Oil magnate Harry Sargeant III is a GOP donor well known for his back-channel efforts to temper hostilities between the U.S. and Venezuela. On Friday, the Trump administration ordered his oil-trading company to leave the South American country.
Global Oil Terminals, part of a Florida conglomerate owned by Sargeant, lost authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department to work in Venezuela, as did Spanish oil-and-gas company Repsol and other foreign oil companies doing business there. Chevron previously received a similar notice.
The companies have until late May to wind down operations, escalating the Trump administration’s campaign to isolate Venezuela, partly over frustration with its reluctance to quickly accept Venezuelan deportees.
Sargeant is known to play golf at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club one day and to jet down to Caracas the next. He has helped broker agreements aimed at deepening U.S. commercial engagement in Venezuela, which holds some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas. Strongman Nicolás Maduro calls Sargeant abuelo, or grandfather in Spanish.
Since receiving its main license in May 2024, Sargeant’s Global Oil has regularly loaded cargoes of heavy oil produced in western Venezuela. Part of the supply is used to pave U.S. highways. All three of the company’s Venezuela licenses were revoked.
In a letter sent to Global Oil and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department said all payments to Venezuelan entities must be completed by Wednesday. The tight deadline for payment implies a more immediate withdrawal, Sargeant told the Journal in a text exchange.
A representative from Repsol didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adding to the renewed isolation campaign, Trump issued an executive order this week saying the U.S. would begin imposing a 25% tariff on Wednesday on any country that buys Venezuela’s oil. Buyers of Venezuelan crude, including India’s Reliance Industries, have already begun to pull back.
Foreign oil companies such as Repsol and Reliance that do a lot of business in the U.S. sought authorization to work in Venezuela to avoid running afoul of sanctions.
Despite the early indications that Trump would moderate the hard-line stance he took on Venezuela during his first term, the White House became frustrated with what they saw as the Maduro government dragging its feet on taking back Venezuelan migrants. Over the past decade, at least seven million have fled Venezuela’s economic hardship and political repression.
