Trump Set to End Venezuela Oil Deal, Citing Election Record and Slow Deportation Assistance

An oil platform built by Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA, in Orinoco, Venezuela, in a file photo. RAMON SAHMKOW/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump is preparing to cancel a 2022 sanctions relief agreement with Venezuela, citing the country’s election conditions and insufficient efforts to repatriate its citizens from the United States.

On Nov. 26, 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) issued a license authorizing the U.S. multinational oil and gas company Chevron Corp. to pursue business ventures in Venezuela.

President Joe Biden’s administration had offered the license agreement as Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro held talks with his political opposition to hold a free and fair election in 2024.

Trump said the reversal was necessary because of “electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime,” he announced in a post on his Truth Social platform on Feb. 26.

During Trump’s first term in office, the United States officially rejected Venezuela’s 2018 election results in which Maduro was declared the winner.

The first Trump administration went on to back opposition leader Juan Guaido, declaring him the rightful leader of the Latin American country.

While the Biden administration had agreed to ease sanctions on Venezuela in 2022 on signs of improvements in the country’s electoral process, his administration again contested Maduro’s claims of victory in the 2024 presidential election and instead declared his main opponent, Edmundo González, the rightful winner.

Following the initial 2022 licensing decision, the Biden administration had allowed some additional sanctions relief for Venezuela.

The Biden administration began to reapply sanctions last April, amid concerns the Maduro government was not living up to its commitments for Venezuela’s 2024 elections.

However, Biden had left the Chevron license intact, along with U.S. authorizations granted to several other foreign oil companies.

Trump cited further misgivings about Venezuela’s cooperation on immigration matters as justification for reversing the 2022 licensing agreement.

On Feb. 1, Trump announced Venezuela had agreed to repatriate all of the Venezuelan illegal immigrants who have been detained in the United States, and would provide the transportation.

By Feb. 10, the White House confirmed Venezuela had dispatched two planes to retrieve 190 Venezuelan deportees from the United States.

According to Trump, the Maduro government’s efforts to collect Venezuelan deportees have still fallen short.

In a Feb. 26 social media post, Trump wrote that “the regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that they sent into our Country [the Good Ole’ U.S.A.] back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to.”

“I am therefore ordering that the ineffective and unmet Biden ‘Concession Agreement’ be terminated as of the March 1 option to renew,” Trump added.

The Biden administration’s 2022 licensing decision came as Biden had sought to bolster the fossil fuel supply to the United States and stabilize prices.

On his first day in office, Trump indicated the United States would likely stop importing Venezuelan oil and resume sanctions.

“We don’t have to buy their oil; we have plenty of oil for ourselves.”

Reuters contributed to this report.