In late August, eight months after U.S. forces attacked Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration announced an agreement on Venezuela’s oil reserves that it is calling the “biggest oil deal in world history.” Amnesty International and numerous international-law experts concluded that the January 3 operation violated the U.N. Charter. After the attack, President Trump declared that the United States would “run the country” until a transition could occur.

The administration now says the new deal will drive Venezuela’s economic recovery. Yet Americans and Venezuelans do not know who ultimately stands to profit, making it impossible to judge whether the deal will help the country rebuild or primarily enrich hidden, wealthy owners.

Under the agreement, North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, will receive 100-year rights to 17 Venezuelan oil fields. The United States will create a private company with NABEP, and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital will hold a 35 percent stake.

The administration has also provided too little information to assess its promise of lower energy costs. NABEP says it could invest up to $100 billion in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, but it has not disclosed how much must be spent before production increases, when that work will be completed, or when additional oil could reach U.S. markets. Developing the fields will require drilling, pipelines, shipping, and specialized refining. Without costs and timelines, Americans cannot judge whether, or when, the deal could lower prices.

Alejandro Betancourt, a controversial Venezuelan businessman who has faced money-laundering investigations by authorities in the United States, Spain, and Switzerland over earlier dealings involving Venezuelan state funds, is publicly identified as NABEP’s owner. But neither the U.S. nor the Venezuelan government has published NABEP’s ownership chain, Betancourt’s interest, any other direct or indirect owners, or the structure and ownership of the new company.

Before this deal proceeds, we need to know its beneficial owners: the people who own, control, or profit from the companies involved.

At Oxfam, a global organization fighting inequality and poverty, my work has involved helping shape transparency standards for the oil, gas, and mining sectors. I also work with civil society organizations around the world to ensure companies and governments uphold those standards. This has shown me how opaque companies can conceal conflicts, political relationships, and the people profiting from public resources.

Beneficial ownership disclosure is a safeguard against corruption. Complex chains of companies can allow officials and politically connected people to hide their interests in companies receiving public contracts or valuable extraction rights.

When a public official, close family member, or associate secretly profits from a company receiving extraction rights, officials may pursue deals that enrich themselves rather than serve the public. That danger is particularly acute in oil, gas, and mining. Governments are deciding how to use finite public resources whose extraction can cause lasting environmental damage and profound consequences for communities. Officials cannot be allowed to weigh their own profits against what is best for people and the planet.

The nondisclosure here is striking by global standards. The United Kingdom and federally incorporated companies in Canada are required to report the people who ultimately own or control them. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the leading global standard for extractive-sector governance, which the United States has supported rhetorically and financially for decades, requires companies applying for or holding oil, gas, and mining rights in its 56 implementing countries to publicly disclose their beneficial owners. Major extractive companies have endorsed EITI’s transparency principles.

A recent New York Times investigation into Kazakhstan shows why understanding who stands to benefit from resource extraction is critical. There, investors connected to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump acquired an indirect interest in a company tied to a U.S.-backed tungsten project. A firm controlled by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family helped raise capital for an investor involved. The Trump Organization says the president’s sons were passive investors who neither knew about nor influenced government decisions.

But that is precisely the point. Without journalists tracing interests through corporate entities, the public might never have learned that relatives of officials advancing the deal could benefit. There is no evidence that the Trump or Lutnick families have interests in NABEP, but the Kazakhstan example shows the risks of undisclosed ownership.

Venezuela is not an EITI member. The United States should prioritize partnerships with countries that meet basic transparency standards, not commit itself for a century in countries that do not. EITI participation cannot eliminate risk, but its disclosure requirements, independent assessment, and oversight role for civil society strengthen governance and help investors identify corruption, conflict-of-interest, and compliance risks. Their absence makes this deal riskier for Venezuelans, American taxpayers, and responsible companies.

The United States has weakened its own safeguards. In August, the Treasury Department permanently exempted U.S. companies and U.S. persons from reporting beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act. If the new U.S.–NABEP entity is incorporated domestically, it may face no federal requirement to tell Treasury who owns it.

NABEP, its parent companies, and the new U.S.-linked entity should disclose every person who owns, controls, or receives an economic benefit from them. The information must be independently verified and updated when ownership changes. The entities and their owners should be screened for connections to politically exposed people, their families, and associates, with the results made public.

Venezuela’s oil belongs to its people. Without full ownership disclosure, there is no way to know whether this deal will support the country’s recovery or transfer more of its wealth to hidden beneficiaries. Americans are entitled to know who benefits when their government becomes an investor in a private oil company. Before the United States takes a stake in Venezuelan oil, it must disclose who stands behind the deal.