The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Revokes Chevron License to Pump Venezuelan Oil By David Smagalla

Good morning. The Treasury Department moved Tuesday to formally rescind a Biden-era license allowing Chevron to pump oil in Venezuela, giving the company 30 days to wind down operations as the Trump administration pressures President Nicolás Maduro.

Change in tack: Moving to revoke Chevron's oil license marks a sharp about-face for the Trump administration. White House special envoy Richard Grenell met with Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, on Jan. 31, striking a deal for Maduro to resume accepting deportees, with an understanding that oil licenses would remain in effect at least for now, people familiar with the deliberations said. Grenell denied that any oil-for-migrants deal had been made.

Implications for other oil companies: Tuesday's action doesn't apply to non-U.S. oil companies that have operations in Venezuela, including European companies Repsol, ENI and Shell. But the Treasury Department could later advise the companies that their authorizations have also been revoked, industry sources said.

What it means for Chevron: The administration's move marks a huge setback for Chevron, which stayed on in Venezuela when most of its peers pulled out after the government of late president Hugo Chávez nationalized oil assets there in 2007. For Chevron, terminating its four joint-venture operations in Venezuela by early April could become a serious logistical and contractual challenge, though large oil companies often have contingency plans in place. Risk

How uncertainty from Trump's tariffs is rippling through the economy.

The U.S. economy entered a new era Tuesday, as President Trump's tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada took effect . The new tariffs on imported goods ended decades of free trade among the three countries, and stood to disrupt entire industries.

The tariffs have the potential to profoundly reshape relations between the U.S. and its two largest trading partners, abruptly reversing America's decadeslong project of expanding free trade with its allies. This could also slow a U.S. economy that is already absorbing the effects of mass federal job cuts, reduced government spending and immigration restrictions, while raising prices on an array of goods as varied as autos and avocados.

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Lutnick says U.S. might 'work something out' with Canada and Mexico.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said President Donald Trump will "meet in the middle" with Mexico and Canada after 25% tariffs on America's continental neighbors went into effect Tuesday. Lutnick told Larry Kudlow on Fox Business that he was on the phone with Mexican and Canadian officials all day, and he believes the president wants to "work something out with them."

Ontario to Slap Export Tax on Electricity to U.S. Ontario Liquor Board Halts U.S. Alcohol Imports First, shoppers squeezed by inflation began ditching name-brand snacks and drinks in favor of lower-price store brands. But now, with costs for coffee, eggs and other basic grocery items surging, consumers are cutting out many cheaper items as well .

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called his heated White House meeting with President Trump last week "regrettable" and set out his vision of a path to peace in his most concerted public effort yet to repair his relationship with the U.S. leader.

OPEC+'s plan to start raising output next month and the latest round of U.S. tariffs on trade partners are weighing on the oil market's outlook, raising concerns about a supply surplus and demand growth this year.

Goldman Sachs is preparing its annual round of layoffs, this time with a focus on its vice presidents . Compliance

DOJ cites Trump order to put Cognizant execs bribery trial on hold.

Two former Cognizant Technology Solutions executives charged over an alleged foreign bribery scheme may not go on trial as planned this month, reports Risk & Compliance Journal's Richard Vanderford , as the U.S. Justice Department grapples with President Trump's upending enforcement of a key U.S. anticorruption law .

John Giordano, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, asked a judge Tuesday to put the trial of Gordon Coburn and Steven Schwartz on hold for 180 days while he weighs how to apply a Trump executive order pausing enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

What this could mean. The last-minute move by the Justice Department adds to confusion over how the U.S. intends to enforce the FCPA, one of the most important corporate crime statutes.

Senate votes to repeal Biden-era crypto tax rule.

The Senate voted to repeal a Biden-era rule requiring that some cryptocurrency platforms report their customers' transactions to the Internal Revenue Service , delivering a bipartisan victory to the ascendant industry.

Debate about the rule. The rule required the decentralized finance platforms, or DeFi, to report detailed information on customers to the IRS, starting for tax year 2027. The rule was designed to improve tax compliance and create parity with centralized crypto exchanges and stock brokerages. The crypto industry argued that DeFi platforms that enable peer-to-peer exchanges weren't really brokers, and lawmakers agreed and warned of high compliance costs.

China's commerce ministry opened a probe into optical-fiber products, added 15 American companies to an export-control list and expanded the number of U.S. firms on its "unreliable entity" list, part of a blizzard of actions announced by Beijing on Tuesday that target U.S. companies, after China was hit with additional levies.

China also filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the U.S.'s additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, according to a Commerce Ministry statement Tuesday.

President Trump's move to impose fresh tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China left in place a popular trade exemption that allows small shipments to avoid duties and customs inspections.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared skeptical about Mexico's effort to hold the U.S.'s largest gun maker legally responsible for cartel-fueled violence south of the border, in a case that tests the firearm industry's legal exposure from gun violence. What Else Matters President Trump put his disruptive return to power on full display during a prime-time address to Congress , offering a no-apologies assessment of his decisions to crack down on illegal immigration, slash the federal workforce and impose stiff tariffs on imports. As he celebrated the whirlwind of changes he has brought to the federal government, his success from this point on will depend largely on whether Americans believe the unease caused by his speedy actions-an unsettled stock market, a trade war with allies and uncertainty over the extent of federal job and spending cuts-will lead to the American renewal he promised. Here are key takeaways from Trump's speech.

A consortium of investors led by BlackRock agreed to buy majority stakes in ports on either end of the Panama Canal , putting U.S. firms in control of two ports that President Trump raised as a security concern because of their connection to China.

A small group of directors from an Australian company traveled to the southern tip of Greenland recently, where they have been planning to extract rare-earth minerals from one of the world's richest deposits for more than two decades. They didn't get as far as they had planned .

Trump's call to bring crypto into the mainstream has raised the stakes in a kill-or-be-killed battle between an iconoclastic Italian billionaire and his almost perfect American foil.

For much of the federal workforce, pulling out a government credit card during the workday comes with a new refrain: "Your card has been declined." About Us

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk . Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich .

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].

This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 05, 2025 07:13 ET (12:13 GMT)

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