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Elliott Abrams helped shape the Trump administration's first Venezuela policy, when Washington backed acting President Juan Guaidó and pushed for President Nicolás Maduro's removal. Now, nine months after Maduro was ousted, Abrams has gone from one of the strategy's earliest supporters to one of the administration's most prominent critics. In a Washington Post op-ed this week, Abrams called the Trump administration's new oil arrangement with Venezuela's interim government a "shameful sellout," arguing that it gives Washington a stake in Venezuela's oil while strengthening interim President Delcy Rodríguez's hold on power.
The deal gives NABEP, or North American Blue Energy Partners, an oil company run by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, 100-year rights to 17 Venezuelan oil fields holding 65 billion barrels, about a fifth of the country's proven reserves. In exchange, the U.S. State Department gets the right to purchase 20 percent of NABEP's output at production cost, and the Department of War gets a 35 percent equity stake in NABEP's parent company. ...
The arrangement has faced opposition across Venezuela's political spectrum while also putting a spotlight on Betancourt, who rose to prominence during the years of the late President Hugo Chávez and Maduro. He is under an arrest order in Switzerland and is under investigation in Spain over allegations of money laundering tied to Venezuela's state oil company. Through NABEP, a Barbados-registered firm with little public track record and no history of operating in other oil markets, Betancourt is set to control most of the oil fields awarded under the agreement.
In defending the deal, the State Department pointed to Betancourt’s track record. Abrams, who served as Trump's special representative for Venezuela during his first term, spoke with Newsweek about the oil deal, the future of Venezuela's political transition, Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio 's role, and whether Washington is still committed to bringing democracy to Venezuela.
Newsweek: My first question is about something we did at Newsweek a month ago. We ran a cover story arguing that Trump was right to remove Maduro in January. You also wrote that the U.S. was right to oust him.
But a lot has changed since then. People who supported the raid aren't necessarily as supportive of what has followed. Eight months later, do you think the opportunity to restore democracy in Venezuela is being squandered?
And who is responsible? Elliott Abrams: I would say it is being squandered or certainly delayed. It isn't over yet, so I wouldn't use the past tense.
Who is to blame? Well, you begin with Delcy Rodriguez, (her brother, National Assembly President) Jorge Rodriguez and (Interior Minister) Diosdado Cabello, but then you have to add Donald Trump . I don't see the United States pushing hard for setting an election date and getting the arrangements in place for free elections next year.
Newsweek: You worked with Trump during his first administration, when the U.S. backed Juan Guaidó. How different is the Trump administration's approach today? Abrams: Well, I think that's right.
The policy after the stealing of the election in 2018, the policy in 2019 and 2020, was a pro-democracy policy. And I wouldn't call it a pro-democracy policy now. The president keeps saying how terrific—that's the word he sometimes uses, terrific—Delcy Rodriguez is, despite the fact that every opinion poll shows she has maybe 15 or 20 percent support and popularity among Venezuelans.
This is my fear about this oil deal: It gives the president another incentive to want Delcy Rodriguez to stay in power. Because it's her deal. Newsweek: You've dealt with the Rodriguez family and the socialist government for years.
They have a long history of delaying negotiations and finding ways to preserve their power. Do you think the Venezuelan government is now playing the U.S., or is Washington getting what it wants? Abrams: I wouldn't put it that way, because I think what the president wants is, first of all, stability, and secondly, now, an oil deal.
So I don't think he's being played. I think maybe this is even worse: He simply doesn't care very much about a transition to democracy in Venezuela, any more than he really cares about it anywhere else. It's just not a subject he's very much concerned with.
And I think Delcy is playing it smart, which is: How do I keep Donald Trump invested in me? So he wants me and Jorge in power. And now she has come up with an answer, which was, "I know what, let's say that the United States can have 20 percent of our national patrimony, of all the oil, for free, for nothing." And that's what she has given.
It's amazing. Newsweek: How involved was Trump personally in Venezuela during his first administration, and how does that compare with his involvement today? Abrams: Well, first, the team has changed.
If you go back to 2019 and 2020, when we were strongly supporting Juan Guaidó, starting in January 2019, (National Security Advisor) John Bolton was there and I was there, and Ambassador Jimmy Story was ambassador. So it was a different group. Mike Pompeo was secretary of state.
