Trump’s Venezuelan oil grift

Close listeners of today explain from Vox will know that on Wednesday's post-election show we had mayor ambassador chief Rama manual on and he said Democrats should legislate but also investigate. You should do the investigations like where is a Venezuelan oil money. Good question, Rama. What Trump promised Venezuelans was wealth and prosperity. We'll make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe. But for Venezuelans when they saw him remove Maduro from the country, one of the first things they thought is now we have a path to democracy. Our democracy appears to be functioning but democracy still doesn't exist in Venezuela. We did manage to export some oil grift though. That's ahead on the show. When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm Kimberly Neville, host of the pondering AI podcast from SAS. Every episode I sit down with innovators, researchers and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs. Questions that don't have easy answers but need to be asked. If you're curious or concerned about AI, join me as we challenge assumptions and ponder the issues together. Find pondering AI wherever you get your podcasts. As soon as autumn rolls around and you swap your iced lattes for pumpkin spice, that's your signal to start thinking about the holidays. The decor, the gifts, the shopping lists, but more importantly, the holiday treats. Cheesecakes, cookies, is there anything better? And when the recipe calls for cream cheese, there's only one option. Philadelphia, the original cream cheese, made with fresh milk and real cream. This holiday season, whether you're going all out or keeping it simple, make it really, really good. Find your favorite holiday recipe at creamcheese.com. Today, explain. And Applebaum is a staff writer at the Atlantic where she recently wrote about what the US is really doing in Venezuela. And so far, that's been a lot of trying to ignore long time Maduro opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, and propping up Maduro's second in command, Delce Rodriguez. So Trump himself talks about his great relationship with Delce Rodriguez. She was Maduro's deputy, and she is now the president in effect of the de facto president of Venezuela. Delce, as you know, is doing a very, very good job, very highly respected. And she's a terrific person. I mean, she's somebody that we've worked with very well. Marco Rubio talks about democracy or he talks about transition. He talks about different phases of transition. Step one is destabilization of the country. We don't want it descending into chaos. The second phase will be a phase that we call recovery. And then the third phase, of course, will be one of transition. We want to reach a phase of transition where we are left with a friendly, stable, prosperous Venezuela and democratic. And on the instigation, partly of the United States, there has been created a set of committees to explore the path to transition. There's a committee that's working on reform of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, which in the past has blocked election results, and they'll be reformed supposedly of the electoral commission. But there hasn't been a date given for elections. And I think what was disturbing the Venezuelans up until very recently was that their leader, the person who was widely acknowledged to be the leader of the Venezuelan democratic opposition, was outside the country and was having mysterious difficulties returning. So she was being blocked both by the regime. And I think it became pretty clear she was being blocked by the United States as well. So there was talk of democracy and implication of change, but there wasn't real change. And when I was there in September, people had already become very disillusioned with the promises of transition. And they were demanding to know what's next, what's the date? The current leadership is illegitimate. We didn't choose it. Rodriguez was Maduro's henchwoman. She's not somebody who represents Venezuela. She's not a legitimate leader. And they were pushing very hard for change and they wanted to know when it would come. And I should say it was something that I think in the run-up to the midterms may even have made a difference in some Florida house races, which is why I think it's one of the reasons why the Trump administration did eventually decide to allow Machado to return. She did eventually come back to the country a few weeks ago to enormous crowds and, and, and, and, Agilatia. Of supporters of Maria Polino Machado, a position leader I gathered here from the waiting for her. She intervened in Venezuela earlier today as he has been touring various cities in Venezuela. And now he's there to turn to see their beloved leader. She was gone for a long time. The United States wasn't in her hurry to get her back. Trump kept talking about Rodriguez instead. And so you you had this sense of a very weird for Venezuela. And it's actually why I think some of the food in the Democratic U.S. and a very idealized idea of the United States. They thought America will come in. I know they'll they'll bring back the rule of law. Surely they'll want a legitimate government here in order to work with the United States in the future. And they didn't anticipate the food dragging and they didn't anticipate. As I said, Trump's constant references to Rodriguez and his sliding references and his dismissal of Machado and more broadly the the Democratic opposition, which is, as I say, is the majority of the country. I think it'll be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect. So Machado is essentially the rightful leader of this country. The 2024 election results were really essentially a win for her. What does her presence back in the country now mean for democracy for open elections? What it now means is that she and her colleagues will begin to galvanize a big national conversation about what happens next, what constitutional reforms they need, what other kinds of reforms