The United States has announced it has secured control of a significant portion of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, after President Donald Trump pledged to “take back” the South American nation’s energy resources.
On Friday, President Trump announced that the Venezuelan government and the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez have reached an agreement that gives the United States majority control of the country’s proven oil reserves, worth more than 65 billion barrels.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Details remain unclear. However, the deal will involve 17 strategic oil fields in Venezuela. The US government announced it would partner with private companies to extract the fuel.
“The United States of America just signed the largest oil deal in the history of the world with the country of Venezuela!” President Trump wrote in a social media post celebrating the announcement.
What has been said so far, and what does the new agreement mean for U.S.-Venezuela relations? This commentary answers these questions and more.
How much oil does it contain?
The deal reportedly includes 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves.
This represents about one-fifth of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves. As of 2023, the U.S. government estimates Venezuela’s oil reserves at 303 billion barrels, the largest known reserves in the world.
It is estimated that about 17 percent of the world’s oil supply is located in the South American country.
But some analysts have doubts about the total of 65 billion barrels announced by President Trump. No fixed terms have been announced, leading to speculation that President Trump may have made a splashy announcement to revitalize the U.S. economy.
“65 billion barrels is a dangerous number and has little to do with the actual trade. The actual relevant details remain almost completely unknown,” oil market researcher Rory Johnston said in a social media post.
“This is just a typical big number that Trump is sure to jump up and down on, and will continue to do nauseating things in the future.”
How will this affect U.S. oil supplies?
President Trump said the deal would “more than double America’s oil reserves.”
The U.S.’s proven oil reserves are declining and will be around 46 billion barrels by the end of 2024, according to government estimates.
The U.S. government also operates the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an emergency supply of oil to ensure domestic supply.
But emergency stockpiles are shrinking, with only 289.7 million barrels in storage facilities designed to hold up to 714 million barrels. President Trump suggested Friday’s deal would help restore U.S. oil reserves, which are at their lowest level since 1982.
What led to this moment?
The year 2026 marked a dramatic shift in Venezuela’s relationship with the United States.
Since 2013, the South American country has been led by socialist President Nicolas Maduro, whose term has been defined by a series of contested elections and a crackdown on political opposition.
Trump and Maduro have repeatedly clashed, with Trump accusing the Venezuelan leader of sending drug traffickers into the United States and Maduro accusing Trump of interfering in foreign countries’ internal affairs.
The conflict between the two sides reached its climax on January 3rd. For weeks, U.S. warships have been gathering off the coast of Venezuela, and in the early hours of the morning, President Trump authorized an operation to kidnap and imprison Venezuela’s leader.
President Maduro is currently awaiting trial on drug and weapons charges in New York.
In the aftermath of the attack, President Trump endorsed Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, to lead the Caracas government. She was sworn in shortly thereafter.
The Trump administration also announced that the United States would control Venezuela’s oil exports “indefinitely.”
Critics say the Trump administration pressured Rodriguez to comply with its demands. “If she doesn’t do the right thing, she’s probably going to pay a bigger price than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in January.
What are President Trump’s claims on Venezuelan oil?
Experts have condemned the US intervention in Venezuela as illegal under international law.
But the Trump administration has made its claim to Venezuela’s oil resources a key pillar of its engagement with the South American country.
Prior to the January 3 attack, President Trump and his allies argued that Venezuela’s oil supplies belonged to the United States, citing the country’s history of early fuel exploration.
They also denounced the Venezuelan government’s efforts to expropriate oil resources from private companies as part of efforts to nationalize the fossil fuel industry.
In December, President Trump announced a blockade around Venezuela to prevent the sale of oil, the country’s biggest export. As a justification, he accused Venezuela of “stealing oil” from the United States.
Separately, his adviser Stephen Miller called the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry “the greatest theft of American wealth and property in history.”
However, international law gives each country “perpetual sovereignty” over its own resources to protect it from unwanted exploitation by foreign countries.
Why announce the deal now?
Friday marked the six-month anniversary of the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.
When the war began on February 28, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic. Before the war, nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies passed freely through the strait.
