Rubio and Grenell, Trump’s dueling diplomats, clash over Venezuela

Three House Republicans from southern Florida nearly derailed passage of President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending package this week in protest of an apparent presidential reversal of sanctions on Venezuela. 

The three Cuban American lawmakers finally agreed late Wednesday to go along with the package after Trump agreed not to extend a Treasury Department license allowing energy giant Chevron to continue to produce and export Venezuelan oil. Trump had first revoked the license in February, requiring Chevron to wind up its Venezuelan operations by May 27. 

Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions, had announced the extension on Tuesday, saying it was the result of an agreement he struck with Caracas — with Trump’s approval — that resulted in the release of a U.S. military veteran detained in Venezuela. The detainee, Joe St. Clair, was turned over to Grenell by Venezuelan officials on the Caribbean island of Antigua earlier that day. 

But on Wednesday evening, after the intervention of the Cuban American lawmakers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that there was no extension and that the license would end on the 27th, as scheduled. 

The three Florida Republicans — Reps. Carlos A. Gimenez, Mario Diaz-Balart and María Elvira Salazar — did not respond to requests for comment. Their role in first threatening to scuttle, then agreeing to, the House bill was first reported by Axios. 

The head-spinning chain of events highlighted the ongoing enmity between Rubio, the nation’s top diplomat and acting White House national security adviser, and Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term. Grenell’s current portfolio so far includes oversight of the response to California wildfires, president of the Kennedy Center, and occasional negotiator with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 

Although clashes between Rubio and Grenell broke out into the open this week, the two men have butted heads since the beginning of the current administration, according to several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity about sensitive internal matters and the House bill’s rocky road to passage. 

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy, said the State Department was not involved in discussions about Grenell’s trip to Antigua, and “it caught everyone off guard» at the department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. “The president kept the group really small.” 

Much of their disagreement has focused on Venezuela. Rubio, a Cuban American, has been a leading opponent of any concessions to Maduro – whose election the United States considers illegal – since his days as a U.S. senator from Florida. Grenell, with Trump’s approval, has fashioned himself a dealmaker with the Venezuelan leader and argued that if the U.S. doesn’t take Venezuela’s oil, China will. 

At the end of January, Grenell flew to Caracas to urge Maduro to take back Venezuelan migrants whom Trump wanted to deport. Maduro temporarily agreed and in apparent good faith released six Americans who the U.S. had charged were illegally detained. It was not clear at the time what the U.S. had offered in return. 

In February, the three Cuban American lawmakers — who urged pressure on Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua with Trump and successfully advised him not to bend on Venezuela. They called for him to cancel the license and reimpose other «maximum pressure» sanctions that President Joe Biden had eased during his own negotiations with Maduro. The price was support for Trump’s budget plans. 

By early March, Maduro had paused deportation flights and Rubio had struck a deal with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept and imprison hundreds of Venezuelans, many of whom the administration alleged were members of the gang Tren de Aragua. 

Even as details for the initially secret deportations to El Salvador were being readied, Grenell again intervened, announcing he had struck a new deal with Maduro to accept deported Venezuelans. The flights to El Salvador continued, despite a court order that they be delayed. 

Grenell’s most recent foray into negotiations with Venezuela came as the State Department was conducting its own parallel talks, according to two people familiar with the dual diplomatic tracks. Bukele, in El Salvador, had posted on social media an offer to deport 252 Venezuelans — those sent by the U.S. to imprisonment in his high-security “counterterrorism” compound — in exchange for 10 remaining Americans (now nine, with St. Clair’s release), 50 other foreigners and some Venezuelan opposition figures detained by Maduro. 

Maduro has denounced the Venezuelans‘ imprisonment in El Salvador and made it a point of honor that he will get them home. 

Early this month, the State Department contacted Jorge Rodríguez, Maduro’s chief negotiator, to sign on to the exchange. Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s principal interlocutor with Grenell, whom Caracas sees as a more direct line to Trump, according to the people familiar. 

Negotiations over the parallel State Department proposal, now that Trump has said there will be no extension of the Chevron license on the terms Grenell outlined, look to be indefinitely suspended. 

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House, said that a report published in the New York Post on Friday that Trump was not aware of Grenell’s most recent negotiations with Venezuela was «wrong,» and that «the president was aware and was made aware by Grenell.» 

Grenell spent Monday evening, before departing for Antigua, with Trump at a White House dinner for Kennedy Center trustees. Asked about his relationship with Trump, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, “Ric Grenell is a loyal and valued member of President Trump’s team.» 

In a Tuesday appearance on former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast after he returned from Antigua with St. Clair, the newly freed American, Grenell said that Trump had “authorized” the extension of Chevron’s license «if we were able to get some progress, if we were able to build some confidence, and we were able to do that today. So that extension will be granted.” 

The three Republican lawmakers, furious that Trump had broken his promise made to them earlier in the year, went into action. 

The first sign of public opposition came when Salazar voted Tuesday afternoon against a procedural hurdle on an unrelated measure. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) could only afford to lose three Republican votes to pass the immigration, tax and energy legislation. With a number of other Republicans opposed to the bill, GOP leaders had to win back the three Cuban American votes. 

Officials with the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, along with key GOP legislators, impressed upon Trump that he had to choose between the Chevron extension and the survival of his «big, beautiful» bill. On Wednesday afternoon, Rubio had an opportunity to speak directly to Trump when he joined him at the White House for a visit by the University of Florida Gators, the 2025 NCAA basketball champions. 

Later that evening, Rubio posted on his personal X account: «The pro-Maduro Biden oil license in Venezuela will expire as scheduled next Tuesday May 27th.» 

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment. 

In recent days, the Maduro government has once again escalated its crackdown on dissent, arresting at least 70 people, including a prominent opposition politician and at least two journalists. 

A statement posted Friday on X by the U.S.’s Venezuela Affairs Unit now based in Bogotá, Colombia, said: “The Trump Administration reiterates its commitment to holding regime officials accountable for human rights violations and to ensuring that the United States does not contribute, directly or indirectly, to the financing of a dictatorship that actively collaborates with our adversaries.» 

Grenell did not respond to requests for comment.