Venezuelan and Spanish‑language outlets are closely following the escalation around the Strait of Hormuz after Donald Trump's harsh ultimatum: a demand that Iran open the strait and a threat to "crush" or attack Iranian infrastructure and power plants. Reports and analytical pieces emphasize the provocative rhetoric from the U.S., Tehran's clear and retaliatory stance with threats to close shipping lanes, and the growing danger of the incident evolving into a wider Middle Eastern conflict. Opinion columns discuss why Iran is ignoring the deadline, what mistaken assumptions could push the parties to war, and provide live coverage of developments — from military dynamics to risks for energy security and global stability. The overall tone of the publications is rather skeptical and alarmed: there is concern that American warlike rhetoric could have far‑reaching international consequences. Material prepared based on publications from efe.com (Venezuela) and revistaraya.com (Venezuela).
Venezuelan view of oil: from the price per liter in Spain to Hormuz and U.S. pressure
EFE's news about New Year stability in fuel prices in Spain, where a liter of gasoline cost an average of €1.515 and rose by only 0.33% over the month, at first glance looks like a typical European "service" piece about motorists' expenses. In the original, posted on the agency's site (EFE oil feed link), it is a short note: it sums up the Christmas week, records the figures, and compares them with previous periods. No drama: prices rose slightly but remain under control, supply is stable, holiday travel is not disrupted.
However, if you read the same news from Venezuela, in the shadow of constant discussions about oil sanctions, Donald Trump's threats to Iran and possible escalation around the Strait of Hormuz, the meaning of the piece changes sharply. It becomes an indicator of how the global architecture of oil power is arranged — and how differently geopolitical shocks in the Persian Gulf are felt in Madrid and in Caracas.
In Spain, according to the EFE note, the Christmas week could be summarized as "a little more expensive, but no surprises": a liter of gasoline averaged €1.515 nationwide, a monthly increase of 0.33%. For a European reader this is almost household statistics: something like a weather forecast for the family budget. In Venezuela the same figures are read as a sort of luxury of predictability — that very "normality" the country lost along with the collapse in production, sanctions and deformation of the domestic fuel market.
The contrast is striking. While in Spain the discussion is about tenths of a percent over a month, in Venezuela the memory is still fresh of abrupt regime changes in prices, the shift from virtually free gasoline to payment in dollars, multi‑tier tariffs (from "symbolically subsidized" to "international"), periodic shortages, queues and regional inequality of access to fuel. What for a European is a short paragraph in the economy section, for a Venezuelan turns into a silent reproach: how did it happen that a country with the largest oil reserves cannot guarantee its citizens even basic predictability at the gas station?
EFE's news exists against much larger stories: tensions in the Persian Gulf, disputes over the safety of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. campaign of pressure on Iran and other oil economies, including through sanctions. In the European text these conflicts, if mentioned at all, appear as one of the external factors that can affect the "basket" of prices, but not as a threat to everyday life. In the Venezuelan optic, Hormuz, Iran and Washington's threats are not background, but the axis of the entire conversation about oil.
Venezuelan public discourse has long been built around the idea that "petroleum is power." In this frame even the modest figure of €1.515 per liter becomes evidence: the end consumer in the European Union pays a high price for geopolitics, but pays evenly, predictably and in a currency whose purchasing power is relatively stable. Europe, despite its vulnerability to external shocks, has financial, institutional and technological mechanisms to smooth out even sharp fluctuations in the world oil and gas market. Where global tensions around Hormuz result in a 0.33% monthly increase, in supplier countries deprived of a diversified economy and access to credit it often turns into budget crises, devaluation and falling living standards.
From this stems the characteristic Venezuelan way of reading such European notes as illustrations of the unequal distribution of risks in global energy. In Caracas media and expert circles similar data are often commented on like this: central markets (EU, USA) know how to shift part of the geopolitical price of oil onto the periphery — onto raw material exporters, among them Venezuela itself. In this logic U.S. sanction policy and restrictions on Iran, Russia and PDVSA appear not only as instruments of pressure but also as a mechanism of that very redistribution: while "problematic" producers lose access to markets and finance, the consumer in the West continues to fill up with an acceptable markup, not in conditions of total shortage.
