South America10 September, 20263 min read
Donald Trump Says U.S. Captured Nicolás Maduro, Seized Venezuela’s Oil in Deal With Delcy Rodríguez
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Trump claimed Maduro's capture and seizure of Venezuela’s oil, with Delcy Rodríguez installed as president. Deal grants a century-long concession to operate 17 oil fields via a Barbados-based private company.
Oil deal and capture
Donald Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela is framed by The Guardian as involving “Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, putting his deputy – Delcy Rodríguez – in his place as president,” followed by Delcy Rodríguez signing “a deal handing a fifth of the country’s proven oil reserves to the US.” The Guardian’s editorial says the arrangement is “a modern version of 19th-century gunboat diplomacy,” describing it as “Regime change supplied America’s commercial concession.”
In a separate account, Revista Semana says Trump referred on January 3 to the “unprecedented military operation that led to the capture of the former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores,” and that it led to “the reopening of relations with the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez.” Revista Semana quotes Trump saying, “We captured Maduro in a fortress filled with soldiers; it took us 25 minutes, and then we seized Venezuela's oil; we have seized 65,000 million barrels of oil,” and it adds that Trump said the United States would have “majority control of 65,000 million barrels” under “the largest oil deal in history.”
Opposition anger and Rubio
DIE WELT reports that Diosdado Cabello, described as the “torturer” of the leftist regime, “stood behind the recently announced spectacular oil agreement between the USA and Venezuela by US President Donald Trump.”
DIE WELT says opposition anger targets US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and quotes Rubio saying, “In my opinion, it should happen as soon as possible, but in an appropriate manner. Otherwise, there will be chaos again.”
The same report says Venezuelan opposition politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado calls the oil contract “alarming” and says, “The country's resources do not belong to an illegitimate regime, but to the Venezuelan people.”
DIE WELT also says the White House rejected the depiction that the deal would delay democratization, quoting a US official as saying, “Elections are not an end in themselves,” and that the goal is for Venezuela “to become a stable republic.”
Stakes: concessions, equity, elections
Le Monde.fr describes the agreement reached at the end of August as granting a century-long concession to operate 17 oil fields, “about a quarter of the country's reserves,” through North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) associated with Alejandro Betancourt Lopez.
Le Monde.fr says the US Department of Defense acquired a 35% stake in NABEP, and it adds that the company is based in Barbados and became Venezuela’s second-largest private oil producer behind Chevron.
openDemocracy frames the deal as structured through a private Barbados-based company and says the U.S. Department of Defense holds a 35% stake while the U.S. has a right to purchase 20% of production, and it quotes a White House statement that Venezuelan barrels would begin to reach U.S. reserves starting in November.
openDemocracy also includes a critique from Francisco Rodríguez, explaining that the U.S. forces Venezuela to sell oil through the U.S. and that “the money ends up in accounts managed by the United States,” while it describes the promised scale as “this $100 billion deal” and says Venezuela would receive $100 billion in oil investment.