Trump Is Keeping Venezuela’s Dictatorship in Business
The Bulwark · C · trust 59/100
Delcy Rodríguez sends him oil. He protects her from elections.
Will Saletan September 3 Upgrade to listen 8 minutes 21 5 4 Delcy Rodríguez (right), the interim president of Venezuela, at the signing of the oil deal with the United States on September 2, 2026. (Photo by Juan Barreto / AFP via Getty Images) ON WEDNESDAY, FIVE DAYS AFTER Donald Trump announced a deal that would give the United States a stake in Venezuelan oil fields containing an estimated 65 billion barrels of oil, Energy Secretary Chris Wright went to Caracas for a meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, the country’s acting president. Rodríguez, you might recall, was vice president under former dictator Nicolás Maduro. Trump allowed her to stay in power after the U.S. military ousted Maduro in January. At a press conference with Rodríguez on Wednesday, Wright celebrated the new oil deal. “The catalyst for transforming Venezuela is energy,” he declared .
What won’t be a catalyst for transforming Venezuela, as long as Trump is in charge, is democracy. While Wright was in Caracas, Trump was in the Oval Office, brushing off a reporter’s question about when to let Venezuela hold elections. “They’re not ready yet,” said the president.
This is American foreign policy under Trump. It’s not about spreading freedom. It’s about making money.
TRUMP CAN’T STOP GLOATING about the wealth we’re raking in from Venezuela’s oil. “We’re taking out millions and millions of barrels of oil,” he told reporters on Monday. We’re “making a fortune, and they’re making a fortune.”
In fact, he said, we’ve turned a profit. “Millions and millions,” he effused. “Already, we paid for the war. The cost of the war’s been paid for many, many times.”
On Truth Social, Trump crowed that the oil deal “MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves.” He called recent shipments of oil “a Gift from Venezuela.”
That’s like a mugger calling your wallet a gift because you handed it over after he knocked you down. Rodríguez has been sending such “gifts” to Trump as the price of keeping her job since American forces invaded her country, killed dozens of security officers, and abducted Maduro.
Trump made their relationship clear on January 9, a week after seizing Maduro. In a meeting with oil executives at the White House, he signaled that if Rodríguez didn’t give him what he wanted, he could hit Venezuela again. “We’re dealing with the people from Venezuela,” said Trump. “I think they’ve been very smart in the way they’ve dealt with us, frankly, because that whole place could have been obliterated with one more strike.”
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TRUMP’S COERCION IS JUST ONE PART of what makes these “gifts” a sham. The other part is that Venezuela’s government doesn’t represent its people.
On Sunday, Trump’s State Department spokesman, Tommy Pigott, bragged about the oil deal. “Just think where we were a year ago, when we had this illegitimate Maduro in Venezuela. And think of where we are now,” said Pigott. “That was only possible because of President Trump.”
But from the standpoint of legitimacy, nothing has changed. Rodríguez runs Venezuela with the same cronies who worked for Maduro. She has never won an honest election. Polls show that Venezuelans overwhelmingly oppose her.
Trump’s supporters pretend that Rodríguez has popular support for the oil deal. “Venezuelan people are happy,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade insisted on Monday. That’s bunk . Even Kilmeade’s colleague on the network, Rachel Campos-Duffy, pointed out that “in Venezuela the reviews on this are very mixed, mostly negative.”
Polls taken by Meganálisis, a Venezuelan research firm, show growing unhappiness in that country with the U.S. relationship. In the firm’s most recently reported survey, taken in late July, fewer than 4 percent of Venezuelans said they were pleased or happy about Trump’s continued support of Rodríguez. More than two thirds said they were outraged by it.
In May, 30 percent of Venezuelans said Trump wanted what was best for the Venezuelan people; only 10 percent said he didn’t. (Most respondents expressed no opinion.) But by July—as Trump continued to stand by Rodríguez, with little sign of improvement for ordinary people—the numbers had evened out, with roughly 20 percent saying Trump wanted what was best for them, and another 20 percent saying he didn’t. The firm reported that from January to July, Trump’s positive image in Venezuela plunged more than 70 percentage points.
Trump’s obsession with oil has contributed to the disenchantment. In a January Meganálisis survey, 53 percent of Venezuelans said Trump was primarily interested in the country’s oil, while 8 percent said he cared more about freedom for the Venezuelan people. By May, more than 70 percent said he cared mainly about the oil.
When Trump ousted Maduro, Republicans said there would soon be new elections in Venezuela. But since then, Trump—apparently gratified by Rodríguez’s “gifts”—has stood behind her and stiffed María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has broad support in polls. In January, Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal. That, however, seems to be no match for the oil wealth Rodríguez keeps sending north.
Republicans who used to talk about elections in Venezuela now say the oil deal can proceed first. “I have been urging—and I believe the administration is working towards this—that there should be free and fair elections,” Sen. Ted Cruz promised on Meet the Press on Sunday. But when Kristen Welker asked Cruz whether elections should precede the oil deal, he said the timing didn’t really matter.
Others in the GOP fully approve of profiting from the Maduro raid. On Monday, Rep. María Salazar (R-Fla.) told reporters that as a “reward” for the ouster, Venezuelans should deliver “fair benefits to the oil companies.” A fair reward, she proposed, would be “a structure where…
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