According to Axios, U.S. officials defended an agreement between the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital and Alejandro Betancourt's North American Blue Energy Partners. The deal grants the U.S. a 35% equity stake and preferential access to output from 17 major Venezuelan oil fields, including the right to purchase 20% of production at cost after Venezuelan taxes.
This isn't just energy procurement. The U.S. officials defend the Venezuelan oil deal as a way to secure direct influence over supply itself, not merely buy barrels on the open market. It signals Washington views future energy scarcity as a real risk and is willing to absorb political blowback by partnering with a figure tied to Venezuela's contested power structure.
The Biden-era rhetoric about values has been replaced by the arithmetic of barrels and leverage. If the White House thinks the reputational cost is worth it, that's a bet on two things: that energy tightness is coming, and that state-backed equity stakes in foreign oil fields are how you hedge it. Betancourt becomes the vehicle because he has the access. The U.S. officials defend the controversial Venezuelan oil deal not on principle but on necessity.
Filed to the Politics desk · Sep 1