The Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar published two contradictory statements this Saturday about the oil agreement between the United States and Venezuela: first, she harshly criticized it on her personal account in Spanish, and then she endorsed it with conditions on her official congressional account in English.
The first post, shared on her personal profile @MaElviraSalazar, was the most critical: "Any 'oil agreement' with the interim regime of Venezuela has an expiration date: the day President Trump leaves the White House," Salazar wrote. She added that "the interim dictator of Venezuela is just buying time" and recalled that "the regime has already confiscated American investments in the past and will do so again as soon as it can." That post was removed and replaced with another one.
The second statement, published on her official account @RepMariaSalazar and written in English, took on a radically different tone: it described the agreement as "a great deal for the United States and the Venezuelan people" and emphasized that it displaces China from the Venezuelan oil business, where Beijing was purchasing crude at significantly reduced prices by taking advantage of the country's vulnerability.
Nonetheless, Salazar did not entirely abandon his skepticism: "Delcy is the wrong person to make this deal," he wrote in the second post, and he tied the durability of the agreement to the holding of free elections in Venezuela.
The change between both statements is significant not only in tone but also in audience: the first, in Spanish and from his personal account, was aimed directly at the Venezuelan and Cuban community; the second, in English and from his official profile, was directed at media and English-speaking colleagues.
The agreement that prompted the statements was announced by President Donald Trump on Friday, a day after Reuters reported that discussions were already underway. Trump described it as the "largest oil agreement in world history." According to reports, the United States would obtain a majority stake of 55% in 17 strategic fields with over 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, with rights for up to 100 years and a projected investment exceeding 100 billion dollars.
The negotiation was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, with Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president of Venezuela, as the counterpart.
Salazar's turnabout contrasts sharply with his history of inflexible positions against any energy agreement with the Chavista regime. In February 2025, he celebrated the revocation of oil licenses to Venezuela with the words: "I have been calling for months to cancel the oil licenses that benefit Maduro's regime. Today the President keeps his promise. No more oil dollars for the repressive apparatus of Chavismo."
In May of this year, she directly warned Delcy Rodríguez not to try to deceive Trump "as she and Maduro deceived and destroyed Venezuela." And in September 2025, she conditioned the participation of U.S. oil companies in Venezuela on the existence of a democratic government.
The August 2026 agreement puts Salazar in a difficult contradiction: openly criticizing a decision by Trump or abandoning the stance he has defended for years in front of his Cuban-American and Venezuelan constituents in Miami. His first post—and its subsequent retraction—exactly reflects that tension.
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