The United States is rescinding a Treasury license allowing Chevron to produce and export oil from Venezuela, despite U.S. sanctions, President Donald Trump said Wednesday, because President Nicolás Maduro was not legitimately elected and has not accepted Venezuelans deported from this country fast enough.

The move, announced by Trump on social media, was a sudden reversal of his administration’s outreach to Maduro over the past month, including a visit by special envoy Richard Grenell that resulted in Maduro dropping his refusal to accept deported Venezuelan migrants and the release of six Americans imprisoned in Venezuela.

“The regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that [Venezuela] sent into our Country (the Good Ole’ U.S.A.) back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to,” Trump said on his Truth Social site. While he did not mention Chevron, he said “we are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to … Venezuela, on the oil transaction, dated November 26, 2022,” the date that Trump’s predecessor as president lifted sanctions affecting Chevron that were imposed by Trump during his first term in office.

In an Instagram post, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez “categorically” rejected what she called an “inexplicable” decision that had been “solicited by [Venezuela’s] “extremist and failed” political opposition. Rather than harming Venezuela, she said, it would inflict damage on the United States and its international investments.

Since Grenell’s visit, Venezuela has sent several empty aircraft to pick up detained migrants from El Paso, and retrieved a number who had been sent to the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump said Chevron’s license would end March 1, when the Treasury Department would not act on an option to renew it.

“We are aware of today’s announcement and are considering its implications,” Chevron spokesman Bill Turenne said in a statement. “Chevron conducts is business in Venezuela in compliance with all laws and regulations, including the sanctions framework provided by the U.S. government.”

Harry Sargeant III, a U.S. energy executive and founder of Texas-based Global Oil Terminals, which currently imports asphalt from Venezuela under a license granted by the Biden administration, criticized the move.

“To me it doesn’t make any sense to pull a first-class multinational out of Venezuela for that void to be filled by Chinese, Russian, Turkish or Iranian companies,” Sargeant said. “The only people we’re putting on the sidelines are Americans. It’ll hurt the economic stability of Venezuela and cause greater migration,” he added. “It makes no sense.”

The decision added to confusion over the administration’s Venezuela policy. Opposition leader Edmundo González, recognized by the administration as Venezuela’s rightful president after Maduro refused to release results from last summer’s election, attended Trump’s inauguration as a guest of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) but did not meet with Trump.

In an interview last week with the Epoch Times, Grenell described his trip to Caracas as an effort to “have a different relationship” with Maduro. “Donald Trump is somebody who doesn’t want to do regime change,” Grenell said.

Trump’s decision after taking office to remove the protected status Biden had given Venezuelan migrants, with the support of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), now the secretary of state, led to confusion and outrage in Miami suburbs where Venezuelans with the right to vote strongly supported Trump’s election.

Rubio, asked in a Wednesday interview with Fox News whether he was demanding Maduro leave office, called Maduro “a horrible dictator who is instilling all kinds of instability” and said “we’re going to work on that policy because … he is allowing Iran to operate out of Venezuela. He is allowing the Chinese to operate out of Venezuela. He’s threatening his neighbors in the region. He has flooded us with gang members.”

The administration has said that many of the deported Venezuelans are members of Tren de Aragua, a gang Trump charges have taken over some American cities and has designated as a terrorist organization.

Prohibitions on U.S. oil companies doing business in Venezuela, and secondary sanctions on those who bought Venezuelan oil in other countries, were imposed by Trump during his first term. Biden partially lifted them, including licensing Chevron to produce oil in Venezuela and export it only to the United States, in an effort to persuade Maduro to hold fair presidential elections. Some sanctions were reinstated by Biden when that effort failed, although Chevron was allowed to retain its Treasury license.

International energy experts questioned whether Trump’s rescission of the license was a negotiating tactic, noting that under its terms Chevron will have six months to wind up its operations in Venezuela.

In the meantime, the administration seems to be operating at cross-purposes in Venezuela. Many U.S. refineries are designed to process the heavy oil produced there — along with Canada and Mexico, where tariffs are threatened — and its removal from the market would potentially increase the price of diesel, jet fuel and other products, while increasing Venezuelan sales at reduced prices to China and Russia.

“Returning to that policy” of oil sanctions, said David Goldwyn, an international energy consultant and chairman of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s Energy Advisory Group, “is a proven recipe for supporting our adversaries and punishing our consumers.”

previous coverage

• Trump’s envoy Grenell in Venezuela to discuss US prisoners, gang members