Washington — Trump's 'Biggest' Venezuela Oil Deal Faces Collapse Risk

A third of North American Blue Energy Partners, Venezuela's second-largest private oil firm, now sits with the Pentagon's office of strategic capital, under a deal President Trump announced in August and called "the biggest oil deal in world history," according to a Guardian investigation published Saturday. The deal followed the January seizure of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces. But the arrangement is likely to collapse under legal and logistical strain, the Guardian's reporting found, after interviews with experts and officials who said much of what Trump and his cabinet have said about the deal does not hold up.

What did Trump announce about the Venezuela oil deal?

In August, Trump said the office of strategic capital — a Pentagon unit he has expanded rapidly this year, per the Guardian — would take a one-third ownership stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, known as Nabep. Trump framed the arrangement as a mechanism to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the government's emergency crude stockpile, which fell to a longtime low after the United States invaded Iran, the Guardian reported. He did not name a purchase price or a timeline for shipments in the material reviewed.

How did the U.S. gain control of Venezuela's oil sector?

The deal followed a January raid in which U.S. forces stormed Venezuela and seized Maduro, who was sent to a federal holding facility in the United States, according to the Guardian. He was replaced by Delcy Rodríguez, described in the reporting as compliant with Washington. Trump told the Atlantic in the days after the raid that if Rodríguez "doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro," a remark the Guardian cites in its investigation. The oil agreement followed months later, structured around the Pentagon-linked equity stake in Nabep.

Why do experts say the deal cannot work as described?

Venezuelan law governing oil development caps concession-style agreements at 25 years, according to the Guardian's investigation, which contradicts terms floated around the deal that stretched toward a century. The Guardian's reporting also raises unresolved questions about whether the Pentagon's office of strategic capital has the legal authority to hold an equity stake in a foreign oil company at all — a question the outlet says remains open among the officials and experts it consulted. Taken together, the legal ceiling on deal length and the doubts about the Pentagon unit's authority are the core reasons the Guardian's sources expect the arrangement to unravel rather than proceed as announced.

Has Trump pursued foreign oil seizures before?

The Guardian traces Trump's interest in taking other nations' oil back nearly four decades. In a 1987 interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Trump argued that Iranian attacks on American shipping during the Iran-Iraq war justified an extreme response, asking, "Why couldn't we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea?" The Guardian reports he returned to the idea repeatedly in later years regarding Libya and Iraq, making the Venezuela arrangement the first time, per the investigation, that he has moved from rhetoric to an actual U.S. military seizure followed by a claimed ownership stake in a foreign oil company.

What does this mean for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

Trump has tied the Venezuela deal directly to refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which the Guardian reports dropped to a longtime low after the U.S. invasion of Iran. No barrel counts, delivery dates, or reserve targets appear in the material reviewed, and the Guardian's investigation does not identify a mechanism by which oil from a minority equity stake in a private Venezuelan firm would flow into the U.S. government stockpile on the timeline the administration has suggested.

What to watch

• Whether Venezuela's 25-year statutory cap on oil deals is tested in court or renegotiated, per the legal limits cited in the Guardian's reporting.
• Any formal challenge to the Pentagon office of strategic capital's authority to hold equity in a foreign oil producer.
• Statements from the Rodríguez government in Caracas on the terms Trump has publicly described.
• Any updated figures from the U.S. government on Strategic Petroleum Reserve levels tied to the deal.
• Further reporting on Nabep's ownership structure and whether the one-third stake has been formally recorded.

The Guardian's investigation frames the deal's fate as unresolved rather than final, noting that the legal and structural problems identified by its sources predate any oil actually changing hands. Read the Guardian's full investigation.