Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) published a scathing rebuke Saturday of President Donald Trump’s Venezuela oil deal only to quietly delete it and swap it for a post championing the deal as “great,” the New York Post reported.
“Any oil ‘deal’ with Venezuela’s interim regime has an expiration date: the day President Trump leaves the White House,” Salazar wrote in a now-deleted social media post on X, according to journalist Orlando Avendaño. “A lasting deal can only be made with a democratically elected government that respects the rule of law, protects private property, and is backed by strong democratic institutions.”
The post, as noted by countless onlookers, had soon been deleted, and Salazar later published a new post with commentary about the deal that included “a very different message,” the Post’s report reads.
“The oil agreement between the United States and Venezuela is a great deal for the United States and for the Venezuelan people,” Salazar wrote.
Trump recently touted what he called “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY,” revealing on Friday that the United States would be given a stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves — the single-largest proven oil reserves on earth.
Per the Associated Press, the new deal would grant the U.S. government “rights to untapped oil fields for 100 years.” The provision bears a striking resemblance to a prediction Salazar issued last year when she told Fox News that “American oil companies will be operating in Venezuela for the next 100 years.”
Salazar was also among the most vocal supporters of the Trump administration operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and insisted that Venezuelans were "waiting for the Americans to come and help them be free again."