US-Venezuela oil deal draws backlash over control

A sweeping oil agreement giving a U.S.-led venture access to 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude has won formal backing in Caracas, even as critics in Venezuela and the United States denounce the 100-year arrangement as opaque, one-sided and a surrender of national resources.

The deal, signed in Caracas on Wednesday, covers concessions over 17 Venezuelan oilfields, amounting to more than a fifth of the country’s proven reserves. President Donald Trump called it “the biggest oil deal in world history,” while interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez described it as “historic” and said it would generate $100 billion in investment and more than $200 billion in tax revenue.

Venezuela’s National Assembly, led by Rodríguez’s brother Jorge Rodríguez, voted Tuesday to back the agreement. “Support for the binational energy treaty between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the United States of America … is approved,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.

But some opposition lawmakers abstained, saying the terms had not been made public. “We need and are obliged to know what is written in the fine print,” lawmaker Luis Emilio Rondón said, calling for “the full and complete text of what has been agreed.”

The White House has said the U.S. government will partner with North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, Venezuela’s second-largest private oil producer after Chevron. Under details released by the White House, the U.S. government would have veto power over appointments to NABEP’s board of directors, and a majority of the board would have to be U.S. citizens.

Al Jazeera reported that the arrangement would create a new company in which the U.S. Defense Department would hold a 35% ownership stake, while the State Department would have the right to buy 20% of the oil produced at cost. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously, said the deal “furthers the national interest of the United States” and is “critically important” to allow the U.S. “to buy oil at cost reliably.”

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is set to travel to Venezuela on Tuesday as the Trump administration moves forward with the plan, the official told reporters. The official also described the deal as “a geopolitical opportunity to secure fields that primarily had largely been under the influence of Chinese and Russian companies.”

The pact follows the January removal of Nicolás Maduro from power by elite U.S. troops, after which Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela and manage the sale of its oil for the foreseeable future. The BBC reported that the White House has described the agreement as having “re-established the Monroe Doctrine,” saying it would purge “foreign malign influence from our backyard” and ensure U.S. dominance in the hemisphere.

The agreement has drawn sharp criticism from figures across Venezuela’s political spectrum. Elliott Abrams, Trump’s former special representative on Venezuela and Iran, told the BBC: “This is a terrible deal. [Rodríguez] has given away 20% of the national patrimony for nothing.” He said the terms were so one-sided they resembled a “kind of fever dream of what colonialism looks like.”

Venezuelan economist Ricardo Hausmann accused U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of backing an “asset seizure” and “an unconstitutional agreement with an illegitimate and oppressive government” instead of restoring democracy. Rafael Ramírez, a former head of state oil company PDVSA and oil minister under Hugo Chávez, said the deal “hands over [the oil] and opens the doors to a new colonialism of the United States.”

Energy experts also question the timeline. Trump has said the agreement will generate profit within two or three years, but Luis Pacheco of Rice University’s Baker Institute told BBC Mundo that Venezuela needs about $100 billion over eight years to return to production levels seen 30 years ago. “It’s important to know who will manage those resources and for what purpose,” he said.

Chevron is expected to sign a separate agreement to expand operations in Venezuela, Al Jazeera reported. Venezuela’s energy sector remains severely weakened, with critics citing both U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement.