Trump Touts Venezuela Oil Deal; Experts Doubt It

Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told CNN the money doesn't add up. "If U.S. taxpayers are not going to pay, Venezuela doesn't have the money, where are those $100 billion coming out of?" he said. "That's really the big question here and until we have clarity in respect to that we don't know whether this is a viable plan or not."

He also warned the contracts could be torn up later: "There is a risk that these contracts will be deemed illegitimate by a future government and possibly invalidated." It is unclear whether the agreement followed Venezuela's required legal procedures, including approval from the National Assembly, The National Desk reported.

Slate's Ian Prasad Philbrick wrote Monday that Trump's initial announcement did not name the "private business" the U.S. will partner with, and that any relief at the pump would take years. Venezuela currently produces about 1 percent of daily global supply, he noted, and crude prices jumped after the U.S. and Iran resumed striking each other over the weekend — a far bigger factor in what Americans pay for gas.

Richard Masson, a former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, told The Epoch Times that Venezuela's output "declined down to just over a million barrels a day, and has a rickety industry that's desperate for investment and talent." He added: "Getting the billions of dollars and expertise and legal structure in place to enable that to happen is very, very difficult." He also said the role of Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, is unknown — "there's a lot of question marks about whether this deal hangs together."

Newsweek reported that experts believe the deal could cost Rubio support among Venezuelan and Cuban voters and damage his standing ahead of 2028.