US Fails Prisoner Swap Using Venezuelan Migrants, Americans Remain Detained

The Trump administration attempted two competing prisoner exchange deals to bring home 11 Americans and legal permanent residents held in Venezuela in exchange for roughly 250 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. to El Salvador. Secretary of State Marco Rubio led one negotiation track, while presidential envoy Richard Grenell pursued another, which included offering Venezuela continued Chevron oil operations, a major revenue source for the regime. These conflicting efforts, lacking coordination and communication, ultimately fell apart, leaving both American and Venezuelan detainees imprisoned with no agreement reached. The contrasting deals undercut the U.S.'s previously antagonistic stance toward Nicolas Maduro’s government, raising questions about internal divisions within the Trump administration. Despite previous assertions that the U.S. had no jurisdiction over the deportees held in El Salvador’s harsh maximum-security prison, officials appeared willing to use them as bargaining chips in the negotiations. The chaotic diplomacy mirrors earlier Trump administration patterns of competing officials vying for influence, resulting in confusion for Venezuelan counterparts and failure to secure prisoner releases.