Caracas' official rhetoric actively picks up on such narratives. When Western media note a rise in fuel prices at home, in Venezuela this is interpreted as a consequence of the "politicization" of energy markets by Washington. Emphasis is also placed on the claim that, if sanctions were lifted, Venezuela could act as an "alternative supplier," easing price pressure — just as in Iranian press Hormuz and oil are used to demonstrate Tehran's role in the world economy. Thus a twofold image is born: the country is both a victim of energy wars and a potential "savior" of the market, able to stabilize supplies.
Opposition and independent experts read the same news differently. In their interpretation, European price stability against global turbulence is above all a lesson in governability and institutional maturity. Hormuz, sanctions and OPEC+ decisions show up in Madrid as smooth changes in the cost per liter, whereas in Caracas they overlay a ruined refining infrastructure, declining production and chronic lack of investment. It's not that Spain is by definition "better" protected from global shocks, but that, faced with similar external challenges, differences in the quality of domestic policy — from tax regimes to refinery operations — determine whether these challenges become a checkout problem for the citizen or a drama of queues and shortages.
This reading inevitably refers back to key moments in Venezuelan history. Mention of a quiet New Year's week at gas stations in Europe inevitably evokes the events of 1989 — "El Caracazo" — when hikes in fuel and transport fares became one of the triggers for mass protests. That micro‑change of 0.33% passing in contemporary EU without social explosions and perceived as a manageable element of inflationary reality highlights the fragility of Venezuela's social contract around gasoline: any touch to this symbolic niche in the past threatened open conflict.
Another line of contrast is the era of practically free gasoline. For decades a liter of fuel in Venezuela cost so little that it was barely accounted for in the household budget. This became part of national identity: a country where "gasoline is cheaper than water" prided itself on its status as an oil giant. Now, when a significant portion of citizens are forced to pay for fuel in dollars or live with periodic shortages, the news of a liter at €1.515 in Spain, despite seeming expensive to a European, provokes mixed feelings. On one hand — understanding that for the average Spaniard this price still fits within the logic of wages and expenses; on the other — a sense of loss of a certain "natural right" to cheap energy around which Venezuelan statehood of the 20th century was built.
Recent years' experience, when queues for gasoline stretched for many hours and in some regions fuel was physically unavailable, intensifies the drama of this comparison. For government supporters the main explanation is sanctions by the U.S. and the "economic war" that deprived PDVSA of access to credit, technology and markets. For opponents — a long trail of corruption, inefficient management and destruction of the industrial base that made the country vulnerable even before the escalation of sanctions. The mention of Europe's "+0.33%" becomes in this polemic almost a symbolic number: a reminder of what life can look like where geopolitics and domestic governance do not enter into a destructive resonance.
Finally, the EFE news highlights another difference — in how societies perceive the very nature of oil. In the European text gasoline is primarily a mass‑consumption commodity, important but one of many. In Venezuela and in the discourse around Hormuz, oil is an instrument of sovereignty, a weapon and a guarantee of the state's survival. Hence the different semantic field: there it's about the family budget during Christmas trips; here it's about a geopolitical lever that can either bring additional revenue to the budget amid crisis or result in harsher sanctions and another round of isolation.
Thus, a brief European note that a liter of gasoline at Christmas cost €1.515 and rose by only a third of a percent becomes in Venezuela loaded with political and emotional meaning. Through the prism of Hormuz, Trump's threats to Iran, sanctions against oil economies and Venezuela's own traumatic history with fuel, this is not just statistics. It is a litmus test of who pays and on what terms for the global game around oil, and a reminder of how deeply the movement of a price figure at the gas pump is tied for Venezuela to questions of identity, sovereignty and unfinished modernization.
