Energy expert Francisco Monaldi joins Emily and Geoff to discuss the U.S. government’s unusual oil deal in Venezuela. They get into the decades of missteps and corruption that have hampered Venezuela’s oil sector, the deep seated institutional changes that would be needed to bring production back to historical levels, and why you probably shouldn’t assume the contract the U.S. government just signed will actually last 100 years, as it says on paper. Francisco J. Monaldi is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Latin American Energy Policy and director of the Latin America Energy Program at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Francisco Monaldi, Baker Institute for Public Policy The White House, Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Historic Oil Agreement to Secure American Energy Dominance and Drive Venezuela’s Economic Recovery, August 31, 2026 Francisco Monaldi, “Without Institutional Change, Venezuela’s Oil Bonanza Remains Unviable,” Americas Quarterly, January 26, 2026 Francisco Monaldi, Igor Hernandez, and Jose La Rosa, “The collapse of the Venezuelan oil industry: The role of above-ground risks limiting foreign investment,” Resources Policy Francisco Monaldi, “The Cyclical Phenomenon of Resource Nationalism in Latin America,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics Romulo Betancourt, Venezuela's oil