Trump’s Venezuelan oil grift

0:00Close listeners of Today Explained from Vox will know that on Wednesday's post-election show, we had Mayor Ambassador Chief Rahm Emanuel on, and he said Democrats should legislate, but also investigate. You should do the investigations. Like, where is the Venezuela oil money? Good question, Rahm. What Trump promised Venezuelans was wealth and prosperity. We'll make the people of Venezuela rich, independent, and safe. But for Venezuelans, when they saw him remove Maduro from the country, one of the first things they thought is, now we have a path to democracy. Our democracy appears to be functioning, but democracy still doesn't exist in Venezuela. We did manage to export some oil grift, though.

0:47That's ahead on the show. Estar escuchando a Hoy Explicado. Today Explained. Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic where she recently wrote about what the U.S. is really doing in Venezuela. And so far, that's been a lot of trying to ignore longtime Maduro opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and propping up Maduro's second in command, Delcy Rodriguez. So Trump himself talks about his great relationship with Delcy Rodriguez. She was Maduro's deputy and she is now the president, in effect, of the de facto president of Venezuela. Delcy, as you know, is doing a very, very good job, very highly respected. And she's a terrific person. I mean, she's somebody that we've worked with very well.

1:47Marco Rubio talks about democracy or he talks about transition. He talks about different phases of transition. Step one is the stabilization of the country. We don't want it descending into chaos. The second phase will be a phase that we call recovery. And then the third phase, of course, will be one of transition. We want to reach a phase of transition where we are left with a friendly, stable, prosperous Venezuela and democratic. And on the instigation, partly of the United States, there has been created a set of committees to explore the path to transition. There's a committee that's working on reform of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, which in the past has blocked election results. And there'll be reform, supposedly, of the Eleuelan Supreme Court, which in the past has blocked election results, and there'll be reform supposedly of the Electoral Commission. But there hasn't been a date given for elections.

2:31And I think what was disturbing to Venezuelans up until very recently was that their leader, the person who is widely acknowledged to be the leader of the Venezuelan Democratic opposition, was outside the country and was having mysterious difficulties returning. So she was being blocked both by the regime, and I think it became pretty clear she was being blocked by the United States as well. So there was talk of democracy and implication of change, but there wasn't real change. And when I was there in September, people had already become very disillusioned with the promises of transition, and they were demanding to know what's next, what's the date. The current leadership is illegitimate. We didn't choose it. Rodriguez was Maduro's henchwoman.

3:17She's not somebody who represents Venezuela. She's not a legitimate leader. And they were pushing very hard for change, and they wanted to know when it would come. And I should say, it was something that I think in the run-up to the midterms may even have made a difference in some Florida House races, which is why I think it's one of the reasons why the Trump administration did eventually decide to allow Machado to return. She did eventually come back to the country a few weeks ago to enormous crowds and adulation. We're hundreds of supporters of Maria Corina Machado, opposition leader. I gather here waiting for her. She entered Venezuela earlier today and she has been touring various cities in Venezuela.

4:10And now it's their turn to see their beloved leader. She was gone for a long time. The United States wasn't in a hurry to get her back. Trump kept talking about Rodriguez instead. And so you had the sense of, very weird for Venezuelans, actually, who I think some of whom in the Democratic opposition had a very idealized idea of the United States. They thought America will come in. I know they'll bring back the rule of law. Surely they'll want a legitimate government here in order to work with the United States in the future. And they didn't anticipate the foot dragging and they didn't anticipate, as I said, Trump's constant references to Rodriguez and his slighting references and his dismissal of Machado and more broadly, the Democratic

4:57opposition, which, as I say, is the majority of the country. I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. So Machado is essentially the rightful leader of this country. The 2024 election results were really essentially a win for her. What does her presence back in the country now mean for democracy, for open elections? What it now means is that she and her colleagues will begin to galvanize a big national conversation about what happens next, what constitutional reforms they need, what other kinds of reforms they need, how to rebuild the health care system, how to rebuild the economy, which is a disaster state.

