Venezuelan officials, hoping to end their country’s clash with the United States, offered the Trump administration a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in discussions that lasted for months, according to multiple people close to the talks.
The far-reaching offer remained on the table as the Trump administration called the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela a “narco-terror cartel,” amassed warships in the Caribbean and began blowing up boats that American officials say were carrying drugs from Venezuela.
Under a deal discussed between a senior U.S. official and Mr. Maduro’s top aides, the Venezuelan strongman offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to American companies, give preferential contracts to American businesses, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and slash his country’s energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian firms.
The Trump administration ended up rebuffing Mr. Maduro’s economic concessions and cut off diplomacy conducted with Venezuela by a special U.S. envoy, Richard Grenell, last week. The move effectively killed the deal, at least for now, the people close to the discussion said.
Though the United States has been targeting what it calls drug boats, the cutoff of diplomacy, the military buildup near Venezuela and the increasingly strident threats against Mr. Maduro by Trump administration officials have led many in both countries to think that the Trump administration’s real objective is Mr. Maduro’s removal.
Venezuela’s state oil company has given Chevron, the largest American company working in Venezuela, full control of their joint oil projects and the two entities have discussed giving Chevron a stake in another major oil field.
Venezuelan officials have worked to repair relations with another U.S. oil giant, ConocoPhillips, which left Venezuela in 2007 after the government seized its operations. Mr. Maduro’s government and Conoco have been negotiating an oil trading deal as recently as this year, according to two people familiar with the talks.
But he eventually saw that loosening those alliances was an inevitable price for avoiding American military intervention, the person said. To maximize income in the face of U.S. pressure, Venezuela has also stopped sending oil to Cuba, worsening acute electricity shortages in the allied nation.
Mr. Grenell’s economic negotiations with Mr. Maduro’s envoys faced strong opposition from Mr. Rubio, a Cuban American and former senator who has long viewed Mr. Maduro’s downfall as a crucial step to ending the Communist dictatorship on the island.
While Mr. Grenell and Venezuelan officials made progress on economic issues, they failed to agree on Mr. Maduro’s political future, according to the people close to the negotiations. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, said in an interview last month that Mr. Maduro would not negotiate his exit.
Mr. Maduro has repeatedly repressed democratic challenges to his rule after assuming the presidency in 2013. He held on to power last year after losing a presidential election by rigging the results and brutally suppressing protests.
As Mr. Grenell and Mr. Maduro’s envoys negotiated a deal, the leader of Venezuela’s main opposition movement, María Corina Machado, pitched her own economic proposal in New York.
She argued that even greater economic wealth — $1.7 trillion in 15 years — awaited U.S. companies in Venezuela if her movement launched a political transition. (Ms. Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee described as “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.”)