Republicans left a closed-door briefing on President Donald Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal this week frustrated with the level of detail provided and with learning it won’t do much — if anything — for gas prices before the November elections, according to people in the room.
Republicans have publicly praised Trump’s deal with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez, but behind closed doors have cast doubt on the administration’s actions — so much so that Republicans, with Democrats, privately requested the State Department brief the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as The Washington Sun first reported.
Trump said in August the Venezuelan government would give the U.S. control of at least 65 billion barrels of oil. But little is known about the specifics, and State Department officials failed to clearly break them down in the Monday meeting, the sources said.
“The frustrating thing is there weren’t a whole lot of answers,” said one House Republican who attended the briefing and was granted anonymity to speak frankly.
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Juan Pablo Segura, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Jeremy Lewin, State’s director of policy planning, briefed the committee Monday, when the House returned for its last week in session before the midterms, according to two sources who were in the room.
They said Rep. Jim Baird (R-Indiana) asked the two officials whether Venezuelan oil would be available to farmers, who are facing record-high diesel prices of $6.28 per gallon on average.
One source said Segura and Lewin both responded that Venezuelan oil is “not going to hit U.S. markets anytime soon.”
“The president and others are selling this as, ‘We’re taking this oil and it’s going to lower prices,’ and that was not what they told us,” the source said.
Baird, who confirmed he asked the question, told The Sun his understanding from the briefing was that oil would potentially be available in November. “I hope that’s true,” he said.
Asked if Segura and Lewin backed the November estimate with any assurances, Baird said, “I don’t think anybody could be assured.”
Rising gas prices have become a political liability for Republicans, and with the elections on Nov. 3, that timeline wouldn’t be fast enough for Venezuelan oil to have a significant impact at the pump. With the House set to leave this week until after the midterms, lawmakers who go home to campaign will have to continue facing questions from voters about gas prices.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida), who was in attendance, told The Sun that Segura and Lewin told lawmakers that Venezuela’s oil is very heavy and requires specialized refineries to process it into gas and diesel. Since that process takes a while, Salazar said the two officials said the U.S. would “swap the heavy oil for the lighter oil” that would then hit the U.S. market.
Salazar said lawmakers did not ask what lighter oil the U.S. would be swapping and where it would be coming from.
She did not address whether gas prices would drop before the elections, but suggested the intent was positive: “I think the spirit of this deal is to help the American people to have large reserves of oil and natural gas at our disposal.”
In a statement to The Sun, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said, “While we do not opine on the specifics of what are discussed in briefings, it was emphasized several times that at cost oil under the agreement will begin flowing in November, with volumes to increase as U.S. led investment rehabilitates the Venezuelan energy sector and output grows.”
Pigott also downplayed concerns about gas prices: “As we have stated repeatedly, this deal will have enormous short and long-term benefits for Americans and Venezuelans. Thank God we have a president who can both lower gas prices now and lower gas prices for our children and children’s children through an unprecedented oil deal.”
A White House official told The Sun that “by the end of November, there will be at-cost oil flowing to the market to help bring down gas prices for the American people. It will rapidly scale over the next year.” The official added that “as soon as early next year, material production will be coming to the United States.”
During the briefing, both Republicans and Democrats expected Segura and Lewin to present committee members with materials breaking down the deal itself, but none were forthcoming, the two sources in the room said.
Information also has not been provided in public settings. In a Tuesday hearing, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, pushed to subpoena the Trump administration for records regarding the agreement, which is technically between the U.S. and North American Blue Energy Partners, a company led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. The arrangement with Betancourt, which was facilitated by the Venezuelan government, has been heavily criticized because of Betancourt’s past work with the former regime of President Hugo Chávez.
“We’re not meeting our most basic oversight responsibility if we don’t have relevant information in front of us,” Castro said.
He added that he and Salazar, the subcommittee chair, “repeatedly” asked Segura and Lewin about the Venezuelan oil and how funds are being spent and received by the U.S., but they received no information.
Ultimately, Republicans on the subcommittee blocked the subpoena efforts. Salazar told The Sun she spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the hearing and he told her Betancourt’s company was only formed on Aug. 28 and that any document on the deal would be available a month after the formation.
“I understand that Betancourt is a bad actor and that he has had some investigations in the United States and in other countries, but let’s see what type of business deal we’ve put together,” Salazar said.
Beyond questions around the oil, Republicans have privately worried that the more the Trump administration works with the Rodríguez government, the lower the chances are of elections taking place in Venezuela, where the Rodríguez government is composed of allies of captured former President Nicolás Maduro. Trump appears to be in no rush to push for elections — he told reporters this month, after announcing the Venezuelan oil plan, that “I don’t think” the country is “ready yet” for elections.
This story has been updated to include White House comment.
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