The Venezuela oil agreement reveals how the Trump administration is using energy, economic power, and diplomacy to reshape the Western Hemisphere.

President Donald Trump has signaled a new national security strategy across the Western Hemisphere and has been implementing that plan for nearly two years. This strategy is clearly explained in the November 2025 National Security Strategy. Regarding Venezuela, he first used lethal force against transnational criminal organizations and then launched a military raid to extract dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife from Caracas. Both now await trial in New York. Six days after the raid, on January 9, 2026, Trump issued Executive Order 14373. The title is quite explicit: “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People.”

Establishing US Control Over Venezuelan Oil

In this Executive Order, Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Both President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama previously used executive orders related to IEEPA authorities. In fact, Obama did this in executive orders about 16 percent of the time and Biden about 17 percent of the time. In comparison, Trump has used IEEPA-related executive orders at a similar rate, about 15 percent during his first administration and roughly 16 percent during his second administration to date. Trump has notably cited IEEPA for authority on tariffs. The real difference remains that Trump has used IEEPA authorities to shape economic trade in the Western Hemisphere. That’s new and not used by previous administrations in that way.

Trump has cited IEEPA for tariffs, but also for the trade embargo on Cuba and for exerting control on Venezuelan oil reserves. Regarding the latter, Executive Order 14373 establishes US control over Venezuela’s oil exports. It also protects Venezuelan oil profits from collection by creditors. For instance, Venezuela owes China around $15 billion. It also owes Russia around $3 billion and Brazil $2 billion. Despite asserting the right for US control over the oil trade based on IEEPA, the Executive Order explicitly states that all profits belong to Venezuela. 

The New US-Venezuela Oil Deal

Essentially, Executive Order 14373 established the framework for US control over the Venezuelan oil industry six months ago. Then, on August 31, 2026, the White House issued the details of the oil deal reached with the Bolivarian Republic. The agreement provides 100-year concessions for 17 Venezuelan oilfields containing an estimated 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. These will be controlled by a privately held oil company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt called North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP). The deal also gives the US Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital a 35 percent equity stake in NABEP’s corporate parent. The US Department of State receives the right to purchase 20 percent of NABEP’s current and future production at cost, as well as the right of first refusal on the remaining 80 percent (although the White House press release does not specify the price applicable to the option). Finally, the US government receives veto power over all appointments to NABEP’s board of directors, and a majority of the board must be US citizens.

Why the US-Venezuela Oil Deal Is Controversial

While the US government has certainly owned petroleum reserves before, the deal’s legality is controversial. The White House says both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed the deal, but there are concerns surrounding the statutory authority of the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) to acquire an equity stake in a private foreign oil venture. Under current law, OSC’s capital-assistance authority is defined as providing loans, loan guarantees, or technical assistance, not acquiring equity. Indeed, as recently as June 2026, the Department asked Congress to amend the law specifically to provide OSC with authority to acquire equity investments.

The second controversy surrounds the State Department’s right to purchase 20 percent of NABEP’s oil production at cost. This arrangement is highly unusual and appears to be without a direct historical precedent. It applies not merely to the 17 specified oil fields, but to all current and future fields operated by NABEP. The stated purpose is to provide low-cost oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, military requirements, and other unspecified sensitive uses. The combination of the State Department’s extraordinary petroleum purchasing rights and the Department of Defense’s equity stake will almost certainly attract congressional scrutiny.

From Oil to Political and Economic Stabilization

The US-Venezuelan oil deal has attracted a host of critics. This disapproval has been covered by news reports in The Washington Post, Reuters, and the Financial Times. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s leading opposition figure, María Corina Machado, has remained unusually quiet about the deal. The Washington Post reported that Machado has not publicly commented on the agreement, although her spokesman, David Smolansky, criticized its lack of transparency and argued that an agreement of this magnitude should be negotiated by a legitimate democratic government operating under the rule of law. Machado’s silence may reflect the difficult political position she now occupies. Criticizing the agreement risks putting her publicly at odds with the Trump administration, whose support remains important to her goal of achieving a democratic transition in Venezuela.

Certainly, Machado’s primary goal is to achieve free and fair elections in the country, as well as economic prosperity, and this deal has some promising aspects in that regard. For one, NABEP promises to spend $100 billion on new oil infrastructure projects and will pay the Venezuelan government $200 billion in royalties over the next 25 years. Additionally, the White House announced that it is sponsoring negotiations between representatives of the former opposition-controlled 2015 National Assembly, led by Dinorah Figuera, and President Delcy Rodríguez‘s interim government in Caracas. The deal advances US energy security and provides income to the Venezuelan government, while shielding designated oil revenues from creditors seeking repayment of debts accumulated under the Chavista regime.