they need, how to rebuild the healthcare system, how to rebuild the economy, which is, which is a disaster statement, as well as once the richest country in South America. Now it's the poorest. She will begin to galvanize people and her presence and her ability to attract crowds will put pressure both on the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, as well as on the regime to get the transition moving. As I said, it was theoretically happening, but it was very slow. The people who were participating in the conversations were not people who are recognized widely as as legitimate leaders. They were, they were elected in a previous parliament, but they weren't, they weren't seen as the people leading the country now. So she will now force people's hands. And interestingly, when she came back, Marco Rubio made a statement to the effect of, you know, don't think you can conduct politics on the street, something like this. You know, we need to follow the transition process. So you can see that the U.S. is already nervous about the power she will have to galvanize change, maybe faster even than the United States wants it. I mean, when you mentioned Marco Rubio, sort of calling the shots here, it makes me wonder, who's actually in charge? Is it Rubio? Is it Rodriguez? It certainly is in Machado. Honestly, it's not clear to Venezuelans. Huh? You know, they, you know, I mean, Rodriguez is technically running the country. She has a complex, that's the best way I could put it in relationships with the Trump administration. Trump himself likes her. There are other people inside the administration who also have interests in Venezuela, economic interests, I should say. And she seems to be happy working with them. And she's happy working with Trump. And she's nervous and wary of working with the opposition. So is she really in charge? Is it Trump? Is it interest around Trump? Is it Marco Rubio who's really steering her and commanding her? That's actually not clear. I'm going to Machado is there. As I said, widely understood to be the, she's the leader of the opposition. She's not yet a legitimate president or a head of state. But if I were to use a word to describe what's wrong with Venezuela and this, we will, we will use it again when we talk about the economy. It's the word opaque. In other words, you know, what is democracy supposed to be? What is a well-run country supposed to be? And what is rule of law required? And that is transparency. You know, we need to know who is making decisions and why. Is Rodriguez making decisions on behalf of her country or is she doing it on behalf of some people we don't know in the shadows behind Donald Trump? You know, we don't really know what the basis of her relationships with them is. We don't know whether she's acting in the interest of Venezuela's of herself or somebody else. And that for Venezuela's is deeply disturbing. And as I said, that's why they want a real transition. They want a change that will produce a leader who is recognized by the Venezuelans as a leader and not is not Not simply there at the whim of Donald Trump. Is there any other leader than Machado waiting in the wings? So of course there are other democratic leaders. There's a whole host of them, actually, I met several of them when I was there. There are other people who had status, there are people who've been in politics for a long time, there are people who've been mayors. It's actually a very large movement that has been as well in democratic movement. It's been there for a long time. It has a deep grassroots backing and so there are a lot of potential leaders and a lot of potential political parties there. But right now, you're in a strange moment where none of them really have a clear way of acting because, as I say, it's still a dictatorship, it's still run by the Sabre regime. The police and the security apparatus, the apparatus of repression are all still in place and you don't have clarity about who's really running it. So there are plenty of people with authority there and plenty of people with ideas. There are a lot of it as well as out of the country who have had an important role there in the past as well, they're in Madrid or they're in the United States or elsewhere. So there are other leaders as well. But in order to give them legitimacy, in order to give them status or they could be mayors or they could be cabinet members or they could be the president, there has to be an electoral process. There has to be a legitimate process that's recognized as such by then as well. And in the meantime, the majority of Venezuelans would still like to see Machado as their leader. Do we know? I mean, look, there would have to be a popular election in order to know whether she would be the president or not. She's certainly, as I said, acknowledged by other opposition leaders as leader. She was the certainly the leading figure in the most recent presidential campaign, which is, I say, was in 2024. She was seen when she was first in hiding and then in exile as the sort of leader outside the country and was talked of and respected as such. But I think even she would acknowledge that she's not legitimate until someone votes for her. Okay, that's the democracy or lack thereof. The oil grift, when today explained, is back. What will we decide? Every episode, I sit down with innovators, researchers, and technologists to consider the questions that come after the AI breakthroughs. Questions that don't have easy answers, but need to be asked. As soon as autumn rolls around and you swap your iced lattes for pumpkin spice, that's your signal to start thinking about the holidays, the decor, the gifts, the shopping lists, but more importantly, the holiday treats. This holiday season, whether you're going all out or keeping it simple, make it really filling good. Support for the show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. If you have a dog or cat, here's something you need to know. According to Forbes, one in three pets will