Raw crude oil usually costs between $70 and $90 per barrel. The Venezuelan government announced that the deal with the Trump Administration for large volumes of Venezuela’s oil over a long period would “eventually” bring the country $19/barrel. Trump, for his part, has been bragging on social media that the “deal” cost U.S. taxpayers not a thing.
In fact, neither claim is true, because the United States is acquiring all that hypothetical oil supply, not from Venezuela, but from a company lately located in Florida—in a deal struck with a country invaded by the U.S. military, whose President was kidnapped and spirited off to face trial in the United States, and which is currently operating with a gun to its head.
CBS News reported only today that the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC, that slush fund again!) bought a 35% interest in North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), majority owned by Venezuelan Alejandro Betancourt, who has what could be called a checkered past as an oil baron and speculator. NABEP already produces some crude oil, but, the Trump Administration obviously believes, will produce much, much more in future for Betancourt’s American friends. Betancourt is claimed to have ties to the Venezuelan government of Delcy Rodríguez and allegedly acted as a go-between with Trump’s pal, head of the IADB, Mauricio Claver-Carone, before Maduro’s “removal” as president. In that same pre-removal period, Betancourt had acquired a share of NABEP from Florida trader Harry Sargeant III, supposedly a friend of Maduro.
