Following the removal of Nicolás Maduro, President Trump asserted that he would restore Venezuela’s prosperity. About eight months later, a distinct blueprint is coming into view: the administration aims to become a stakeholder in a Venezuelan oil enterprise.
Under a remarkable arrangement first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the United States would acquire a 35 percent passive stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the venture led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. The terms provide NABEP with the chance to develop 17 oil fields alleged to hold 65 billion barrels—roughly a fifth of the country’s estimated reserves—while the U.S. government would obtain preferred rights to purchase 20 percent of NABEP’s output at cost. The State Department would also enjoy a right of first refusal to acquire the remaining 80 percent, according to the White House. The Pentagon would ultimately control those interests, according to the Journal, although a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters that the office structuring the deal lacks the authority to take equity.
The arrangement appeared suddenly, following major American oil companies’ reluctance to invest billions in a country still burdened by political risk, fragile institutions, and an uncertain legal framework. (Trump had forecast the opposite in January, suggesting American oil firms would spend billions to “fix the badly broken infrastructure” and begin to generate profits for the country.) Nevertheless, the agreement is likely to be beneficial for Betancourt, who stands among the principal beneficiaries of Washington’s involvement in Venezuela.
Betancourt belongs to a generation Venezuelans dubbed the bolichicos: heirs to wealthy Caracas lineages who grew incredibly rich under Hugo Chávez’s proclaimed anti-oligarchy program. When Chávez declared an electricity emergency in 2010, the government embarked on massive spending and circumvented standard procurement. Betancourt and his cousin, Pedro Trebbau, allegedly sought to profit from this lax oversight. Their new company, Derwick Associates, had no track record in building power plants, yet within about fourteen months it secured billions of dollars in contracts and relied heavily on a U.S. firm for engineering and equipment. In 2018, Transparencia Venezuela—the Venezuelan branch of Transparency International—estimated that 11 Derwick projects billed at around $5 billion should have cost about $2.1 billion.
Betancourt and Derwick Associates questioned those figures and denied any wrongdoing. He would later purchase a nearly $12 million penthouse on Fifth Avenue and, subsequently, a vast estate outside Madrid, where his lavish wedding featured in Hola! magazine. In 2013, former U.S. Ambassador Otto Reich brought racketeering charges against Betancourt and others, accusing them of corrupt contracting and retaliation. Betancourt denied the accusations, and the federal charges were eventually dropped because Reich failed to establish a viable pattern of racketeering.
Electricity proved only the starting point. Betancourt shifted into oil through a venture connected to Gazprombank, the Russian financial group, and Petrozamora, a producer partnered with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, according to internal CBH Bank records obtained by the Venezuela Leaks collaboration. Betancourt denied that these companies had formed a joint venture.
In 2019, amid reports that he was the target of a federal money-laundering inquiry involving PDVSA, Betancourt hired Rudy Giuliani, who at that time served as Trump’s personal lawyer. Betancourt was not charged. Giuliani pressed Justice Department officials to consider Betancourt’s assertion that he had secretly supported Juan Guaidó’s U.S.-backed opposition—a claim that Reuters could not verify and which Guaidó denied.
By 2020, the relationship between Betancourt—then living abroad—and Maduro’s regime had soured after the businessman backed the U.S.-backed effort to install Guaidó, reportedly acting as an intermediary between Venezuelan military officers and Russia and helping finance the opposition. Maduro’s government subsequently ordered his arrest, froze his assets at home, and displaced him from effective control of his Petrozamora interests. Security forces were dispatched to his properties in Venezuela, the Washington Post reports.
In 2023, a corruption scandal fractured Maduro’s inner circle and toppled Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, whose faction had forced Betancourt out of Petrozamora. The purge cleared Betancourt to return to Caracas in 2023, with assurances of security and a role in rebuilding Petrozamora—the operation was producing only about 20,000 barrels per day after years of underinvestment and frequent changes in leadership—and in due course it passed to NABEP, the company Betancourt now controls.
Then came January 3, 2026. In the hours after Maduro’s downfall, Betancourt offered solace to Venezuela’s new strongman, Delcy Rodríguez, and persuaded her to speak with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, El País reports. During Rodríguez’s early conversations with Washington, U.S. officials made clear that Betancourt would serve as a pivotal go-between in rebooting the country’s oil sector, according to The Washington Post. He helped arrange initial oil contracts and coordinated among Washington, Rodríguez, PDVSA, and American firms. One of the early deals allowed Vitol and Trafigura to purchase Venezuelan crude at a prepaid discount of $15 per barrel, the Post reports, which described the arrangement as “opaque.” Trafigura told the outlet that no external party held a financial stake in its negotiations or contract; Vitol declined to comment.
The link between Betancourt and the Trump administration does not end with oil deals. As the Post reported last week, several senior members of the administration—including Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, then–Attorney General Pam Bondi, and then–Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—have either spoken with Swiss authorities about their investigation into Betancourt or negotiated to drop an extradition request against the Venezuelan businessman. Swiss prosecutors are examining Betancourt on suspicions of laundering proceeds from alleged PDVSA and Venezuelan Treasury corruption schemes through Swiss accounts. He has not been formally charged, and denies wrongdoing. U.S. officials sought a resolution that did not involve criminal penalties and later arranged a one-year, multiple-entry visa to the United States.
In May, Switzerland withdrew its request for British extradition but kept an international arrest warrant in place and asked the Justice Department to arrest him if he enters the United States. The department did not take action. Swiss proceedings remain active; Betancourt has not been charged in Switzerland, the United States, or Venezuela, and he denies the accusations. Betancourt did not respond to Reason’s request for comment.
Betancourt’s success and access illustrate what Venezuela’s economy has become under Rodríguez. While the state is loosening ownership rules and private firms are invited back into sectors like oil and mining, it still maintains power over who gains access.
For instance, although Rodríguez’s January oil reform ended PDVSA’s formal monopoly, granted private producers more leeway over operations and sales, and authorized international arbitration, the reform also removed parliamentary oversight, preserved broad executive discretion over contracts, taxes, and royalties, and left PDVSA as the dominant regulator of the industry without an independent supervisory body. Competitive bidding is not the guiding principle. In February, Venezuelan officials halted 19 production-sharing contracts signed under Maduro and began reviewing them with U.S. officials, many linked to relatively unknown firms, even as PDVSA continued to sell the oil those contracts produced. U.S. Treasury licenses became another gate through which prospective operators had to pass.
A new mining law opened gold and other strategic minerals to private and foreign companies. Previously, these resources were reserved for the state, forcing investors to work through state-controlled joint ventures or specially approved partnerships. Yet this occurred before Venezuela’s mining sector had institutions capable of supervising its implementation. The new framework could legalize existing criminal supply chains: much of the gold in Venezuela’s Bolívar and Amazonas states comes from informal mines controlled by armed groups, networks tied to the military, and intermediaries with political connections. Meanwhile, the state retains broad discretion, concessions can last up to 50 years, international arbitration creates contingent liabilities, and the law protects existing opaque agreements.
Eight months after Washington helped topple Maduro, Venezuela has made some gains, even as many of the scandals of the former regime persist. But Trump’s plan to acquire an equity stake in the country’s oil output—an approach he has employed in other settings—risks undoing some of the progress that has been achieved and entrenches a system that rewards those with political leverage rather than market success. For Venezuela, changes of leadership may occur, yet the Betancourts seem poised to endure.
