Trump's Venezuela oil sell-off sparks corruption concerns
Trump's Venezuela oil sell-off sparks corruption concerns
Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAYWed, January 28, 2026 at 8:01 AM UTC
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WASHINGTON, DC – In the weeks since the United States snatched Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has been selling the country's oil stash, netting millions of dollars and prompting concerns from lawmakers and industry insiders about corruption.
Those concerns will likely surface on Jan. 28 when Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before a Senate committee about the Trump administration's ongoing involvement in Venezuela.
The Trump administration accused Maduro of heading a vast narcotrafficking network, as it zeroed in on Venezuela this past fall with a massive deployment of military assets and deadly strikes on boats off the country's coast. Now that the South American leader and his wife are jailed pending a federal trial in the United States on related charges, Trump has said his administration will control Venezuela's oil reserves — the largest in the world.
1 / 0Oil and gas executives talk Venezuela at the White HousePresident Donald Trump hosted a meeting of oil and gas industry executives at the White House on Jan. 9, 2026 to discuss Venezuelan oil, following the U.S. capture of the country's president Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has since unveiled a sweeping $2 billion deal to sell oil from Venezuela's reserves, which are controlled by a state-run company and have been off-limits for years to all American companies but Chevron. Venezuela's oil stockpiles were backed up by the Trump administration's blockade of oil tankers and years of U.S. sanctions.
Trump aims to get Venezuela's oil flowing to American companies, and says the United States will control the proceeds from those sales. Venezuelan oil is already flowing into refineries in Houston, Trump told the New York Post in a Jan. 24 interview.
"Let’s put it this way, they don’t have any oil. We take the oil," he said.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Trump wanted to control the oil for "his friends."
"Boy, this would be a coup: the oil industry having full access to the world's largest petroleum reserve," he said, during a Jan. 7 speech before the Senate.
Democrats will likely grill Rubio on the multibillion-dollar oil deal on Jan. 28. Some, such as Murphy, who is on the committee, have already slammed it as murky and ripe for corruption. The administration has so far sold $500 million worth of oil, depositing some of the proceeds in a Qatari bank account controlled at the Trump administration's discretion, sources have told USA TODAY.
Lawmakers have begun raising questions about how those funds will be handled. A group of Democratic senators sent letters to more than a dozen executives of top banks asking if the Trump administration asked their institutions to hold Venezuelan oil proceeds, USA TODAY exclusively reported earlier this month. More than a dozen Democratic senators sent a separate letter on Jan. 21 demanding that Trump officials "disclose any financial interests in companies involved in the extraction, processing, or sale of Venezuelan oil."
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to USA TODAY, "If not for President Trump’s bold action and courageous leadership, Venezuela would still be controlled by narcoterrorist Maduro and Venezuelan oil would still be enriching our foreign adversaries."
"The historic U.S.-Venezuela energy deal will restore prosperity and security in Venezuela, safeguarding the economic and national security interests of the United States."
Scrutiny for two companies to win Venezuela oil licenses
Experts say the lack of supervision of Trump's Venezuelan oil selloff could be a breeding ground for corruption.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 9 designating revenue from the oil sales as "funds paid to or held by" the U.S. government "on behalf of the Government of Venezuela." Four Venezuelan banks were handed the first $300 million in proceeds to sell dollars to Venezuelan companies in need of foreign exchange currency, according to Reuters.
"These are Venezuelan funds, and they are outside of the U.S. regulatory framework. It’s not clear what legal framework, if any, binds them," said Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The Trump administration granted licenses to two trading houses — Vitol and Trafigura — to handle those initial sales, but other companies have yet to receive any licenses, despite widespread interest, according to three people with knowledge of the oil industry.
The Financial Times reported that John Addison, a senior trader at Vitol involved in securing the deal, donated $6 million toward Trump's reelection campaign.
