Trump said the agreement announced on Friday night would give the United States a stake in Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, a step towards his goal of extracting energy from the country after American forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in a middle-of-the-night raid in January and brought him to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges. Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, described the deal as a step towards economic recovery that will modernise the country’s oil industry. In a televised address to the nation late on Sunday, Rodríguez insisted Venezuela's sovereignty is secure and said she wants the country to become a global energy powerhouse.
Earlier on Saturday, she said the oil reserves would “cease to be an inert, cold statistic and will instead become concrete solutions. Housing is one of them.” But the answers to many questions, including how soon the reserves could be drilled and who will pay to make it happen, were not immediately clear. No text of any agreement has been released.
Here's a look at what is known and unknown: The US government and an unnamed private operator in Venezuela formed a new company that was given rights to develop untapped oil fields. A statement from Rodríguez said the deal involves the development of 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. It said the agreement could draw $100 billion (€86 billion) in investment into Venezuela’s oil industry and yield more than $209 billion (€180 billion) in taxes for Caracas.
Trump said the agreement was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Rodríguez. The deal gives the United States 55% effective output of the new private company, including an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. American purchases of the oil will go towards the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve along with the military, according to a US official who was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The company would be the second-largest corporate holder of proven reserves after Saudi Aramco, according to the official. Some in Venezuela considered it a betrayal of what their government has stated repeatedly for decades: Venezuelan resources are for Venezuela, and leaders would not allow the US government access to those resources. Harvard University professor Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister, called it a “shameful deal." “Venezuelans will not respect this illegitimate deal and no major US oil company will take it seriously because they know it will not last,” Hausmann said on social media, adding that Rodríguez “has no legitimacy or constitutional power to commit Venezuela to any such deal." In her national address, Rodríguez pushed back on some of the early criticism.
She said the goal is to reach other agreements with transnational private companies such as Chevron, Repsol and Shell. She added: “We want to be an energy powerhouse, a major oil producer, a significant gas exporter, and a major national petrochemical developer." It is unclear whether Congress will play a role in the arrangement, but lawmakers from both parties were quick to weigh in. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said it was a historic deal that helps both countries.
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