We were all pushing very hard for a change toward democracy in Venezuela. The president was not much involved personally. I think if you look today, you've got a different team.
Chris Wright, the secretary of energy, has been several times to Caracas. Other officials have been involved, including the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Caracas. Mr. (John) Barrett seems to be a cheerleader for the regime, very rarely criticizing the regime.
The president has met, I think, twice with (opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner) Maria Corina Machado (a former National Assembly deputy), but he says much more positive things about Delcy Rodriguez. So the president is more involved, but he's not more involved in promoting democracy. ... Newsweek: Marco Rubio has also been central to this shift.
As a senator, he was one of Washington's strongest critics of the Venezuelan regime. Now, according to reports, he's developed a much more friendly relationship with the Venezuelan government. How do you understand Rubio's role, and what are the risks of that approach?
Abrams: Well, if you go back to his career as a senator, he was always a very strong advocate of democracy in Venezuela, in Cuba, anywhere in Latin America. But he's not president, and I think he recognizes that if he were to oppose the president, what would happen to him is what happened in the first term to Rex Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state. He lasted about a year.
So Rubio is doing what he thinks he can do and thinks he has to do. But I think this is very dangerous, because who are the U.S. partners in this? Really, there are two.
One, Delcy Rodriguez. The other, out of all the Venezuelan business people in the world, is Alejandro Betancourt, who is very much a part of the Chavista-Maduro clique. And these are about the worst partners the United States could have.
Again, what it means to me is the sense that I would be happy if I thought, OK, we're going to do this oil deal, but we're going to push even harder for a free election. But I don't see any sign of that. Newsweek: Let's talk about Alejandro Betancourt.
He's not a household name in the United States, but he's well known to people who have followed Venezuela for years. Why is his involvement so controversial? Abrams: Everyone has known for two decades that the Chavista-Maduro regime was a very, very corrupt regime.
There were a group of Venezuelan businessmen who made billions of dollars engaging in things like money laundering and stealing money from the national oil company. One of those people who was considered part of that group was Alejandro Betancourt, who made his money in deals with Chávez and particularly with Maduro. He is under an order of arrest from the government of Switzerland.
He is under investigation by the government of Spain. This is our partner. And for people in Venezuela, he represents exactly how business was done under Maduro and his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez.
That's who the United States has chosen as a partner. For anyone who wants clean government, open government, free enterprise, a free market, this is a terrible choice. Newsweek: In a Washington Post piece on Wednesday, you called the new oil arrangement a "shameful sellout." Why do you think this deal makes a negotiated political transition harder?
Abrams: If you go back to January 3, when Maduro was ousted, the president of the United States said, "We want stability, recovery, then democracy." OK, where are the steps to democracy? The first thing you need to do is set an election date. Not for tomorrow morning, but for 2027.
It's late in 2026 now. We should be setting an election date. Otherwise, everyone in Venezuela will come to believe, like Delcy Rodriguez, that the Americans are not interested in a free election.
They don't want a free election. So I think we are squandering the goodwill of the Venezuelan people who believed that the United States wanted democracy in Venezuela, did not just want to take oil, but wanted to help Venezuelans achieve the democracy they used to have. So I think Venezuelans are worried about this, and anyone who is concerned about democracy in Venezuela should be worried. ...
Newsweek: But what about the deal itself? The president is saying it is one of the best deals the U.S. has ever made. Abrams: This deal will not stick in the long run.
It's unconstitutional in Venezuela. The constitution says you can't give away the national patrimony. The constitution says the National Assembly has to vote.
It's not going to last over time. I do not believe that you're going to get the kind of investment you need to get Venezuela back to where it was producing, never mind 3 million, 2 million barrels a day. I think you're going to see announcements.
We did see some announcements today. I don't think you're going to see the money start flowing, because if you're a big oil company, you're in this for the long run. You know that in two and a half years, Donald Trump will not be there.
You don't know what the U.S. government's attitude will be. You'll have a different president. You don't know when Delcy Rodriguez is leaving office.
And what will a free government, a democratically elected government, say about a deal where 20 percent of all the oil in Venezuela was handed off for nothing to the United States? So I don't think this is going to work commercially. I think it is a deal with the devil from a commercial point of view, and it is a deal with the dictatorship that unfortunately gives the United States a kind of investment in that dictatorship staying in power.
