President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration has entered a sweeping agreement with Venezuela that, if realized, could give the U.S. access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost.
Trump in a social media post announcing the agreement said it was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s acting 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.
Rodríguez’s government in a statement said the deal involves the development of 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. It said the agreement could draw US$100 billion in investment into Venezuela’s oil industry and yield over $209 billion in taxes for Caracas.
Rodríguez in a posting on Telegram predicted the deal “will have a significant impact on our nation’s revival.”
The agreement allows for the United States to partner with an unnamed private operator in Venezuela to create a new private company to take hold of the reserves, according to a U.S. official familiar with the contours of the deal.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that Rodríguez granted the company 100-year rights to develop the oil fields.
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The deal gives the United States 55 per cent effective output of the new private company — including an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. The company would be the second largest corporate holder of proven reserves after Saudi Aramco, according to the official.
Trump is under pressure to show he’s lowering oil costs
The announcement comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s then-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, which about 20 per cent of the world petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.
The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about US$4.09 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.
A significant drop in U.S. gas prices tied to the agreement should not be expected immediately. Experts have repeatedly warned that a substantial boost in Venezuelan oil production will not happen quickly as repairing and expanding infrastructure takes years and requires billions of dollars.
Persuading big American oil companies to return the region could face headwinds given the political uncertainty 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.
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Darren Woods, CEO 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 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 has ruled the country for more than two decades.
Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher in billions 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.
The oil bought from the new company would go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and toward military use, according to the U.S. official.
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 U.S. 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 one per cent of the world’s oil.
Maduro remains jailed in the U.S. He has pleaded not guilty.
—Garcia Cano reported from Caracas.
On January 3, 2026, the United States military launched sudden airstrikes in Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro. Legal experts and foreign governments called the attack an illegal use of force and a violation of the UN Charter.
They attack Venezuela and now want to take their oil, piracy on an international level.
Fred
August 29, 2026 at 12:37 pm
Hey Freddy who built the oil infrastructure in Venezuela? I’ll give you one guess or maybe I’ll just tell you it was the US of A.
Heck yea!!! Lets keep those elbows up high gang.
Orange guy panicking before the midterms, as he knows he’s at a record low in the polls. So he tells Murica not to worry, Venezuelan oil gonna save them, lol! Except the Venezuelan infrastructure is old & decrepit and big oil has already said they won’t be investing the billions needed to bring it up to snuff. But, nice try pumpkin head, lol!
Everyone is saying it’s a lie but what if it isn’t what will it mean for Canada if Trump doesn’t need our oil. Canada is making big noise about shopping elsewhere maybe Trump is shopping elsewhere also which will hurt Canada even more. Our provinces won’t even support Canada enough to drop interprovincial tariffs or allow pipelines to get our oil across Canada. People are so blinded by TDS they won’t see what’s happening in Canada and Carney and this Liberal government are doing nothing but making elbows up speeches.
Trumps plan is to make the north and south American continents one single trading block with 30 billion barrels of oil under Venezuela, water from the great lakes and the Amazon basin, lithium and other rare earth metals in abundance in south american countries, control of the Panama Canal, fresh grown vegetables etc from Mexico etc etcetc. If you haven’t got the picture yet then you must be a Carney supporter. The only failure is Canada that is a land mass part of north america but with a government that is rejecting the unified trading block of north and south america and going to China and Europe to trade. That is a disastrous decision that will backfire on Carney and Canada.
Ouch. Bad news for Canada. Elbows up right? Ha Ha.
On s’en fout? Du pétrole bon marché, c’est du pétrole bon marché, et c’est bon pour l’économie !
Who cares? Cheap oil is cheap oil, and that’s good for the economy!
The kind of “deal” that is only made when you have your foot on the throat of the other side’s trade representative. I’m glad that Canada didn’t allow such a “deal”.
It’s not a deal when a bully comes in , uses the military to capture the current leader and then replace that leader with another one you can extort the countries riches from . It’s called a war crime.
Your move Carney / Danielle.
With America, it’s always about oil…
As usual, Trump and his administration are big fat liars. The level of idiocy just piles up in the White House. No private operator would be stupid to go into Venezuela and spend billions of investment to develop the dirtest crude oil, let alone the time or 10 years plus to fix their mess. Venezuela is a strategic hub for criminal organization that the foreign (aka American) oil workers will never come out alive. VP Rodriguez is a puppet…doing and saying whatever to appease Trump and it will never end well. Trump and their administration know that this spells death sentence. Look at the 6 month war with the Iranians. Trump has no way out out of his stupid war plan and the Iranian government are not going to let him get away that easy. Sure, Vance who is the biggest idiot is complaining about Canadian’s weak military (which is true) but all this is just a smear campaign, a distraction from the real fact: Trump’s wars just keep on piling up and Canadians are now at trade war with the Americans. That is so F-UP.
Venezuela gonna see some very upset and potentially violent civilians making statements soon. This should read trump extorts 65 billion barrels of oil using intimidation tactics.
ANOTHER BIG LIE! When will he stop?? Kill it before it spreads please!!
This won’t work out in the long run.
Someone somewhere somehow, end that man