Maduro offered Venezuelan oil and minerals to the US to avoid armed conflict

Venezuelan officials, hoping to end their country’s conflict with the United States, offered the Trump administration a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil and mineral wealth in discussions that lasted months, according to several people close to the negotiations.

The sweeping offer remained on the table as the Trump administration called President Nicolás Maduro’s government a “narco-terrorist cartel,” built up warships in the Caribbean and began blowing up boats that U.S. officials said were transporting drugs from Venezuela.

Under an agreement discussed between a senior U.S. official and Maduro’s top aides, the Venezuelan leader offered to open all current and future oil and gold projects to American companies, grant preferential contracts to U.S. businesses, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and cut energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian companies.

The Trump administration ended up rejecting Maduro’s economic concessions and cut off diplomacy with Venezuela last week. The move effectively killed the deal, at least for now, people close to the discussions said.

Although the U.S. has targeted what it calls drug boats, the curtailment of diplomacy, the military buildup near Venezuela and increasingly harsh threats against Maduro by Trump administration officials have led many in both countries to think that the Trump administration’s true goal is Maduro’s removal.

Marco Rubio, US secretary of state and national security adviser, has been a leading voice in the push to oust Maduro. He has called Maduro an illegitimate leader, a “fugitive from American justice,” and has been skeptical of the diplomatic approach led by U.S. special envoy Richard Grenell.

Advocates of diplomacy acknowledge that Rubio’s hard line has prevailed for now. But they believe their efforts could eventually bear fruit, pointing to President Donald Trump’s sudden U-turns on other major foreign policy issues, such as the war in Ukraine, trade with China or Iran’s nuclear program.

This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen American and Venezuelan representatives from different factions who advocate diplomacy with Maduro. They described their discussions on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Publicly, the Venezuelan government has responded to Trump’s military buildup with defiance and promises to defend what it calls the socialist revolution started in the 1990s by Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez. At the same time, Maduro said he remains open to negotiations and his government continues to accept US deportation flights.

Behind the scenes, however, senior Venezuelan officials, with Maduro’s blessing, offered Washington sweeping concessions that would essentially eliminate the vestiges of resource nationalism at the heart of Chávez’s movement.

While Grenell and Venezuelan officials made progress on economic issues, they were unable to agree on Maduro’s political future, according to people close to the negotiations. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said in an interview last month that Maduro would not negotiate his departure.

Maduro has repeatedly suppressed democratic challenges to his rule since assuming the presidency in 2013. He clung to power last year after losing a presidential election, rigging the results and brutally repressing protests.

Grenell declined to comment for this article. The State Department, White House and Venezuelan government did not respond to requests for comment.

In Washington, American officials offer divergent assessments of the negotiations. A U.S. official said reports about negotiations to lift sanctions and access to the Venezuelan market “do not accurately reflect what occurred.”

But other U.S. officials said U.S. and Venezuelan representatives have held repeated talks about what economic normalization would look like, including giving U.S. companies access to Venezuelan energy markets and lifting U.S. sanctions.

While Grenell and Maduro’s envoys negotiated a deal, the leader of Venezuela’s main opposition movement, María Corina Machado, presented her own economic proposal in New York.

She argued that even greater economic wealth — $1.7 trillion over 15 years — awaited American companies in Venezuela if her movement launched a political transition. (Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee described as “his tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people.”)

Machado’s economic advisor, Sary Levy, said that the investment deals offered by Maduro would never come to fruition without democracy, the rule of law and individual freedoms.

“What Maduro offers investors is not stability, it is control — control maintained by terror,” Levy said. “The Trump administration has shown a clear intention not to fall for these offers of easy solutions.”

Venezuela currently produces around 1 million barrels of oil per day, compared to around 3 million when Chávez took power. Most of Venezuela’s oil exports go to China, except for about 100,000 barrels a day that American giant Chevron sells to the US. Most experts agree that Venezuela could quickly increase oil production with a large infusion of foreign capital, although there is disagreement over whether this is feasible under the current government.

“Our message to the oil companies is: We want you here, certainly,” Machado told American corporate representatives in June. “We want you here not producing crumbs of a few hundred thousand barrels a day. We want you here producing millions of barrels a day.”

Machado declined to comment for this article.

Maduro’s economic rapprochement with the US also extended to the private sector, in an attempt to strengthen his position in Washington.

Venezuela’s state oil company gave Chevron, the largest American company operating in the country, full control of its joint oil projects, and the two entities discussed giving Chevron a stake in another major oil field.

Venezuelan officials have worked to repair relations with another American oil giant, ConocoPhillips, which left Venezuela in 2007 after the government seized its operations. The Maduro government and Conoco negotiated an oil trading agreement until this year, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Chevron stated that its business in Venezuela complies with all applicable Venezuelan and U.S. laws. Conoco did not respond to a request for comment.

Proponents of economic engagement with Maduro achieved small victories.

Chevron had its US Treasury license to operate in Venezuela reinstated in July, according to the Venezuelan government. The company managed to overturn the ban imposed by Trump months earlier after a strong lobbying campaign in Washington, according to people familiar with the deal.

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department issued another license that, in effect, allows Shell, Europe’s largest energy company, to restart work in Venezuela. Under a new permit, Shell could begin producing gas from a huge Venezuelan offshore field as early as next year, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Gas from the field, known as Dragon, will be processed and sold from neighboring Trinidad.

Shell directed questions to the license holder, the government of Trinidad and Tobago, whose officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Rubio said last month that the US would guarantee that the Dragon project “would not bring significant benefits to the Maduro regime.”

Maduro approved a clause that would make Shell invest in social projects in Venezuela instead of paying his government. For the Maduro government, the main benefit is to show that Venezuela remains open for business.

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