Trump’s plans to plunder Venezuela’s oil

Within 24 hours of the outrageous Jan. 3 U.S. attack on Venezuela — with the kidnapping of its socialist leaders President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on phony drug smuggling charges — President Donald Trump blurted out the truth. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump boasted: “We need total access to the oil and to other things in their country. We’re gonna run everything.”

It was never about drugs. 

As in many U.S. wars, control over oil resources of sovereign countries is the goal. The holes in Trump’s claims about the U.S. “owning Venezuela’s resources” are big enough to sail an oil tanker through.

Estimated at 300 billion barrels, Venezuela’s oil reserves are among the world’s biggest.

Trump falsely claimed Venezuela “stole” oil and land from the U.S. when it nationalized its oil industry in 1976. But U.S. oil companies never owned oil or land in Venezuela, nor were they kicked out of the country. 

Right-wing Venezuelan dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, who ruled from 1908 until 1935, let foreign oil companies Gulf, Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Oil control 98% of the Venezuela market. Later Venezuelan leaders took steps to assert their country’s control over the oil industry from 1943 to 1974. 

President Carlos Andrés Pérez, a social democrat, signed a law in August 1975 giving Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. control over the exploration, production, refining and export of oil. Venezuelan lawmakers continued this push through 1998. (venezuelanalysis.com, 2003)

Because Venezuela continued to provide relatively cheap oil, initially the nationalization wasn’t seriously contested. Oil companies, including Gulf Oil (acquired by Chevron in 1984), ExxonMobil and Shell claimed losses of $5 billion in assets due to the nationalization, but they were each compensated $1 billion by Venezuela, plus there were no mechanisms for them to seek more.

In 2007, socialist President Hugo Chávez called for the nationalization of the natural gas industry, with plans to redistribute oil wealth to benefit poverty-stricken communities.

Several companies, including Chevron and Spanish-owned Repsol, remained in Venezuela under new contract terms. However, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips sought $40 billion in compensation through arbitration. The World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes awarded ExxonMobil $1.6 billion in 2014 and ConocoPhillips $8.7 billion in 2019. 

Struggling under the impact of U.S. sanctions, Venezuela wasn’t able to pay these exorbitant amounts. Its oil exports, once 3 million to 4 million barrels a day, fell to 900,000 barrels, with most exported to China. (Washington Post, Nov. 1, 2025)

Trump’s gathering of oil industry execs

While Trump received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from energy companies for his last election, some oil industry executives are reluctant to assume the estimated $100 billion in investments needed to take over Venezuela’s oil industry.

Trump staged a highly publicized meeting of oil executives on Jan. 9 to hash out details of a U.S. takeover. But several of the executives were skeptical about selling the idea to their investors. At the White House meeting, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods stated: “We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine re-entering a third time would require some pretty significant changes. Today it’s uninvestable.” (nytimes.com, Jan. 10)

Trump tried to sweeten the deal by suggesting that U.S. taxpayers could reimburse energy companies for repairing Venezuelan infrastructure for extracting and shipping oil: “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.” (The Guardian, Jan. 6)

Trump can promise all he wants, but the pro-socialist Bolivarian government remains in place, despite the U.S. kidnapping of its key leaders. Massive civilian militias have been established, and there is heightened awareness of the danger of another U.S. attack. 

A renewed dominance by U.S. oil companies would require U.S. boots on the ground. Trump admits as much by suggesting that the government could provide protection and security — essentially committing U.S. military troops to do the bidding of the oil industry.

The fact that Russian and Chinese firms have partnered with Venezuela since U.S. companies left complicates the reestablishment of U.S. companies.

During Trump’s staged event he suggested to ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance that previously claimed losses by the company could be written off on the company’s taxes. Lance responded, “It’s already been written off.” 

If previous losses were already written off, this negates any claims companies may have to Venezuela’s oil. Because of sanctions, much of Venezuela’s oil is exported to China, India and other markets. Oil has not been flowing to the U.S. refineries, because U.S. sanctions prohibit it.

Lifting the deadly sanctions could resolve the crisis of oil production and exports in Venezuela.