On August 28, 2026, the Trump administration announced an oil deal with Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Nicolás Maduro's vice president. Under the terms the White House released, Venezuela handed 100-year drilling rights on 17 oil fields — about 65 billion barrels — to a private company called North American Blue Energy Partners. The U.S. Defense Department gets a 35% stake in that company.

Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents Miami, first reacted with a post on X that she later deleted. In it, she wrote that "Venezuela's acting dictator is just buying time" and that "the regime has stolen American investments before, and it will do it again the moment it can." We wrote about that post and how fast it disappeared.

Two and a half weeks later, she had a chance to find out what was actually in the deal. She voted not to.

What happened in her subcommittee

Salazar is the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. On Tuesday, September 15, it held a hearing on Nicaragua.

Near the end, the subcommittee's top Democrat, Joaquin Castro of Texas, moved to issue subpoenas. His written motion asked for the text of the agreement between the United States and North American Blue Energy Partners, and the agreement between that company and Rodríguez, by Tuesday, September 22. It said the administration "has provided no information" about what the U.S. relationship with Venezuela looks like after Maduro.

The official committee vote record shows how it went:

• Yes: all six Democrats on the list.
• No: six Republicans — and the first name on the list is Chairwoman Salazar.
• Not voting: two other Republicans on the panel.

Six to six. A tie fails, so the subpoenas died. Had Salazar voted yes instead, the count would have been 7 to 5.

"For nine months, we haven't received any information about funds regarding Venezuela or how oil money is being made or spent," Castro told Florida Politics after the hearing. He said the State Department had sent someone over for the first time only the day before, for an informal briefing that "wasn't even a hearing."

Her reasons

Salazar did not just vote. At the hearing, she called an extended recess so she could phone Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "He is my constituent, and he's Cuban American just like I am," she said.

She offered Castro a joint letter to Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, asking for an audit of the oil business and an explanation of where the money is going. And she argued that it was too soon to demand the documents:

"The deal was announced on August 28. It has not even been three weeks. It has to be 30 days before that document, that business arrangement can be revealed."

After the vote, Florida Politics reported, she declined to discuss the disagreement.

Castro's motion asked for the agreements themselves, by a set date. Salazar offered a letter asking the administration to explain, and voted down the demand for the documents.

Who the deal is with

This is not a routine contract. North American Blue Energy Partners is run by Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt. According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists:

• He is "under investigation in Spain and Switzerland on suspicion of laundering billions of dollars out of Venezuela."
• In 2018 he was under U.S. investigation for theft of more than $1 billion from Venezuela's state oil company, "though no charges were ever filed."
• That same year, the Justice Department charged a senior executive of his company Derwick Associates in an alleged $1.2 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme, and Betancourt was cited in the complaint as an unnamed co-conspirator, according to the Miami Herald.
• The White House's statement on the deal did not mention that Betancourt owns the company, or that he is under investigation.

The deal also puts the Pentagon into the oil business. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called it "a blatant abuse of power and taxpayer dollars."

So the regime Salazar called a dictatorship "just buying time" is on one side of the contract. A businessman under money-laundering investigation in two countries is on the other. The U.S. military holds a stake in the middle. And according to Castro, in nine months Congress has received no information about where the oil money goes.

What she said, and what she did

After the deal was announced, she released a statement, quoted by Florida Politics, saying "Delcy Rodríguez and the remnants of Maduro's regime cannot be Venezuela's future" — and also that "I want this deal to be a success" and "I want this agreement to last for generations."

Her own deleted post named the risk plainly: a regime that steals investments, run by an "acting dictator" who is "buying time." Oversight is how Congress finds out whether that is happening. The subpoenas that would have shown it were one vote short, and Salazar voted no.

She has done this kind of thing before — touring the country to promote an immigration bill that has never had a hearing, and taking credit for money she voted against.

What the record shows

On September 15, 2026, Maria Elvira Salazar, chairwoman of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, voted against subpoenaing the Trump administration's oil agreement with a company run by Alejandro Betancourt, a billionaire under money-laundering investigation in Spain and Switzerland. The motion failed 6-6, and it would have passed if she had voted yes. Less than three weeks earlier, she had posted that with this deal Venezuela's "acting dictator is just buying time," then deleted the post.

Source

Maria Elvira Salazar thwarts Democratic effort to subpoena administration over Venezuela deal — Jacob Ogles, Florida Politics, September 16, 2026. Image: Salazar and Castro at the September 15 hearing (Florida Politics).