Well, at least Venezuela “worked.”

Donald Trump says he’s successfully concluded “the biggest oil deal in the history of the world” with Chavista revolutionary-turned-viceroy Delcy Rodríguez. He’s surely not exaggerating. Trump doesn’t do embellishment.

The arrangement — which was preceded by days of speculative press coverage in the financial media — hands the US a majority stake in a privately-owned venture that’ll control 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven reserves. Rodríguez is allowing Trump to claim 55% of the JV’s output, which’ll be available to America at no premium to the cost of production.

“This historic transaction more than doubles American oil reserves, greatly increases our oil supply, and will substantially lower gas prices for all Americans, long into the future,” Trump declared.

There are innumerable caveats. US gas prices aren’t going to drop next week solely because of this deal, for example. Also, the cost of production in Venezuela’s very high. Orinoco crude’s basically sludge; we’re talking about refrigerated peanut butter here, not Malaysian Tapis.

Logistically, the saving grace is that many American refineries were purpose-built to turn a profit from heavy, sour barrels. So, if Trump’s new company — which, on paper anyway, will trail only Aramco in terms of proved reserves — can get the oil out of the ground and to the Gulf Coast, this would indeed be a historic boon to American energy “independence.” The scare quotes are there to acknowledge the perversity inherent in a nation securing its own sovereignty by denying it to another.

Needless to say, turning this venture’s grandiose vision into reality will require a helluva lot of money. But it’ll also require expertise, which means Trump will almost surely need Chevron and Exxon, who’ve so far been reluctant to go all-in on Venezuela fearing, among other things, a repeat of nationalizations past. Trump may be able to provide (or provide for) the necessary capital, but he’ll be hard pressed to convince jaded US supermajors that the political environment will remain stable enough for long enough to make this worth the trouble.

Consider that Delcy’s the furthest thing from a democratically-elected leader. She struck a Faustian bargain with Trump to run the country following the US special forces operation that captured Nicolas Maduro in January. In the eyes of some, that makes her something worse than a dictator. Here’s the daughter of a Marxist martyr selling Chavez’s revolution down the river. Figuratively at first. Now literally.

That’s just one more reason for locals to want this regime, all of it this time, gone. They might’ve despised Maduro, but I have to think national pride’s a factor. At least Maduro and Chavez were their dictators. Delcy’s a sellout and a puppet. Unless and until the local economy improves enough that everyday people are materially better off, her acquiescence to a neocolonial relationship with America is just insult to long-running injury.

Delcy said Saturday the deal with Trump will vastly improve her country’s economic lot, but let’s not kid ourselves: There’s going to be a skim here. And she’ll be in on it, along with her brother and the rest of the gang, including Diosdado Cabello who, in a testament to how truly unserious the Trump administration is about promoting democracy in Venezuela, remains not just among the living, but among the most powerful people in the country. He’s certainly the most feared man in Venezuela.

As Todd Robinson, a retired US diplomat who served as Chargé d’Affaires in Caracas, put it in remarks to ProPublica last month, “It’s just a horrible, horrible idea to leave [Cabello] in place.” “I don’t know what their aim is in doing that,” he added. “Unless it really is about oil, not democratic transition.”

Spoiler alert, Todd: It was always about oil, never about democracy. And some Venezuelans are doubtlessly concerned this weekend that the oil venture with Trump, whatever revenue it generates for Venezuela, means the White House (or this White House, anyway) will be loath to countenance a free and fair election that might result in Delcy’s ouster. In other words: The end game for Trump in Venezuela ironically may be the preservation of the Maduro regime, just sans Maduro.

Late Friday, Bloomberg said the Pentagon was working directly with Alejandro Betancourt, the original bolichico, on a joint venture for “a major stake in Venezuelan oil reserves.” The arrangement announced by Trump, and confirmed by Delcy, sounds a lot like that rumored deal.

If you’re unfamiliar, Betancourt was the subject of what it’s fair to call an unflattering 2021 Reuters special report which noted that opposition leaders in Venezuela considered him “a prime example” of “well-connected dealmakers” who made “billions” on government contracts, only to “move the money abroad, worsen[ing] the country’s economic woes.”

One of Betancourt’s companies was accused in a 2014 Florida lawsuit of paying bribes to high-ranking Venezuelan government officials as part of an overbilling scheme. According to contemporaneous reporting by The Miami Herald‘s Spanish-language sister publication, documents filed in conjunction with the case said “one or more former employees” had confirmed that those bribes “includ[ed] a $50 million payment to Cabello.” Similarly, Agencia EFE cited “a source close to the plaintiff” in reporting that Cabello was implicated in the payouts. Attorneys for the defendants called the allegations, which were never proven in court, “completely false.”

On Thursday, The Washington Post described a months-long effort on the part of senior US officials to resolve a foreign criminal case against Betancourt “in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions.” Betancourt — who was investigated, but never charged, in connection with what the Justice Department in 2018 alleged was a “billion-dollar international scheme to launder funds embezzled” from PDVSA — is now “a key intermediary between the US and Rodríguez,” WaPo said, noting that the Trump administration “began lobbying Swiss officials to resolve their case against Betancourt” in the weeks following the raid that captured Maduro.

Bloomberg’s Friday reporting said the Department of Defense worked directly with Betancourt in recent weeks and months on the parameters of a deal “focused on as many as 17 oil fields span[ning] Venezuela’s main petroleum basins.” The article euphemistically described Betancourt as “a controversial energy investor.” Just a day earlier, reports suggested Delcy may be drawing up plans to exit OPEC.

In his TruthSocial post announcing the oil joint venture, Trump said the deal will “set Venezuela on a course toward tremendous success and great prosperity.” He signed off as usual, thanking everyone for their “attention to this matter.” Trump might’ve included, “You’re welcome, Venezuela.”