Trump says US reaches deal with Venezuela to control 65 billion barrels of country’s oil reserves

Washington Locks In Majority Stake in Venezuela’s Vast Oil Wealth Amid Energy Crunch

Goldlaner.com – With gasoline prices hovering above four dollars per gallon and the nation’s strategic petroleum reserves at their lowest level since the early 1980s, President Donald Trump announced Friday night that the United States has clinched a sweeping energy pact with Venezuela. The agreement, which Trump framed as a mechanism to “more than double” America’s oil reserves, grants Washington majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan crude — a figure that would place the arrangement among the largest single-country resource commitments in modern history.

The timing is politically charged. The announcement lands roughly two months before the congressional midterm elections, at a moment when voters and bond-market participants have grown increasingly impatient with sustained high fuel costs. Compounding the pressure, the ongoing Iran conflict has knocked roughly one-fifth of global oil supply offline for six months, and billions of barrels that had sat in commercial stockpiles have effectively evaporated from the market in recent weeks.

How the Deal Works

A White House official described the structure of the arrangement to reporters, explaining that the United States will receive “55% effective output of a new private joint venture that will be the second-largest private oil company by reserves in the world.” Under the terms, Interim President Delcy Rodríguez has granted a private entity 100-year concessions across Venezuelan oil fields, with US backing. That entity is itself a joint project pairing the US government with a private operator active in Venezuela.

The official elaborated that Washington has secured more than half the value of the new oil giant, divided between direct equity ownership and a guaranteed at-cost off-take arrangement. As production scales up, the resulting steady flow of at-cost crude within the Western Hemisphere will be directed toward replenishing the US strategic petroleum reserve and meeting the fuel requirements of the American military.

“At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer.”

Trump posted the statement on social media, adding that the transaction would “greatly increase our Oil Supply” and “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future,” while steering Venezuela toward what he called “Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity.”

Caracas Frames the Pact as Economic Renewal

Rodríguez issued her own statement Friday night, characterizing the agreement as a step toward consolidating Venezuela’s position as a major energy-producing nation. She emphasized that the country’s immense reserves would be put “at the service of national development, job creation, increased income for our workers, and the well-being of our people.”

Secretary of State Rubio, speaking shortly after Trump’s announcement, called the deal a “huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people.” He projected that the arrangement would channel nearly $100 billion in private investment into the country, generate thousands of high-paying jobs, and serve as the engine for reconstructing Venezuela’s battered economy.

From Military Operation to Resource Partnership

The deal is the latest chapter in a dramatic sequence that began earlier this year, when US forces carried out a large-scale military operation to capture former President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro and his wife were transported to New York to face criminal charges. In the aftermath, Trump pledged that American companies would move to rebuild Venezuela’s oil sector, which had suffered decades of underinvestment and infrastructure decay.

That pledge gained legal footing in January, when Venezuelan legislators — with Rodríguez’s backing — passed a law change lowering barriers for foreign firms to participate in the country’s petroleum industry. The new concession framework announced Friday appears to be the first major implementation of that legislative opening.

Why Venezuela’s Reserves Matter Globally

Venezula sits atop the largest proven oil reserves of any nation on Earth, a fact that has long made its production capacity a variable of outsized importance to global energy markets. For years, however, those reserves have remained largely untapped due to political instability, sanctions, and capital flight. The US-Venezuela arrangement, if it proceeds as outlined, would represent the most significant foreign-government-backed extraction of Venezuelan crude since the country’s oil sector was nationalized in the early 2000s.

For American consumers watching pump prices climb past the four-dollar mark, the administration’s pitch is straightforward: a guaranteed at-cost supply of hemispheric crude flowing into strategic reserves and commercial channels should exert downward pressure on retail fuel costs over time. Whether that outcome materializes at the scale and speed Trump has promised will depend on the pace of production ramp-up, the durability of the concession terms, and the broader trajectory of global supply disruptions tied to the Iran conflict.