Eight months ago, when Trump had Mr. Maduro snatched by special forces and dumped in a Brooklyn jail, Venezuelans cheered. Now Mr Trump has made a deal with the ex-despot’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, that both sides say will revive Venezuela’s oil industry. Mr Trump called it the “BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY”. He crowed that it would give energy security to the U.S. (after his war of choice in Iran interrupted global supplies). The deal is certainly bold. But it is also ugly.
The regime has given North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a private oil firm that was already the second-largest operating in Venezuela, the concessions to 17 oil fields containing some 65bn barrels. America, via its defence department, has been given, in exchange for its backing, a 35% stake in NABEP and rights to its output. For the next century this guarantees America the right of first refusal to buy from oil fields which hold a fifth of Venezuelan oil reserves, with some of those purchases at a discount.
[…] First, it was negotiated with an illegitimate regime that stole the most recent election and so does not represent Venezuelans. Second, Mr Trump’s chosen private partner, Alejandro Betancourt, NABEP’s boss, is reviled by some in Venezuela for the moral flexibility that let him get rich working with the regime. Third, Mr Trump will surely enrage Venezuelans with his imperialist bragging: on September 1st he said he would take all of the country’s oil.
The Economist: Donald Trump’s Venezuela deal is bold but dodgy (Archived copy)