The shutdown caused oil prices to soar around the world, including in the United States, where voters head to polling stations for midterm elections in November.
The American Automobile Association (AAA) announced this week that gas prices will be at record highs in August, with U.S. consumers expected to pay more than $4 a gallon (3.8 liters) on average.
The conflict over the strategic waterway is still ongoing, as is the war itself. Ongoing military operations are also straining U.S. oil supplies.
How is the Trump administration framing a new oil deal?
President Trump has repeatedly held up Venezuela under Rodriguez’s leadership as a model for how he wants to deal with foreign adversaries like Iran.
He also argued that U.S. control over Venezuelan oil supplies would be a boon for the U.S. economy during the midterm election period.
“We’re doing well in Venezuela. We extract a lot of oil from Venezuela and we have a good relationship with Venezuela,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Las Vegas this month.
And he claimed that he had “paid for the war” against Venezuela “with what we took out of the country.”
“That’s the old-fashioned way, right? The old-fashioned way,” Trump told the audience. “The spoils belong to the victor, right?”
When announcing the deal on Friday, President Trump promised that the resulting increase in U.S. oil supplies would result in “significantly lower gas prices for all Americans.” The cost of living is expected to be a key issue in this year’s midterm race.
Separately, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a foreign policy hawk, claimed the oil deal was a victory for President Trump’s “America First” policy.
“This shows how President Trump’s bold foreign policy is advancing an America First victory: securing stable reserves and low-cost oil in the hemisphere and lowering gas prices here at home,” Rubio wrote.
He also argued that the agreement is mutually beneficial for Venezuela. He said the agreement would increase the private investment needed to “rebuild Venezuela’s economy.”
How did Delcy Rodriguez react to this deal?
Rodriguez similarly presented the deal as a victory for the administration.
In a message posted on the social media platform Telegram, he called the agreement “historic” and said it “will have a significant impact on our country’s recovery.”
“This will facilitate the flow of significant investments aimed at restoring and rebuilding strategic infrastructure for the development of our country’s hydrocarbon industry,” Rodriguez wrote.
Venezuela has long suffered from an economic crisis that has caused shortages of basic goods and a spiral of inflation. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, citing political repression and economic concerns.
Critics say government corruption and mismanagement of state-run industries, including the oil and mining sectors, are among the reasons for the economic decline. Another common reason is the impact of harsh US sanctions on the Venezuelan economy.
But since taking over as interim president, Rodriguez has led a campaign to increase private investment in Venezuelan industry at the request of the Trump administration.
The Venezuelan government estimates Friday’s agreement will generate $209 billion in tax revenue and $100 billion in investment for Venezuela.
How long will the transaction last?
According to media reports, the Rodriguez administration gave the Trump administration the right to use the oil reserves for 100 years.
What are the criticisms?
The United States has a long history of intervention in Latin America, and Mr. Trump is seeking to assert American supremacy over the Western Hemisphere as part of a policy he calls the “Donroe Doctrine.”
Critics have described Friday’s deal as an attempt to plunder Venezuela’s resources, similar to what Western countries did during colonial times.
Shortly before the deal was announced, energy analyst Gregory Belew compared reports of the impending deal to the oil concessions sought by the British Empire in the early 20th century.
“This kind of thing is unprecedented,” Brew wrote on social media. “The closest thing to it would be BP (when it was majority owned by the British government) claiming ownership of pre-World War II oil reserves in Iraq and Iran.”
Trump himself has adopted the colonial-era slogan “Manifest Destiny” as part of his plan for a “growth nation” that will “increase wealth” and “expand territory.”
Can the Venezuelan model be applied elsewhere?
President Trump has indicated he may also claim oil reserves in other parts of the world.
In 2011, long before his first successful bid for public office, Trump suggested the United States should use military force to extract oil from other countries.
President Trump said of US military intervention in Libya: “I’m going to get the oil.” In the same year, he repeated this statement in reference to the US occupation of Iraq.
Trump has expressed similar intentions toward Iran during his second term as president. In April, he posted on social media: “If we had a little more time, we could easily open the Strait of Hormuz, get oil, and make wealth.” He also proposed making the Strait of Hormuz a US territory.
