Alejandro Betancourt, a 46-year-old Venezuelan energy baron, is the key figure in a historic oil deal with the Trump administration. Venezuelan opposition leaders and U.S. congressional Democrats have criticized the agreement because Betancourt has been the target of investigations of alleged corruption.
Antonio Heredia/El Mundo
The Secret Terms of Trump’s Venezuelan Oil Deal
by Cate Brown , Aaron C. Davis and Sebastian Rotella
October 20, 2026, 9:53 pm
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Reporting Highlights
Corporate Firewall: The oil deal is designed to prevent future U.S. presidents and Venezuelan leaders from changing or dismantling the enterprise.
Hidden Investors: Some of the Trump administration’s partners could remain anonymous, hidden behind a parent company based in Barbados.
The Long Run : It could be many years before the company produces enough oil to be a statistically significant share for the United States.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
In late August, President Donald Trump announced what he called the “biggest oil deal in world history.” Since then, the full text of the accord — which grants the U.S. sweeping access to Venezuela’s oil reserves — has been one of the most sought-after secrets in Washington, D.C.
ProPublica has reviewed a copy of the 18-page strategic partnership agreement signed for the United States by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The document reveals carefully constructed terms that favor U.S. interests at every turn and cements the power of a small group of people handpicked by the Trump administration to govern and profit from the deal. The role of the Venezuelan government and the potential benefits to its people are largely absent from the text.
One of the most criticized aspects of Trump’s announcement has been his choice of a partner: Alejandro Betancourt, a globe-trotting Venezuelan oligarch who has faced money-laundering investigations in three countries.
The Trump administration is taking a 35% stake in Betancourt’s firm, North American Blue Energy Partners, by acquiring shares in a Barbados-registered parent company. The deal document provides little information about the owners and investors behind the parent company, who could receive enormous wealth from the arrangement.
The agreement also safeguards Betancourt’s position as chief executive of NABEP and says the U.S. government will work with the parent company to appoint a powerful seven-member board to govern the venture for an initial 15-year term. Those aspects of the deal, according to people with knowledge of how it came together, were designed to prevent future U.S. and Venezuelan leaders from dismantling the enterprise.
Orlando Alvarado, a name not disclosed by the Trump administration as a party to the accord, signed the agreement on behalf of the parent company, alongside Betancourt, Hegseth and Rubio. Alvarado has held senior roles in multiple Betancourt businesses, including as chief financial officer of an energy firm that became embroiled in scandals a decade ago. According to the Miami Herald , federal prosecutors identified Alvarado as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to embezzle money from Venezuela’s national oil company.
NABEP spokesperson Terry Wade said that “neither Mr. Betancourt nor Mr. Alvarado has ever been charged with any crime in any country, and any claims against them are baseless.”
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Key aspects of the plan differ from the Trump administration’s public pronouncements. Trump has said the deal will secure America’s energy dominance for the next century. But the text indicates that U.S. purchasing rights expire in half that time and that the underlying operating rights appear to run afoul of Venezuelan laws limiting oil concessions to 25 years.
The agreement does ensure the United States a deep discount from fair-market value on 20% of NABEP’s oil, as Trump has said. It does not, however, explicitly guarantee that Betancourt’s company is obligated to pay the estimated $200 billion in royalties and tax payments to Venezuela that the White House has said would benefit the country .
There are also significant caveats related to Trump’s central selling point to Americans — that the deal will bring a gusher of low-cost oil imports.
The agreement gives the U.S. the right to purchase 20% of NABEP’s oil at a discounted rate of $30 a barrel, or less than a third of what oil has sold for in recent months, according to one of three supporting documents reviewed by ProPublica.
But this fee does not account for the cost of getting Venezuela’s oil out of the country. Much of Venezuela’s raw crude is so thick that it won’t flow through pipelines unless it is first blended with 20% or more of oil thinner products. Under the deal, the potentially significant cost of importing millions of barrels of those blending materials is not included in the price.
The White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and the energy company NABEP all defended the agreement, saying in statements that their new public-private venture will provide meaningful and lasting economic benefits to both countries that cannot be captured in a legal document.
“This historic deal marks a major step toward stabilizing Venezuela’s economy after years of hyperinflation and almost no new investment, while more than doubling the United States’ oil reserves,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
Wade emphasized that NABEP was chosen because of its track record of expanding oil production in Venezuela in recent years and that the agreement was between the company and the U.S. government, not Venezuela.