5:48Venezuela was once the richest country in South America. Now it's the poorest. She will begin to galvanize people. And her presence and her ability to attract crowds will put pressure both on the U.S. embassy in Caracas as well as on the regime to get the transition moving. Because as I said, it was theoretically happening, but it was very slow. The people who were participating in the conversations were not people who were recognized widely as legitimate leaders. They were elected in a previous parliament, but they weren't seen as the people leading the country now. So she will now force people's hands. And interestingly, when she came back, Marco Rubio made a statement to the effect of, you

6:31know, don't think you can conduct politics on the street, something like this. You know, we need to follow the transition process. So you can see that the U.S. is already nervous about the power she will have to galvanize change, maybe faster even than the United States wants it. I mean, when you mentioned Marco Rubio sort of calling the shots here, it makes me wonder, who's actually in charge? Is it Rubio? Is it Rodriguez? It certainly isn't Machado. Honestly, it's not clear to Venezuelans. Huh. You know, they, you know, I mean, Rodriguez is technically running the country. She has a complex, that's the best way I could put it, relationship with the Trump administration. Trump himself likes her.

7:12There are other people inside the administration who also have interests in Venezuela, economic interests, I should say. And she seems to be happy working with them and she's happy working with Trump. And she's nervous and wary of working with the opposition. She's not yet a legitimate president or a head of state. But if I were to use a word to describe what's wrong with Venezuela and this, we will, we will use it again when we talk about the economy, it's the word opaque. In other words, you know, what is democracy supposed to be? What is a well run country supposed to be? And what does rule of law require? And that is transparency, you know, what is democracy supposed to be? What is a well-run country supposed to be?

8:05And what does rule of law require? And that is transparency. You know, we need to know who is making decisions and why. Is Rodriguez making decisions on behalf of her country, or is she doing it on behalf of some people we don't know in the shadows behind Donald Trump? You know, we don't really know what the basis of her relationships with them is. We don't know whether she's acting in the interest of Venezuelans, of herself or somebody else. And that for Venezuelans is deeply disturbing. And as I said, that's why they want a real transition. They want a change that will produce a leader who is recognized by the Venezuelans as a leader and not is not simply there at the whim of Donald Trump.

8:48Is there any other leader than Machado waiting in the wings? So, of course, there are other Democratic leaders. There's a whole host of them, actually. I met several of them when I was there. There are other people who have status. There are people who've been in politics for a long time. There are people who've been mayors. It's actually a very large movement, the Venezuelan democratic movement. It's been there for a long time. It has a deep grassroots backing. And so there are a lot of potential leaders and a lot of potential political parties there. But right now, you're in a strange moment where none of them really have a clear way of acting because, as I say, it's still a dictatorship. It's still run by the same regime. The police and the security apparatus, the apparatus of repression are all still in place. And you don't have clarity about who's really running it. So there are plenty of people with authority there and plenty of people with ideas. There are a lot of it as well as out of the country who have

9:49had an important role there in the past as well. They're in Madrid or they're in the United States or elsewhere. So there are other leaders as well. But in order to give them legitimacy, in order to give them status, or they could be mayors or they could be cabinet members or they could be the president, there has to be an electoral process. There has to be a legitimate process that's recognized as such by Venezuelans. And in the meantime, the majority of Venezuelans would still like to see Machado as their leader. Do we know? I mean, look, there would have to be a popular election in order to know whether she would be the president or not. She's certainly, as I said, acknowledged by other opposition leaders as leader.

10:36She was certainly the leading figure in the most recent presidential campaign, which, as I say, was in 2024. She was seen when she was first in hiding and then in exile as the sort of leader outside the country and was talked of and respected as such. But I think even she would acknowledge that she's not legitimate until someone votes for her. OK, that's the democracy or lack thereof. The oil grift, when Today Explained is back. Hey, I'm today explained. Today explained. Take me money and run Venezuela once again. OK, today explained is back and elections aren't happening in Venezuela, but oil is presumably flowing. Where do we start with the oil? The first thing Americans need to know, and I think most Americans don't know this, is that right now, all of the oil that is sold out of Venezuela, the money that they receive in exchange or the royalties and fees and so on, right now go into a bank account in New York.

