Trump says U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves
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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday said the U.S. has entered an agreement with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of the South American country’s oil 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 Rodríguez.
“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 Venezuelan government’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Broken pumps, rusted pipes, ghost towns mark Venezuela’s once vibrant oil hub. It will cost billions to restore the industry.
The announcement of the deal comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuelan 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 on Friday reached a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The U.S. 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.
The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Before the conflict, about 20% of the world‘s petroleum passed through the waterway.
Over the six months of war with Iran, President Trump consistently attempted to shape the conflict’s narrative through shifting and often contradictory statements. His comments have swung wildly from predicting imminent peace to threatening total obliteration of the Islamic Republic.
The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about $4.09 a gallon Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.
Trump in his social media post Friday evening alluded to the Venezuela deal being part of a private partnership. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the private sector partners involved in the deal, and details on how the arrangement would work were not provided.
Persuading big American oil companies to return to the region could face headwinds given and decades of badly damaged infrastructure.
Days after the ouster of Maduro, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and called on them to rush back into Venezuela. Executives expressed interest in the opportunity but there was also a measure of caution given their past experience in the country.
Darren Woods, chief executive of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said at that moment he saw the country as “un-investable.”
But Trump has insisted that his administration has brought a measure of stability to Venezuela.
He has argued that Venezuela stole U.S. oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies.
Rodríguez, in one of her early moves after taking power, signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization and reversed a bedrock tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that had ruled the country for more than two decades.
Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher $100 billion in private investment into Venezuela and lead to lower gas prices in the United States.
“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Rubio posted.
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% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Madhani and Binkley write for the Associated Press. Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas contributed to this report.
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