On Friday, special envoy Richard Grenell traveled to Caracas to meet with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Within hours, President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had agreed to release six Americans in Venezuelan custody and would begin receiving repatriation flights of migrants deported from the United States. In exchange, the administration allowed Chevron’s oil license in Venezuela—which accounts for 25 percent of the country’s crude production—to be renewed for a period of six months.
The announcement blindsided Trump’s neoconservative supporters, many of whom had excoriated the Biden administration for cutting a similar deal with Caracas in 2023. On Fox News, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar spun the deal to her Florida constituents, claiming that Trump was negotiating with “Maduro and his gangsters to go peacefully.” Days prior, she and other lawmakers had unsuccessfully lobbied Trump against revoking Temporary Protected Status from approximately 350,000 Venezuelans, all of whom are now eligible for deportation following a decision by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.