venezuelan oil indian chinese refiners march delivery

...because it doesn't have anywhere else to go. Again, the oil flows and political alliances are shaped by real world constraints, geopolitics, and economic factors. Trump can't shut down Venezuelan oil sales or the country will descend into chaos. He can seize oil, or strong-arm the government into "giving" him oil as tribute, for as long as he has the fleet there - but it still needs to be sold, and the buyers that are in the market for Venezuelan heavy crude are China and India. And I think you should consider the possibility that while China is the most important thing in the world for your vision of foreign policy, it might not be so for Trump - else that 50 million barrels we control probably wouldn't be on offer to the Chinese majors.

You keep saying this...but I would bet that the opposition there is getting more organized and that pressure to hold another election will start to build.

Really? After Trump publicly hamstrung them by saying they were incapable of seizing or wielding power, and signaling that we were more than happy to make deals with the existing regime and not call for elections any time soon?

What happens if it stays in the ground? Have you considered that possibility?

It's not at all a realistic possibility. There is virtually no chance that any of the parties involved want that to happen. Venezuela collapses into a failed state if we cut off their oil revenues. The Administration has taken zero steps towards doing anything remotely like that - heck, as noted above, we're still continuing sales to China so that the money can keep flowing.

4.5% of their total? Okay. 1) that's not a small amount and 2) they're going to pay market price for it. (They weren't when they were buying Venezuelan oil). Nice 1-2 crotch shot for China's economy.

Yes, it's a small amount of oil. Chinese oil imports from Venezuela were only about 0.4-0.6 million barrels per day, varying throughout the year. Chinese total consumption is about 16 million bpd. So maybe a little more than 3% of total consumption. As much as 4.5% percentage points of their imports at peak times (which are about 11 million bpd, so less than that overall). But an amount easily replaced from: i) stockpiles, which they have been building up; ii) increased imports from India (buying from the US), Russia, Iran, and Canada; and iii) of course, continuing to buy Venezuelan oil.

The discount caused by sanctioned oil is about $20 per barrel. They'll be able to replace most of it with sanctioned oil from Russia, at least in the near term. So we're talking no more than a billion or two dollars in extra expense for them for an entire year. Not a crotch shot - pocket change for an economy the size of China's.

Interesting, that. It's almost like we...had some leverage and used it on India! I seem to remember one of us dumping on that notion pretty hard.

Yeah, because they didn't work. The tariffs on India because of Russian oil imports were imposed in August. India responded by increasing their imports from Russia - by November, Indian imports from Russia had hit an all-time high. Indian imports from Russia fell in December not because of Trump's tariffs on India, but because we imposed a new set of sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil the month before, which heavily disrupted oil trade with those two specific companies. But India's still importing all they can from Russia and haven't reduced imports from the other channels. They are still at 1.2 mbpd even with the loss of Rosneft and Lukoil - insanely higher compared to 0.04 mbpd before the war. India's trying to take advantage of that reduction in imports to convince Trump (and perhaps his supporters who believe this stuff) that the time is right for a trade deal.

So, no - it didn't work. Trump told India they had to choose between us and Sino-Russia or else, and they chose Sino-Russia. Which is exactly what one of us thought would happen.