By Kejal Vyas in Bogotá, Colombia, Patricia Garip in Santiago, Chile, and Vera Bergengruen in Washington

President Trump's plan for mass deportations faces a new hurdle: The Venezuelan government has privately warned the administration that it won't accept migrants after the White House rescinded Chevron's license to pump oil there, said people familiar with the matter.

Early last month, Trump touted a deal an envoy reached with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to accept tens of thousands of migrants who had fled the strongman's regime because of economic upheaval and political repression. The deal would have smoothed the way for Trump's deportation plans because Venezuelans are one of the biggest groups of unauthorized migrants in the U.S., and Maduro had long refused to accept them.

But signs of difficulty emerged almost immediately, as Trump allies jockeyed over whether to engage with an authoritarian regime the U.S. has deemed illegitimate or take a more-hawkish stance. Caracas accepted about 360 returning Venezuelans in the weeks after the deal was announced, but no flights have taken place since Feb. 20.

Now the deal appears to be unraveling after the Trump administration gave Chevron 30 days to wind down its operations in Venezuela, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said "shamefully bankrolled the illegitimate Maduro regime." The move is expected to heighten the economic pressure on Maduro and lead more people to consider fleeing the country.

"The people on the street are going to feel this fast," said José Martínez, an accountant in Caracas.

The move led to the recent Venezuelan warning, which could make it more difficult for Trump to deliver on his pledge of mass deportations of migrants. His deportation plans have faced legal and logistical challenges in recent weeks, as U.S. courts temporarily blocked the transfer of Venezuelan detainees to Guantanamo Bay and military deportation flights were paused because of cost concerns.

The abrupt shift in the Trump administration's approach to Venezuela has fostered uncertainty in both Washington and Caracas about which direction it will ultimately take. Other international oil companies are awaiting Treasury Department guidance on whether they need to leave Venezuela, too.

What is clear is that there are rifts within Trump's inner circle over how to approach Venezuela, which eight million people have fled during Maduro's tumultuous 12 years in power, with many of them ending up in the U.S. Some Trump allies say the U.S. should take a pragmatic approach that benefits American businesses. Others, including some Florida Republicans, want to isolate the regime with the goal of forcing out Maduro.

The Chevron decision is likely to worsen inflation in Venezuela and deprive its fragile economy of more than $3 billion in income this year, according to the Caracas business consulting firm Ecoanalítica. Chevron accounts for about a quarter of Venezuela's oil output, generating cash that has helped prop up its beleaguered currency.

When Trump took office in January, the mood among people with business interests in Venezuela was upbeat. Oil executives, Wall Street bondholders, and local businessmen expected Trump to reject the "maximum pressure" strategy of his first term in favor of further relaxing sanctions and encouraging commercial engagement. Investors talked about the possibility of the U.S. reopening a diplomatic presence in Caracas and the launch of a long-elusive restructuring of Venezuela's at least $150 billion in debt.

The Biden administration had aimed to use the oil licenses as leverage to persuade Maduro to take steps to restore democracy. But the Trump administration's priority was seen as getting Venezuelan migrants off U.S. soil as quickly as possible.

On Jan. 31, Trump dispatched envoy Richard Grenell to Caracas in an effort to get Venezuela to accept deportation flights.

"President Trump expects Nicolás Maduro to take back all of the Venezuelan criminals and gang members that have been exported to United States, and to do so unequivocally and without condition," Trump's special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, told reporters that day.

Grenell flew back to Washington that night with six of at least 13 Americans detained in Venezuela, posting a jubilant photo of the group on the plane thanking Trump.

The next day, Trump said Venezuela had agreed to accept tens of thousands of migrants. "It is so good to have the Venezuela Hostages back home, and, very important to note, that Venezuela has agreed to receive, back into their Country, all Venezuela illegal aliens who were encamped in the U.S.," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site.

On Feb. 6, the U.S. ordered the seizure of a Venezuelan state-owned plane in the Dominican Republic, with Rubio looking on as U.S. agents attached the order to the aircraft in a hangar.

Signs also began to emerge that momentum behind the deal to accept migrants was fading. On Feb. 10, Venezuela sent two planes to a U.S. military base in Texas to pick up deportees. But a follow-up visit to Caracas by Grenell's deputy and more deportation flights that were supposed to take place after a third group was returned to Venezuela on Feb. 20 never materialized, according to people familiar with talks between both governments.

The State Department and Grenell didn't respond to requests for comment.

Late last month, a handful of Republican lawmakers from Florida aligned with Rubio's hard-line stance on Venezuela also began pushing for the U.S. to terminate the oil licenses in an effort to steer Trump away from detente with Maduro, according to people familiar with the matter. The push came as House leadership was preparing for a vote on a budget reconciliation bill that would serve as a framework for Trump's agenda on taxes, spending cuts and the border.

The Florida group included Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez. Axios earlier reported the Republican lobbying effort.

Díaz Balart, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee in charge of allocating federal funds, spoke with Trump by phone on Feb. 25, the day of the vote, a person familiar with the discussions said. The budget framework passed by a 217-215 vote, with all three voting in favor.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan exiles pressed Trump administration officials to increase pressure on the Maduro regime, at gatherings such as the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last month.

On Feb. 26, a day after the vote took place, Trump announced that he would revoke Chevron's license, in a social-media post. That evening, his son Donald Trump Jr. broadcast a surprise interview with Maduro's main political opponent, María Corina Machado, an opposition leader in Venezuela.

On Tuesday, the Treasury Department moved to formally rescind the license.

"It's the correct decision," Machado said in a videoconference with the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, where she applauded punitive measures on the Maduro regime. "They are the biggest threat to the Western Hemisphere."

The Chevron move, however, could push more Venezuelans to leave, economists and migration experts say.

The Trump administration's move "is a result of short-term political trade-offs at home," said Brian Fonseca, a Florida International University academic who wrote a December 2024 paper that advocated for U.S. commercial engagement in Venezuela to gain long-term influence. "Ongoing sanctions will continue to strain Venezuela's economy, deepening hardships for its people and contributing to continued migration."

Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 07, 2025 13:41 ET (18:41 GMT)

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