12:02Originally, the money went to a bank account in Qatar, originally after Maduro was deposed. They've now moved it to New York. It's at Citibank. We don't know how much money has gone into that account. We do know that some of it comes back to Venezuela to pay government salaries and so on. But we don't know how much there is either. And multiple requests for audits from Democratic members of Congress and from others. What is the total amount of money associated with the sale of Venezuelan assets that's flowed through Treasury accounts or accounts managed by Treasury since January? Have been refused. The administration has not wanted to give away information about where the money is going and what it's being used

12:45for. I'm asking for the total amount of money. President Trump said in July that it was more than $13 billion. Would you agree that it was more than $13 billion in July? Again, I'm not going to give out that amount. So you have a very strange, very opaque system to begin with. The second thing Americans need to know is that partly because of this strange system, there has been a lot of hesitancy on the part of U.S. oil companies. They haven't wanted to make a big play in Venezuela. They've been labeled. Everybody has sent envoys there to look at the situation, but the amount of money that is needed to do a major investment there, to drill new fields and to look in new places and to recover old wells that have been damaged through neglect is so large and would require

13:31so much time to bear fruit that they've been waiting. And so perhaps to speed up the process, perhaps to as a way of making an impact on the midterms, Donald Trump at the end of August announced that he would be doing an oil deal in Venezuela. Truth Social. The United States of America has just entered into an agreement with the country of Venezuela on the biggest oil deal in world history. And this would be a deal between actually the Pentagon, an office at the Pentagon, and a Venezuelan oil company. Well, I should say it's Venezuelan, although the corporate headquarters are in Barbados and include some anonymous members. Sounds shady. So it's shady and strange. And the head of the oil company is a figure who's very well known in Venezuela. He's called Alejandro Betancourt.

14:34And he's a famous crony of the regime and somebody who is widely despised in Venezuela. He's been under investigation for money laundering in Switzerland, in the United States, in Spain. Some of his properties were raided in Spain not so long ago. And just to put a finer point on it, we're talking about President Trump making a huge oil deal, which he calls the biggest oil deal in world history. To the victor belong the spoils. You've all heard that. With a member of Nicolás Maduro's sort of crony regime. Absolutely. And as I said, a very well-known one. So what he's very best known for in Venezuela is for having been made responsible for fixing their electricity grid. There are constant electricity shortages in Venezuela. Very ironic, given it's a country that has so many

15:30energy resources. And it's a job that he failed at. Nevertheless, he seemed to make a lot of money out of it, hence the properties in Spain and Switzerland and elsewhere. And this is the person who the Trump administration has chosen as their main partner. And I have to say, when this happened, as I said, it was announced in August, there was a kind of sea change. So all the expectations that Venezuelans had about democracy, to reference our previous conversation, that there would be a transition and it was just a matter of time, suddenly people really began to doubt that. And they said, what is really going on? What does the United States want here? Does the United States want to create a legitimate government,

16:09one where, you know, there'll be an elected president who can work with the U.S. in future and set up a decent system of investment so that American companies can invest here in a logical way? Ultimately, we hope this leads to a holistic transition all the way around in Venezuela, societal, political, all of that. We're in favor of all of that. We want them to have an oil industry where the wealth goes to the people, not to a handful of corrupt individuals and stolen by, you know, pirates all over the world. Or are they just trying to get money in some covert way and in a way that could enrich friends or business partners of the president enrich friends or business partners of the president

16:46and friends or business partners of the Rodriguez regime. Who's questioning the deal? Is it Americans? Is it Venezuelans? Both? It's, well, certainly it's Venezuelans. Yeah. Everybody I met in Venezuela, including economists, including politicians, everybody I talked to thought the deal was bad and was angry about it. I mean, it's a country like others where there's some polarization and people are divided and they disagree about things. And this is something that everybody agreed on. This is not a deal that's being made to serve Venezuelans. This is not. Oil is our natural resource. It's owned by, technically, all the oil in Venezuela is owned by a state oil company. And this was a deal that's designed to drill and to give the profits, as I say,