need emergency treatment this year. And every six seconds, a pet parent gets hit with a vet bill over $1,000. If bills don't have to hit that hard, Fetch is pet insurance that covers accidents, illnesses, and emergency visits and pays back up to 90% of eligible vet bills. No wonder pet parents give Fetch an excellent rating on trust pilot. Get a free quote in minutes at fetchpet.com/save. That's fetchpet.com/save. Okay, today explain is back and elections aren't happening in Venezuela, but oil is presumably flowing. Where do we start with the oil? The first thing Americans need to know, and I think most Americans don't know this, is that right now, all of the oil that is sold out of Venezuela, the money that they receive in exchange, or the royalties and fees and so on, right now go into a bank account in New York. Originally the money went to a bank account in Qatar, originally after Maduro was deposed. They've now moved it to New York, it's at Citibank. We don't know how much money has gone into that account. We do know that some of it comes back to Venezuela to pay government salaries and so on, but we don't know how much there is either. And multiple requests for audits from democratic members of Congress and from others. That's our target. What is the total amount of money associated with the sale of Venezuelan assets that's flowed through Treasury accounts or accounts managed by Treasury since January? Have been refused. The administration has not wanted to give away information about where the money is going and what it's being used for. I'm asking for the total amount of money. The President Trump said in July that it was more than 13 billion. Would you agree that it was more than 13 billion in July? Again, I'm not going to give out that amount. So you have a very strange, very opaque system to begin with. The second thing Americans need to know is that partly because of this strange system, there has been a lot of hesitancy on the part of US oil companies. They haven't wanted to make a big play in Venezuela. They've been labeled. All everybody has sent onvoys there to look at the situation, but the amount of money that is needed to do a major investment there, to drill new fields and to look in new places and to recover old wells that have been damaged through neglect, is so large and would require so much time to bear fruit that they've been waiting. And so, perhaps to speed up the process, perhaps to, as a way of making an impact on the midterms, Donald Trump at the end of August announced that he would be doing an oil deal in Venezuela. Earth social, the United States of America has just entered into an agreement with the country of Venezuela on the biggest oil deal in world history. And this would be a deal between actually the Pentagon, an office at the Pentagon and a Venezuelan oil company. Well, I should say it's Venezuelan, although it's the corporate headquarters are in Barbados and it includes some anonymous members. Sounds shady. So it's shady and strange. And the head of the oil company is a figure who's very well known in Venezuela. He's called Alejandro Betancourt. And he's a famous crony of the regime and somebody who is widely despised in Venezuela. He's been under investigation for money laundering in Switzerland in the United States, in Spain. Some of his properties were raided in Spain not so long ago. And just to put a finer point on it, we're talking about President Trump making a huge oil deal, which he calls the biggest oil deal in world history. To the victor, along the spoils you've all heard that, with a member of Nicolas Maduro's sort of crony regime. Absolutely. And I said a very well-known one. So what he's very best known for in Venezuela is for having been made responsible for fixing their electricity grid, their constant electricity shortage in Venezuela, very ironic. It's that a country that has so many energy resources. And it's a job that he failed at. Nevertheless, he seemed to make a lot of money out of it, hence the properties in Spain and Switzerland and elsewhere. And this is the person who the Trump administration has chosen as their main partner. And I have to say, when this happened, and as I said, it was announced in August, there was a kind of sea change. So all the expectations that Venezuela has had about democracy to reference our previous conversation, you know, that there would be a transition and it was just a matter of time, suddenly people really began to doubt that. And they said, what is really going on? What is the United States want here? Because the United States want to create a legitimate government, one where, you know, there will be an elected president who can work with the U.S. in the future and set up a decent system of investment so that American companies can invest here in a in a logical way. Ultimately, we hope this leads to a holistic transition all the way around in Venezuela, a societal, political, to mark all of that. We're in favor of all of that. We want them to have an oil industry where the wealth is goes to the people, not to a handful of corrupt individuals and stolen by, you know, pirates all over the world. Or are they just trying to get money in some covert way and in a way that could enrich friends or business partners of the President and friends or business partners of the Rodriguez regime. Who's questioning the deal? Is it Americans? Is it Venezuelans both? It's, well, certainly it's Venezuelans. Yeah. Everybody I met in Venezuela, including economists, including politicians. Everybody I talked to thought the deal was bad and was angry about it. I mean, it's one of probably, you know, it's a country like others where there's some polarization and people are divided and they disagree about things. And this is something that everybody agreed on. You know, we don't, this is not a deal that's being made to serve Venezuelans. This is not, this is oil as our natural resource. It's owned by technically all the oil and Venezuelans owned by a state oil company. And