In recent years, both trading companies have been implicated by the Justice Department in Latin American bribery scandals. In 2020, Vitol Inc. agreed to pay $135 million in criminal penalties to resolve charges it was involved in a bribery scheme in Ecuador, Brazil, and Mexico. A former Vitol trader pleaded guilty in 2024 to paying $600,000 in bribes to officials with Mexico's state-run oil company, according to court documents.
The same year, Trafigura pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate federal anti-corruption laws and paid more than $126 million to resolve a Justice Department investigation into an alleged scheme to bribe Brazilian oil officials.
Vitol and Trafigura did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
"Who decided that it was going to be Vitol and Trafigura that were going to get licenses to trade oil?" said Rodriguez.
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"Why those four banks?" he said of the four Venezuelan banks given the funds.
An administration official said the White House picked two of the world's largest commodity traders so it could execute the first sale quickly, and that future sales would be open to other traders and refiners.
Reuters reported on Jan. 27 that the United States intended to open up licenses to other traders.
Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela's interim president, has proposed legal reforms that would increase foreign companies' access to the country's oil reserves.
At a Jan. 9 meeting at the White House, Trump tried to entice oil executives to invest in Venezuela's rich reserves — more than 300 billion barrels of oil.
After ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods expressed hesitancy to send the company back into Venezuela because the company's assets had been seized by the government in the past, Trump said he was "inclined" to keep the company out because they were "playing too cute."
The Trump administration has also stalled in lifting sanctions on Venezuela and indicated it would continue to seize oil tankers in the Caribbean that are attempting to carry Venezuelan oil to U.S. adversaries, such as Iran and China.
Venezuela's interim president pushes oil opening
Trump has heaped praise on Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's second-in-command, who took the helm in the wake of Maduro's capture, as she presses forward with legal reforms that would give foreign companies greater access to Venezuela's oil reserves.
"We have a great relationship with the new president," Trump told The New York Post on Jan. 24. "She’s been terrific."
In recent days, Rodríguez has struck an increasingly combative tone towards U.S. interference in her country. "Enough already of Washington’s orders to politicians in Venezuela," she told a group of oil workers on Jan. 25.
But in the backdrop, Rodríguez appears to be acquiescing to Trump's designs on Venezuela's oil.
In his remarks prepared for the hearing, Rubio says Rodriguez "has committed to opening Venezuela’s energy sector to American companies, providing preferential access to production, and using revenues to purchase American goods."
Earlier this month, Rodriguez introduced a massive overhaul of Venezuela's law governing its oil reserves, which would allow private companies to take charge of oil projects and remove requirements for government approval of oil contracts.
"It is a major concession by the government," said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University's Baker Institute.
Many of the included reforms were already de facto in effect on a case-by-case basis, Monaldi said, but codifying them into law had been on the private sector's wish list for years.
A view of the installations at the Puerto La Cruz oil refinery of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
"What they have been asking for for the last 10 years, they all got in one day," he said.
As the oil sales move forward, Trump has rebuffed attempts by María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela's opposition, to take over the country with the administration's backing. During a visit with Trump earlier this month, Machado presented Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize that she was awarded.
Machado's party claimed victory in the 2024 presidential election, and international election observers determined the party solidly won. Maduro refused to relinquish control. Trump has said elections would be held "at the right time" in Venezuela, without elaborating on when that might be.
For now, Venezuela's government is readily complying with other Trump administration demands, among them, accepting increased migrant deportation flights and releasing political prisoners. Since Maduro's ouster, Venezuela has allowed an increase in migrant deportation flights at the United States' request, The New York Times reported last week — though these flights also continued under Maduro's regime.
Venezuela also released roughly 270 prisoners since Jan. 8, according to opposition-aligned human rights groups, though hundreds remain imprisoned.
To Rodriguez of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, this all raises a question.
"Does the U.S. eventually want Venezuela to transition to being a democracy or is it content with having a dictatorship with which it can cut an oil deal?" he asked.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's $2 billion Venezuela oil deal sparks corruption concerns
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