“Thanks in large part to the agreement,” Wade said, “there is a surge in confidence about the future of Venezuela’s oil industry and, as a direct result, substantial new investments are flowing into the country.”
He added that much of NABEP’s oil comes from fields that require little or no blending materials and that blending costs would not meaningfully impact the price of production. “Our barrel economics are strong.”
The newly revealed details of the agreement are nonetheless likely to raise more questions about whether the unorthodox marriage of the United States and a foreign energy baron can bring lasting benefits to either country — and which private parties might benefit along the way. Trump’s oil deal is likely to face scrutiny in both the United States and Venezuela, especially if Democrats win one or both chambers in the midterm elections, according to former U.S. diplomats and congressional staff.
“Question number one in a new U.S. Congress will be: Why Betancourt?” said former Ambassador James Story, who served as the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas from 2018 to 2023, in an interview. “Why did he get this deal? And was he involved in criminality? It seems reasonable to have a congressional hearing about those questions.”
“Question number one in a new U.S. Congress will be: Why Betancourt?”
James Story, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela
In public comments, Delcy Rodríguez, who won the backing of the Trump administration to serve as Venezuela’s interim president, praised the accord as “historic.” She has asserted that Venezuela will retain sovereignty over its natural resources and defended the choice of Betancourt.
People with knowledge of the Trump administration’s behind-the-scenes decision-making and negotiations with Betancourt spoke to ProPublica on condition of anonymity because they were either not authorized to do so or were fearful of retribution.
One reason that the precise terms of the deal have remained hidden until now is that the signed agreement is marked as a “sensitive” government document. That classification is commonly used to shield a variety of federal records from public release, including those containing personnel information, details about ongoing law enforcement operations and matters protected by attorney-client privilege. The document also contains a confidentiality clause barring Betancourt’s company from disclosing the “existence and terms” of the U.S. government agreement.
One person familiar with the deliberations said that people close to the Trump administration seemed keen to partner with Betancourt’s company because of the privacy and flexibility it offered. That appeared to give NABEP an advantage over publicly traded oil companies, which would be obligated to shareholder reporting requirements.
“For example,” the person said, “Chevron couldn’t give 35% of their shares to the Pentagon.”
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, center, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, left, and Venezuela’s minister of petroleum and hydrocarbons, Paula Henao, right, attend the signing of an oil agreement at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas in September. Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images
The Deal
The oil deal is sensitive partly because of likely resistance in Venezuela, where critics have already described it as a U.S. takeover of the country’s precious natural resources.
A ProPublica analysis shows that its terms favor American interests at nearly every turn and try to enshrine the Trump administration’s imprint indefinitely.
The document states that a majority of the seven-member board must be U.S. citizens at all times, and the U.S. government can appoint one “non-voting observer” to join the group. Betancourt, who will serve as the chief executive, is the only board member named by the agreement. The initial board will establish the process for choosing new members.
“Throughout the evolution of the deal, it was clear that the governing structure was intended to ensure maximum control by the people making the deal and to insulate them from future administrations seeking to reverse the agreement or call it into question,” a person familiar with the negotiations said.
There is no requirement for any Venezuelan government participation in the board.
The agreement also offers long-lasting protections for Betancourt and unnamed investors. It requires a supermajority vote of five to oust Betancourt as CEO, change the board composition or execute any transactions with a shareholder that isn’t the U.S. government, an indirect equity holder, director, affiliate or “immediate family members.”
The board will determine compensation for Betancourt in his role as chief executive, the document says. As structured, the deal does not appear to require any public disclosures about pay or distribution of shares to executives.
The agreement does not say which shareholders, affiliates or family members have been approved to transact with Betancourt’s company. Under Barbados corporate law, there is almost nothing that can force those interests to be revealed publicly.
The agreement does, however, require the company to maintain “anti-money laundering controls,” submit to external audits and inspections of its records by the U.S. government, and provide the U.S. government with an annual budget and quarterly unaudited financial statements. It is unclear if these reports will ever be made public.
It could be some time before the company produces enough oil to fulfill a significant share of U.S. demand. Betancourt’s company currently produces about 200,000 barrels per day — or about as much over the course of a year as the United States uses in three days.
NABEP aims to increase its production to 500,000 barrels per day by the