All posts tagged "Venezuela"

President Donald Trump's touted "biggest oil deal in world history" with Venezuela faces legal and logistical problems likely to sink it.

The Guardian reported Saturday that nearly every major claim the Trump administration has made about the arrangement falls apart under scrutiny, from how long it lasts to the Pentagon's role in it. Venezuelan law caps oil development agreements at 25 years, not the 100 Trump has boasted about, and Venezuela's own government has put the term at 25.

"This is all just propaganda," Venezuelan legal expert Jose Ignacio Hernandez told The Guardian. "It cannot be implemented as announced by the administration."...

A single phone call in March turned a wealthy Venezuelan oilman wanted abroad into the Trump administration's newest business partner, according to new reporting.

According to a Friday Washington Post article, President Donald Trump's former special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, reached out to Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan oil magnate running his operations from Britain.

The Trump administration wanted a piece of his company, North American Blue Energy Partners, according to The Post. In exchange, Betancourt would have to surrender some ownership and let the Trump administration seat its own people on his board....

President Donald Trump's touted Freedom Fuel gas-station network faces fresh scrutiny after a former State Department official questioned possible links to Venezuela.

During an episode of Court of History, former State Department expert on international crime Jonathan Winer suggested Freedom Fuel may be tied to Venezuela's opaque oil revenue and selling cheaper gas through an arrangement that's "literally unprecedented in American history."

Freedom Fuel appeared around Philadelphia in late June with regular gas priced at $3.47 a gallon, which was roughly 50 cents under local prices and below estimated wholesale costs. The White House has promoted the chain as proof that Trump's energy agenda is working without explaining how the stations undercut every competitor....

President Donald Trump's appearance during an Oval Office press conference Friday was raising eyebrows among critics — and prompting more questions about his cognitive health.

Trump was taking questions from White House reporters when he started to ramble about Venezuela and pageants.

"I've known them for a long time, I've known that country and you know, I own the Miss Universe pageant," Trump said. "Miss Venezuela always did very well in the Miss Universe pageant."...

A leading political scientist revealed a chilling prediction Thursday suggesting that the Trump Department of Justice was close to reaching a deal with captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and contributing editor for The Atlantic, said that the deal was inching closer to completion and suggested that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would work out a deal with Maduro and his wife over an unsubstantiated claim that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 American presidential election — something President Donald Trump has long complained was "rigged."

"Something I predicted multiple times is about to come true," Ornstein wrote on X. "Blanche is going to cut a deal with Maduro to have him falsely claim that Venezuela tilted the 2020 elections. In return, he and his wife are likely to be in the same prison as Ghislaine Maxwell."...

Trump's announcement of killing the leader of a Venezuelan gang carries a "chilling" detail, according to a legal expert.

According to Trump, the U.S. military launched a "swift and lethal" strike against the leader of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that was a hot topic during the 2024 presidential election. Ryan Goodman, a chaired professor at NYU and editor-in-chief of Just Security, called out the details in Trump's Truth Social post announcing the strike.

Goodman was alarmed in particular by a line of Trump's post calling the gang a "foreign army."...