Trump’s Oil Deal Could Scuttle Venezuelan Democracy, Opposition Fears

President Donald Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela may eventually help tackle America’s energy needs, but many in the Venezuelan political opposition fear it could cost the country its shot at restoring democracy.

They worry that the agreement — which gives the U.S. a sizable stake in a Venezuelan-owned oil company and access to preferential pricing — could entrench a regime that has shown no eagerness to move forward with promised elections.

“To protect this absolutely corrupt deal, the people who are promoting it, including [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio, will likely find reasons to postpone an election in Venezuela,” predicted Pedro Burelli, a former member of the executive board of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela and an opposition activist.

A Venezuelan political operative, who like others was granted anonymity to candidly discuss a sensitive issue, said that’s a feeling shared across the country’s opposition. Many fear the U.S. will now have less incentive to push the existing regime in Caracas to hold elections because Trump administration officials will want to keep dealing with the same people due to the oil deal, the operative said.

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge, another top regime player, are believed to have strong ties to the Venezuelan head of the oil company, Alejandro Betancourt, who has long been dogged by corruption accusations.

The initial planning included Betancourt, Rubio and Rodríguez, a person familiar with the discussions said, confirming earlier reports.

While the Trump administration has said that elections will ultimately follow its ouster of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in early January, it has yet to give a timeline for that vote. Venezuelan leaders have said that the country is not ready to hold presidential elections, especially after two devastating earthquakes in July.

The White House on Tuesday rejected the idea that the deal would delay a return to democracy in Venezuela.

"This in no way impedes the democratic transition that needs to happen,” a U.S. official told reporters in a briefing. The official insisted that “the deal is not with the interim government. The deal is with a private entity that's based abroad."

But while the official said elections need to take place in Venezuela sooner rather than later, they avoided specifics. "I'm not going to give you a timeline," they said, arguing that it would impose an “artificial time frame.”

A person familiar with the Trump administration’s discussions about Venezuela said that administration officials believe the oil deal has “at best” a “neutral impact” on the election process. The key question is whether the Trump team has decided that Rodríguez should serve out Maduro’s unfairly obtained term.

If Venezuela wants to have an election next year, preparation needs to start happening now, the person said. But Trump administration officials, for the most part, are indicating “there’s no rush.”

The Venezuelan political operative, who has connections to the Trump team, said they have heard people close to the administration talk about an election time frame that ranges from 2028 to 2030. Had Venezuela’s 2024 election gone smoothly, the country would have held its next presidential election in 2030 anyway. And simply holding a vote is not enough, stressed opposition leaders. It has to be free and fair, unlike the 2024 race alleged to have been rigged in favor of Maduro.

Under the oil deal, the United States would receive a 35 percent stake in Betancourt’s oil company North American Blue Energy Partners to drill for oil in Venezuela, the latest instance of the Trump administration taking shares in a private business. As part of the deal, the U.S. would have “preferential access” to 20 percent of the oil the company produces at cost.

Under socialist rule in recent decades, Venezuela nationalized foreign oil assets, but the move, along with corruption in the public sector, contributed to the country’s economic decline. Many in the opposition today support capitalism and privatization in principle, but they say implementation and details matter.

David Smolansky, a spokesperson for Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, stressed, “To have a deal last in the long term, you need to have legitimacy, democracy and the rule of law.”

In Washington, former officials, researchers and some lawmakers working on Venezuela issues warned that the deal could derail, or at least postpone, a democratic transition in the country.

“It really does help the regime consolidate its position as Delcy becomes an integral part of the deal moving forward,” said Frank Mora, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States during the Biden administration.

Democrats slammed the deal for prioritizing oil over democracy in Venezuela.

“Trump’s intervention in Venezuela was never about stopping drugs, protecting U.S. national security, or defending democracy for the Venezuelan people,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats posted Tuesday on social media. “It was always about pillaging their country for its natural resources.”

A number of Republican lawmakers who are pushing for quick elections in Venezuela tried to walk a fine line in reacting to the agreement, refraining from directly criticizing the deal — or the White House — while slamming Rodríguez and her government.

“Trump has once again put America First” in striking the deal, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said. But he stressed that “Delcy Rodríguez is not the legitimate president of Venezuela; she heads the same evil, criminal regime that oppressed the Venezuelan people for years.”

Sen. Ted Cruz took to the airwaves Sunday to praise the deal — and push for free and fair elections “midway through next year.” But the Texas Republican said he didn't think the timing of elections was more urgent than the deal.

“I don’t think the timing matters as much as the one versus the other. I think the oil deal will move as rapidly forward as it can,” Cruz told NBC's "Meet the Press." “But I think free and fair elections need to proceed, and they need to proceed rapidly.”

The most severe rebuke of the deal came from Rep. María Elvira Salazar, another Florida Republican, who argued on social media that while investing in Venezuela’s oil fields would be a boon for the U.S., Rodríguez shouldn’t be the figure to ink those contracts.

“My warning to the Administration: do what is necessary today, but do not lose sight of the destination, a free and democratic Venezuela,” she said in a Tuesday post.

Even Salazar, however, has vacillated in the harshness of her criticism. Over the weekend, she deleted a stronger rebuke in which she wrote that “a lasting deal can only be made with a democratically elected government,” replacing it with one calling the agreement a “great deal.” Salazar’s office did not respond to a request for comment on why the initial post was removed.

Others, like House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.), said they weren’t concerned that the deal would affect the democratic transition.

Rodriguez’s government is “actively having meetings” on the matter, Mast said, citing recent discussions with Venezuelan opposition leaders. But the committee chair wouldn’t say what a timeline for the process could look like.

Rodríguez has been in charge in Caracas since early January, when the U.S. captured her former boss, Maduro, and whisked him to New York to face a drug trial. Rodriguez has endeared herself to Trump, who has praised her as a great partner.

Trump personally seems to have little interest in pushing the regime to hold elections and is more focused on taking advantage of Venezuela’s oil riches. But Rubio has in the past said that part of the administration’s three-phase plan for Venezuela is holding free and fair elections and that those could be weeks and months, not years, away. He has stressed, however, that the country needs to be economically stable first.

The Trump administration has nonetheless taken some steps that appear aimed at nudging Venezuela back toward democracy.

The administration has arranged for transition talks between what’s left of the Maduro regime and Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure representing Venezuela’s exiled 2015 National Assembly, the last democratically elected legislature recognized by the U.S. Others in the Venezuelan opposition, including Machado, have been kept out of those talks.

In mid-June, the State Department sent a notification to Congress laying out plans to spend $12 million in “economic support funds” for Venezuela. Of that, $7 million is devoted to “electoral infrastructure and processes,” according to text of the notification obtained by POLITICO.

“Funds will also engage Venezuelan civil society to generate a negotiated path toward a democratic transition and help ensure free and fair elections,” the notification states as one of the goals. It doesn’t give a time frame, but the money is likely to be handed out by the Sept. 30 end of this fiscal year.

The State Department has in recent days been sending invitations to democracy promotion groups to submit grant proposals for election-related work in Venezuela, including supporting the transition talks and a free press, according to a person familiar with the grant process.

Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has contacts throughout Latin America, said it’s possible that Venezuela could hold subnational elections next year.

But in the meantime, the oil deal could stir up anti-American sentiment because it could be seen as the United States taking oil wealth out of a country still struggling with earthquake devastation.

“This is a country where infrastructure has collapsed,” Freeman said. “The earthquake makes it worse. The international airport in Caracas is destroyed. Who knows if [the oil deal] will survive the [U.S.] political commitment or even the next government of Venezuela.”

Eric Bazail-Eimil contributed to this report.