Newsweek: Let's broaden this beyond Venezuela. This administration has fundamentally changed how the United States uses soft power. What does a deal like this do to U.S. credibility in the region, particularly at a time when countries are weighing their relationships with China and Russia?
Abrams: I think this agreement is going to hurt the popularity, the image of the United States a lot in Latin America, because it makes it look as if all the speeches about freedom, liberty and democracy are just speeches, and all the U.S. really wanted was to get the oil. You remember President Trump said about Iraq, "We should have taken the oil." So that's what he's trying to do here. I think he does not believe that the association of the United States with the cause of freedom, with democracy, matters much or helps us much.
I think it matters a lot. I think it's the absolute heart of U.S. soft power. I guess he doesn't believe that.
He just wants to take what he can get, which looks like it's oil today. Newsweek: In a Free Press piece you wrote in July, you said a White House adviser described Maria Corina Machado as a "spoiler." Where does she stand now? Abrams: Well, I don't think that's right.
The opinion polls show she's still the most popular politician in Venezuela. If there were an election today, she beats Delcy 80 to 20. She's still popular.
And I have to say, she may be in a little bit of luck here, in one way: President Trump has distanced himself from her. So people in Venezuela know she had nothing to do with this deal. This is not her deal.
This is Delcy's deal. So that helps. I think the opposition and Machado are in a difficult position, in that they don't want to attack President Trump, but they can't defend this deal.
Machado has not said much about this. She'll be making a speech later this week where she will, I think, be talking about it. But she will have to criticize it because the opposition, left and right, is opposed to it.
The Communist Party of Venezuela came out against it. Henrique Capriles, the former presidential candidate, all the political parties are going to come out against it. Which is why I think once there is an election in Venezuela, the deal is dead.
And knowing that, I don't think you're going to see a lot of money flow. ... Newsweek: You've spent years dealing with the people now running Venezuela. What do you think Americans most misunderstand about Delcy Rodriguez, Jorge Rodriguez and Diosdado Cabello?
Abrams: Well, it was a democracy, with free elections every four or five years, an elected parliament and an elected president. And Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, over the last 20 years, stole that democracy. Maduro's vice president was Delcy Rodriguez.
Her brother is now the head of the National Assembly. They are the people who helped Maduro maintain this dictatorship, put hundreds and hundreds of Venezuelan political prisoners into jail, where many died, or were abused or tortured. This is the country that they have created.
They have taken a rich country and, over 20 years, made it a poor country. There is a reason that 8 million Venezuelans, about a fourth of the population, have become exiles, have left their country, because they couldn't live in it anymore. Why not?
Because of Delcy Rodriguez and the people around her. So to make a deal with her, to think that she's going to be able to rebuild Venezuela, she's one of the people who destroyed Venezuela. Newsweek: If you were advising the administration today, what would you do differently?
Abrams: I think the first thing the United States has to do is pressure Delcy Rodriguez to agree to an election date in 2027. That's critical, because then Venezuelans will see there is change coming. We know when it is coming.
And then you can begin to organize all of their frustrations and their rage against the government into a positive political channel. I would press her right now with some more demands: No political prisoners. Every single political prisoner should be released.
That's not complicated. That should be done. And a return of exiles, so that people like Maria Corina Machado can go home and politics can start building toward a free election next year in Venezuela.
Newsweek: But wouldn't a free election create a new problem for Washington? If the opposition wins, can the U.S. be sure the military will accept the result, particularly if someone like Machado comes to power? What would it take to get the military to accept an outcome it might not like?
Abrams: In every transition to democracy in Latin America—Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, you can go through all of them—there was a negotiation. There's always a negotiation. You don't put the whole army in jail.
There's always a form of transitional justice. There are always deals that are made. That's what is needed in Venezuela: a real negotiation in which the army understands there is a future for the army.
Venezuela has long borders. It needs an army. The army needs to retake control of the country from Colombian guerrillas, from armed gangs.
So there is a role for the army. I think all of this is exactly what should be under discussion in really serious negotiations. But the U.S. has to come in firmly on the side of democracy.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff .
Source: Newsweek
