WireAugust 10, 2026 at 3:00 PM
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The Trump administration is moving to sever a prominent American businessman's financial ties to the Venezuelan oil sector. The Treasury Department on Friday froze the assets of Bluewave Properties Ltd., the British Virgin Islands-based company owned by Florida oil magnate and Republican Party donor Harry Sargeant III, while simultaneously issuing a license to allow him to unwind his interests in the firm.
The action, described as sanctions by people familiar with the matter, targets a minority stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the second-largest private-sector oil producer in Venezuela. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control cited violations of a 2018 executive order designed to block the property of entities supporting the former regime in Caracas. The full cost of enforcement actions to American taxpayers is not yet known, but the move aligns with a policy of ensuring domestic energy interests are not compromised by opaque foreign entanglements benefiting adversarial regimes.
Sargeant, a former Marine pilot and a familiar figure at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, operated for years as an informal back channel between Washington and Caracas. While some of the asphalt produced by NABEP was sold to pave American roads, the strategic calculation has shifted. The administration's focus is now on consolidating a new U.S.-backed government in Venezuela and ensuring that resource extraction benefits American national interests, not private intermediaries.
The White House had previously distanced itself from Sargeant’s freelance diplomacy. In February, President Trump declared on social media that Sargeant “has no authority, in any way, shape, or form, to act on behalf of the United States of America.” The Treasury’s move formalizes that break, prioritizing a U.S.-led transition in Venezuela over individual business dealings. As the administration promotes what it calls “responsible and transparent investment,” the message is clear: American capital must serve American sovereignty, and the era of unaccountable back channels is over.