Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent more than a decade building his political identity around a single, uncompromising line: no daylight with Chavismo, ever. On Friday, the Trump administration announced an oil agreement negotiated directly with the government of Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, Nicolás Maduro's former vice president. Eight months after Maduro was captured and flown to New York in shackles, the deal has reopened a question that Rubio's allies and critics are both now asking out loud: What does this cost him if he decides to run for president in 2028?
President Donald Trump announced the arrangement on Truth Social, calling it "the biggest oil deal in world history." Under the terms described by both governments, a new joint venture will develop 17 Venezuelan oil fields holding a proven potential of 65 billion barrels, with the United States receiving an effective 55 percent stake in the output through a mix of direct ownership and the right to buy crude at production cost. Rodríguez put the concession at 25 years in a televised address Saturday. A U.S. official who spoke to the on condition of anonymity described the joint venture's rights to the fields as running 100 years.
Neither government has released the text of the agreement, and the discrepancy remains unresolved. Trump credited Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth with negotiating the deal alongside Rodríguez. Rubio called it "a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people." Trump has gone further, calling the agreement a resounding success, "the biggest oil deal in world history." Newsweek reached out to the State Department and the White House for comment Monday.
Polling by the Venezuelan firm Meganálisis earlier this year found more than 90 percent of Venezuelans are grateful that Maduro is gone. Trump's approval inside Venezuela has fallen steadily since January, according to Eduardo Gamarra, a political scientist and director of the Latino Public Opinion Forum at Florida International University. "People still support getting Maduro out," Gamarra told Newsweek.
"What they've stopped believing in is Delcy, and they've stopped believing in what Trump is doing." Gamarra walked through how the grievances stacked up. Political prisoners, many of them military officers who turned against Maduro, remain jailed or released only on parole rather than freed outright. Diosdado Cabello, wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges and in Spain on money laundering allegations, is now treated by Washington as a legitimate interlocutor instead of a fugitive.
Then came the oil, which Gamarra said cuts deeper than either of those issues because of where it sits in Venezuelan history. "This goes back to Juan Vicente Gómez, to Pérez Jiménez, when the American oil companies ran the country," Gamarra said. "Carlos Andrés Pérez nationalized the industry to correct that.
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