this was a deal that's designed to drill and to give the profits, as I say, to the Pentagon and to Alejandro Benchengor. And people were very, very angry. In the United States, I think Americans are have been mostly happy to forget about Venezuela. There have been, there have been some congressional hearings and investigations where there have been questions asked. I mean, I think actually after the midterm result, we might see more of that. I've talked to members of Congress who want to pursue this because it's such a clear cut case of obvious corruption and obvious mismanagement. And do you think the move is to just get the United States out of there or to fix this relationship that the United States currently has with the Venezuelan. So that what, the billions of oil can benefit maybe American corporations, but also maybe the Venezuelan people. - It is in the interests of the United States government for there to be a legitimate government in Venezuela. Because if there is, then people will return from the United States and from other parts of Latin America. So the migrants will return home. The Venezuelan government will then be a decent partner for the US in fighting crime, narcotics traffic in the region. And if there is a legitimate government and if there is a rule of law based system for exploiting oil, then US companies will feel comfortable going to Venezuela, spending money, investing over the long term. And that will be good both for American consumers and it will be good for the Venezuelan people. And you know, it's good all right. I mean, this is what, what Venezuelans have found very hard to wrap their minds around is that the policy so far over the last, you know, nine, 10 months or so has been a benefit to no one. You know, it's very funny. Somebody, somebody who's an economist said to me, you know, oil companies, you know, he said these are not nuns. Like these aren't people who necessarily care about democracy and it's not, that's not part of their business. But even, even the oil majors, you know, but the ex on and so on, they understand that unless there's a legitimate government in Venezuela, that there's, you know, there's, there's no investment to be made. So even they are interested in a predictable legal system, you know, one that is not subject to the whims of particular leaders, they want a court system that functions, you know, they want transparency, they want to see where the money goes and how it comes back. Because that's important for their shareholders and for their business models. That's how, that's how American companies are supposed to work. And this idea that we would set up these weird shady deals there, we wouldn't really know who is benefiting. This is not good for, even for American oil companies, who, as I said, don't necessarily have the interests of freedom at their heart. - From all you're reporting and from the people you spoke to on the ground in Venezuela, from the people you spoke to here in Washington DC, how would you characterize our relationship with this country? It doesn't quite feel like an occupation, but it definitely doesn't feel like a partnership. - It's funny. I asked a lot of people, are there any precedents for this? Has it happened before? And people tried to come up with things for, you know, relationships we had with Caribbean countries in the past. But really what this is, as one economist said to be, is a coalition of two kleptocracies. It's two self-interested regimes doing business with one another, without any interest either in the people of Venezuela, or as I say, in the people of the United States. - Where does that leave the Venezuelan people? - Since January, I think Venezuelans have been through a lot of different phases. They originally were very hopeful after Maduro left, or he was kidnapped. They had a long period of thinking the United States was gonna come and help them, and save them, and fix their economy. They had a hope that there would be a democratic change that would bring some relief, both economic relief, and political change. But I think over the course of the last few months, they've come to understand that the US isn't there to help them, that the regime isn't there to help them, and that they are once again reliant on themselves. So these are the grassroots democracy movements, the people who work to bring together communities across cities, the political movements that have had so much importance in building the society of the last few years. That's what there is, and I think they're coming to understand that those movements are now gonna have to work together to build change in Venezuela. It's not gonna come from the US, and it's not gonna come from anywhere else. You can read Ann Applebaum's big piece in the Atlantic. It's titled "What the US Is Really Doing in Venezuela?" Dustin Tisoto made the show. Amanalisadi edited Gabriel Dunantoff was on the fact check, Bridger Dunnigan and David Tadishore mixed. El resto de riscaira, Patrick Boyd, Kelly Wessinger, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Ariana Spurro, Hadi Mawagi, Daniel Hewitt, Smiles Brian, Miranda Kennedy, Apshi Arcee, Jolly Myers and Noelle King, with Bobs by Break Master Cylinder. Today, explain is distributed by WNYC, the show is part of the Vox Media Podcast, networkpodcast.voxmedia.com, and you can listen at free to today, explain by signing up at vox.com/members. Thank you. (upbeat music) When it comes to AI, there is what we could do and what we should do. What will we decide? I'm a voice agent powered by DeepGram. I don't just understand words, I understand context. Like when you're at trivia night and say I'm on fire, it means you got the last three questions right. But when you're camping and say I'm on fire, it means a spark just landed on your highly flammable synthetic rain pants. DeepGram understands words in context. Across STT, TTS, and voice agents. That means better conversations at production scale. Learn more at deepram.com/context is everything.