17:32to the Pentagon and to Alejandro Betancourt. And people were very, very angry. In the United States, I think Americans have been mostly happy to forget about Venezuela. There have been some congressional hearings and investigations where There have been some congressional hearings and investigations where there have been questions asked. I mean, I think actually after the midterm result, we might see more of that. I've talked to members of Congress who want to pursue this because it's such a clear-cut case of obvious corruption and obvious mismanagement. And do you think the move is to just get the United States out of there or to fix this relationship that the United States currently has with Venezuela so that what, the billions

18:14of oil can benefit maybe American corporations, but also maybe the Venezuelan people? It is in the interest of the United States government for there to be a legitimate government in Venezuela. Because if there is, then people will return from the United States and from other parts of Latin America. So the migrants will return home. The Venezuelan government will then be a decent partner for the U.S. in fighting crime, narcotics traffic in the region. And if there is a legitimate government and if there is a rule of law based system for exploiting oil, then U.S. companies will feel comfortable going to Venezuela, spending money, investing over the long term. And that will be good both for American consumers and it will be good for the Venezuelan people. And, you know, it's good all

19:05right. I mean, this is what Venezuelans have found very hard to wrap their minds around, is that the policy so far over the last nine, 10 months or so has been of benefit to no one. You know, it's very funny. Somebody who's an economist said to me, you know, oil companies, you know, he said, these are not nuns, like these aren't people who necessarily care about democracy, and it's not, that's not part of their business. But even the oil majors, you know, the Exxon and so on, they understand that unless there's a legitimate government in Venezuela, that there's, you know, there's no investment to be made. So even they are interested in a predictable legal system, you know, one that is not subject to the whims of particular leaders. They want a court system that functions. You know,

19:53they want transparency. They want to see where the money goes and how it comes back, because that's important for their shareholders and for their business models. That's how American companies are supposed to work. And this idea that we would set up these weird, shady deals there, we wouldn't really know who was benefiting, this is not good for, even for American oil companies, who, as I said, don't necessarily have the interests of freedom at their heart. From all your reporting, Anne, from the people you spoke to on the ground in Venezuela, from the people you spoke to here in Washington, D.C., how would you characterize our relationship with this country? It doesn't quite feel like an occupation, but it definitely doesn't feel

20:36like a partnership. It's funny. I asked a lot of people, are there any precedents for this? Has it happened before? And people tried to come up with things, you know, relationships we had with Caribbean countries in the past. But really what this is, as one economist said to be, is a coalition of two kleptocracies. It's two self-interested regimes doing business with one another without any interest either in the people of Venezuela or, as I say, in the people of the United States. Where does that leave the Venezuelan people? Since January, I think Venezuelans have been through a lot of different phases. They originally were very hopeful after Maduro left or he was kidnapped. They had a long period of thinking

21:24the United States was going to come and help them and save them and fix their economy. They had a hope that there would be a democratic change that would bring some relief, both economic relief and political change. But I think over the course of the last few months, they've come to understand that the U.S. isn't there to help them, that the regime isn't there to help them, and that they are once again reliant on themselves. So these are the grassroots democracy movement, the people who work to bring together communities across cities, you know, the political movements that have had so much importance in building the society over the last few years. That's what there is. And I think they're coming to understand

22:14that those movements are now going to have to work together to build change in Venezuela. It's not going to come from the U.S. and it's not going to come from anywhere else. You can read Anne Applebaum's big piece in The Atlantic. It's titled What the U.S. Is Really Doing in Venezuela. Dustin DeSoto made the show. Amin Al-Assadi edited. Gabriel Donatoff was on the fact check. Bridger Dunnigan and David Tadishore mixed. El resto, Denise Guerra, Patrick Boyd, Kelly Wessinger, Peter Balan on Rosen, Ariana Spuru, Hadi Mawagdi, Danielle Hewitt, Miles Bryan, Miranda Kennedy, Abhijay Artsy, Jolie Myers, and Noel King. With bops by Breakmaster Cylinder. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC. The show is a part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, podcast.voxmedia.com.

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