House Republicans walked out of a closed-door State Department briefing this week visibly frustrated, learning that President Trump’s celebrated Venezuelan oil deal likely won’t move the needle on gas prices before voters head to the polls in November.
Assistant Secretary of State Juan Pablo Segura and policy planning director Jeremy Lewin addressed the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday, just as lawmakers began their final stretch of work before breaking to campaign for the midterms, The Washington Sun reported.
Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN) pressed the officials on whether the deal would help farmers currently paying record diesel prices near $6.28 a gallon. According to a source in the room, both officials indicated Venezuelan crude wouldn’t reach American markets anytime soon, directly contradicting the administration’s public framing.
“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 told the paper he came away believing oil might become available by November but couldn’t say the briefers offered any real guarantee. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) relayed a more technical explanation: because Venezuelan crude is a dense, heavier grade that ordinary refineries can’t easily process, the administration’s plan is to trade it abroad for a lighter type of oil that would then be the product actually sold at U.S. pumps, though lawmakers never learned where that substitute oil would come from.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott insisted discounted oil under the agreement will start flowing in November and expand from there, while a White House official promised meaningful production reaching the U.S. by early next year. Neither briefer, however, provided lawmakers with written materials breaking down deal specifics, according to two sources present.
The information gap extended beyond the briefing room. At a separate Tuesday hearing, Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-TX) pushed to subpoena the administration for records on the arrangement, which technically runs through a company tied to Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, a figure with past connections to the earlier Hugo Chávez regime. Republicans on the subcommittee ultimately blocked the subpoena effort.
Some Republicans have also privately worried that deepening cooperation with Venezuela’s Rodríguez government, staffed by allies of ousted leader Nicolás Maduro, only reduces the odds of the country holding real elections, a concern Trump himself hasn’t rushed to address, telling reporters this month he doesn’t believe Venezuela is ready for a vote.
Meanwhile, the administration has pushed for lucrative deals in Venezuela, but can’t answer basic questions to Congress about where the money is going.
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