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The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on Sunday delivered a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump’s sweeping new oil agreement with Venezuela, comparing the arrangement to a scene from “The Godfather Part II” and questioning its legality, economics, and political durability.
The criticism adds to a growing bipartisan backlash against the deal, with Republicans, Democrats, and Venezuela’s democratic opposition warning that Washington may be helping interim President Delcy Rodríguez remain in power while sidelining demands for free elections.
Trump announced the agreement Friday, calling it the “BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY” and saying access to some 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude would more than double American oil reserves, help lower gasoline prices and allow Washington to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Rodríguez says the arrangement will run for 25 years and cover 17 strategic oilfields, with production eventually exceeding 1.5 million barrels a day.
But the Journal editorial, headlined “Trump Takes the Oil in Venezuela,” portrayed the deal as anything but conventional, calling it an example of the administration’s “crony statism.”
It said the arrangement looks less like “a normal commercial transaction” than the famous scene in “The Godfather Part II” in which American businessmen meet with Cuba’s dictator as they seek access to the island’s economy.
Among the Journal’s biggest concerns is the unusual role being assigned to the Pentagon.
According to the editorial, the U.S. would acquire a 35% interest in North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company run by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, who has close ties to Rodríguez.
Now the U.S.’ lead partner, Betancourt’s background has raised significant questions.
The Washington Post reported he has faced investigations in Switzerland, Spain, and the United States over alleged money laundering, although he has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged in any of those countries. He was arrested twice in Britain in 2025 in connection with European warrants.
Under the new deal, Washington would also receive preferential rights to buy 20% of production at cost.
Rather than committing taxpayer cash, the Pentagon reportedly would structure the investment through warrants giving the government its equity interest.
“The legal authority for this is far from clear,” the Journal said, questioning why the War Department should be investing in a foreign oil venture at all when it already faces enormous challenges modernizing weapons systems and fixing procurement.
The newspaper also questioned who will actually put up the billions of dollars necessary to rehabilitate Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry.
That may prove to be the deal’s Achilles’ heel.
Trump has been encouraging American energy companies to return to Venezuela since U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro in January.
But major producers remain wary because of Venezuela’s history of expropriation, a weak rule of law, and uncertain investment protections.
Chevron remains a major U.S. operator in Venezuela, but ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods earlier called the country “uninvestable” without significant legal reforms and durable protections. Exxon and ConocoPhillips have so far stayed on the sidelines of the new initiative.
That reluctance raises a larger problem: Can an oil agreement requiring decades and enormous capital commitments survive either the administrations of Trump or Rodríguez?
Harvard economist and former Venezuelan planning minister Ricardo Hausmann says no.
“Venezuelans will not respect this illegitimate deal and no major U.S. oil company will take it seriously because they know it will not last,” Hausmann said, arguing Rodríguez lacks the constitutional authority to commit the country to such an arrangement.
The political backlash has been strikingly bipartisan.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., supports shifting Venezuelan oil away from China and toward American companies but insists Rodríguez and remnants of Maduro’s government “cannot be Venezuela’s future.”
That goes to the heart of the Journal’s criticism: Trump may have negotiated access to an enormous quantity of oil on paper, but without political legitimacy and legal certainty, private companies may refuse to risk the capital needed to get it out of the ground.
“The U.S. government is essentially getting in bed with a foreign dictator and her favored capitalist,” the Journal claimed, noting the deal has little support in Venezuela from either the left or the right.
“The democratic opposition views the deal as the act of an illegitimate president who has no right to turn over national resources to a business pal and a foreign government,” the Journal said, noting the deal makes it “less likely” that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the architect of the agreement, “will press for new elections.”
The Journal concluded with another “Godfather” warning: The Cuban dictator who welcomed American businessmen and their money ultimately did not remain in power.
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