For years, Venezuela's opposition wielded an unusual form of authority — not over their homeland, but over Citgo, a Houston-based refinery that became a symbol of their international legitimacy. That arrangement is now ending, as control of the strategic asset slips from their hands, marking a quiet but consequential shift in the long struggle between Venezuela's exiled opposition and the Maduro government. The loss is not merely corporate; it reflects the slow erosion of a strategy built on leveraging foreign assets and international solidarity as substitutes for domestic power.