Venezuela Reveals Trump’s New Western Hemisphere Strategy

Taken together, these developments suggest that the oil agreement should not be viewed simply as an energy deal.

The United States is attempting to do several things at once: secure access to a massive petroleum reserve, rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry, protect Venezuelan revenues from creditors, stabilize the country economically, and encourage a negotiated political transition. The 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly rejects the post–Cold War practice of treating democracy promotion and political transformation abroad as overarching US foreign-policy objectives; it portrays that approach as a strategic error that diverted attention and resources from American national interests. In the same vein, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has identified a democratic transition as the ultimate US objective, while arguing that political change must proceed alongside the stabilization of the country and the recovery of its economy. A vote held under current conditions would likely produce another disputed electoral process rather than a durable transfer of power. President Donald Trump has likewise argued against rushing to elections, stating in July that Venezuela is “not really ready for them yet.” Months earlier, he indicated that US oversight of Venezuela and its oil revenues could continue.

As things stand, Washington exercises an extraordinary degree of influence over a strategically important country in the Western Hemisphere. The current arrangement advances all five regional priorities identified in the 2025 National Security Strategy: 

1. stability sufficient to limit mass migration;
2. cooperation against transnational criminal organizations and terrorism;
3. the exclusion of hostile foreign powers from control of strategic assets;
4. secure critical supply chains; and 
5. continued US access to strategically important locations and resources. 

From a limited national-security perspective, therefore, the current arrangement provides Washington with substantial strategic benefits, reducing the immediate incentive to accelerate a political transition that might jeopardize them.

But there are plenty of ways this could go wrong. Congress may challenge some of the authorities the executive branch is exercising. Key Democrats have been consistently critical of both the January 2026 operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and the subsequent policy of working with Delcy Rodríguez while asserting US control over Venezuelan oil and delaying elections. Venezuelans may decide that their government has surrendered too much control over the country’s most crucial resource. 

Even with economic stabilization and signs of returning prosperity, Venezuelans may demand a faster democratic transition, while Chavista elites may resist surrendering their remaining political power. 

At the same time, the durability of US influence is uncertain. Much of Washington’s leverage rests on coercive credibility and the expectation that the United States could again employ military force if adversarial behavior from the Venezuelan government reemerges. There also exists the possibility of violent resistance, whether from popular forces or from remnants of the political and security apparatus constructed during a quarter-century of Chavista rule. US leverage also has a political expiration date. President Trump will leave office in January 2029, and his successor will inherit difficult questions about whether the existing arrangement remains sustainable, whether continued US pressure is necessary to preserve stability, and how rapidly Venezuela should move toward a durable democratic transfer of power.

But the larger point is that Venezuela is not an isolated case. The Trump administration is increasingly combining military power, emergency economic authorities, trade policy, energy security, and diplomacy to reshape the strategic environment of the Western Hemisphere.

The Venezuela oil agreement may be the clearest example of the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in the Western Hemisphere yet, placing commercial control first and democracy later, with the threat of military coercion in the background.

About the Authors: Robert Burrell and Homer Harkins 

Dr. Robert Burrell is a senior research fellow with the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida. From 2020 to 2024, he taught irregular warfare at the Joint Special Operations University, and earlier served as US Special Operations Command’s Editor-in-Chief for irregular warfare doctrine. A retired Marine with multiple combat tours, Dr. Burrell has spent 12 years living and working across Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand, plus a diplomatic tour at the US Embassy in Australia. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Warwick, and master’s degrees from San Diego State University and the US Naval War College.

Dr. Homer Harkins is a faculty member at the United Arab Emirates War College in Abu Dhabi. Prior to this role, Dr. Harkins served on the faculty of the Joint Special Operations University at MacDill Air Force Base, where he held positions from instructor to Dean of Academics and Director of the Center for Irregular Warfare. A retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, he served as an infantry officer, an Army Ranger, and a Latin American Foreign Area Officer. In 2015, Dr. Harkins earned his Doctorate in Education, and his earlier education includes a BBA, an MA in Computer Resources and Information Management, and an MS in International Relations.

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