International
pti-PTI
President Donald Trump on Friday said the US has entered an agreement with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of the South American country’s oil reserves.
President Trump announced the US agreement to control 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves, negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and interim President Delcy Rodriguez, amidst rising gas prices and depleted US reserves.
Trump in a social media post announced the agreement he said was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez.
“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote. The announcement of the deal comes nearly nine months after the US military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.
Trump faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran reaches a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The US has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.
In the days following Maduro’s ouster in January, Trump floated the idea of US oil companies returning to Venezuela to tap its oil reserves. Trump has argued that Venezuela stole US oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies. Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground.
That’s about 17 per cent of the world’s supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Unlike other parts of the world, where geologists have to search for untapped oil, the reserves under Venezuela’s soil are largely mapped and known, experts say. But because of dilapidated infrastructure, the country only produces about 1 per cent of the world’s oil. (AP)
