🇺🇸🇻🇪 America’s murky deal to secure a fifth of Venezuela’s oil

It could give both countries reason to postpone elections indefinitely and maintain the remnants of the Maduro regime in power.

It was a typically Trumpian announcement. On August 28th, the American president declared what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history”, an agreement he said would give America “majority control” of more than 65bn barrels of Venezuelan crude: around one fifth of the country’s vast proven reserves. Details were conspicuously absent, but the president said it involved “a partnership with private business” and would be “at no cost to the American taxpayer”. He described Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s unpopular and unelected leader, as the “Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela”. Ms Rodríguez joined in the mutual obsequence, offering her “deepest gratitude” to Mr Trump for a deal she said will contribute to “our country’s economic growth, the energy security of our hemisphere and greater balance in international markets”.

Sources with knowledge of the agreement tell The Economist that the “private business” that will hold a 45% stake in the new joint-venture operator (with the American government reportedly holding the rest via an office at the Pentagon), will be North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, a privately owned oil producer, registered in Barbados with offices in Caracas. That company is controlled by Alejandro Betancourt, a controversial London-based Venezuelan, often referred to as one of a group of “bolichicos”—businessmen who made themselves fortunes on the back of lucrative contracts during the chaotic corrupt heyday of Mr Chávez’s rule. Mr Betancourt has faced several international investigations into alleged money laundering. But he appears to have made himself exceptionally useful to the Trump administration.

But there is a bigger problem for Mr Trump’s deal than the background of its joint venture partner. Any contracts signed will still ultimately be with the government of Ms Rodríguez. She is not a leader chosen by Venezuelans but the heir to Nicolás Maduro, who flagrantly stole the last presidential election, in 2024. That vote was won by Edmundo González, the stand-in for the wildly popular opposition leader María Corina Machado. Mr Maduro was seized by American commandos in Caracas on January 3rd and flown to New York, where he faces drug-trafficking charges. But his absence does not bestow any legitimacy on Ms Rodríguez, his former deputy, or on the contracts her government signs. “It will be a fiasco for all involved,” said Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister, now at Harvard, of the deal, which he described as unconstitutional.

The risk for those signing contracts is that a future democratic government could also take that view. But that raises the prospect that both the Trump administration and the Rodríguez regime might now share an incentive to prevent any elected government from taking office. “This growing ‘win-win’ arrangement [is] difficult for either side to walk away from,” said Imdat Oner, a former Turkish diplomat who served in Caracas. “As the deal takes shape, the opposition’s role and influence could increasingly fade into the background.” Already the Trump administration has strongly discouraged Ms Machado, who left Venezuela to collect the Nobel peace prize last December, from returning home. All this leaves her in a tough spot; opposing the deal may leave her even further from power. As this story was published, she had not commented on the deal.

📝: 8 months after Venezuela surrendered, they lost access to their oil resources. This is the fate that awaits Iran if it decides to acquiesce to Trump's demands. The Iranians are fully aware of this, as they already experienced a similar event in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the popular PM, Mohamed Mosaddegh and installed the Pahlavi monarchy which quickly ceded the rights to Iran's oil resources to foreign companies.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.economist.com/the-americas/2026/08/29/americas-murky-deal-to-secure-a-fifth-of-venezuelas-oil

🚀 🇺🇸 🛰 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has officially launched and is heading to its forever home at L2.

Over the next three months, the observatory will perform final checks and power its instruments before revealing its first images by early 2027.

nasa.gov/Roman

📎 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

🛢 🇺🇸 🇻🇪 President Trump says he is going to fill up the US Strategic Oil Reserve with Venezuelan oil.

Trump says the “topping out” process will begin very shortly and is a “gift” from Venezuela to the US.

📎 KobeissiLetter

🚀 🇺🇸 🛰 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is officially in orbit after its deployment from SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy.

📎 Mario Nawfal

🇩🇿🤝🇳🇪 Algerian Sukhoi Fighter Jets Fly Over the Capital Niamey in a Message of Solidarity with Niger

This flight comes just a few days after the visit of Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Amin Zeine to Algeria and his meeting with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, amid increasing momentum in the bilateral relations between the two countries.

@CIG_telegram

🇷🇺🇳🇪 Radio France International reports that Russia's Africa Corps was instrumental in defeating the mutinous Nigerien units that tried to overthrow the military junta.

🔗 https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20260830-niger-dizaines-d-arrestations-parmi-les-soldats-mutin%C3%A9s-revolte-africa-corps

🇸🇾 🤝 🇹🇷 Turkish Army & Syrian engineers are installing a second floating/portable bridge across the Euphrates at Mayadin, Deir ez-Zor, following the first bridge installed in Deir ez-Zor city in July 2026.

The new crossing is intended to restore civilian and logistics traffic while permanent bridges remain damaged or under reconstruction.

📎 Clash Report

🇺🇸❌🇮🇷 — Fars News Agency has confirmed U.S. strikes against Larak Island, claiming one explosion of "unknown origin" was heard.