US President Donald Trump has said American oil companies will be allowed to move into Venezuela to tap its vast crude reserves following a US military operation that led to the capture of President Nicolás Maduro.Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Trump said major US energy firms would invest billions of dollars to repair Venezuela’s damaged oil infrastructure and restart production. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.Trump added that the United States would then sell “large amounts” of Venezuelan oil to other countries, according to AP.“We’re in the oil business. We’re going to sell it to them,” Trump said during the news conference. He added that oil companies will pay to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.At the same time, he made it clear that US sanctions remain in place. “The embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect,” Trump said. Venezuela has been under US oil sanctions since 2019 and currently produces about one million barrels of crude per day, much of which is sold on the black market at heavy discounts, as per AFP.Trump described Venezuela’s oil sector as a “total bust” for years despite holding the world’s largest proven crude reserves. He said the proposed US “partnership” would make Venezuelans “rich, independent and safe”, adding that Venezuelans living in the US would be “extremely happy” and “not going to suffer any more”, reported AFP.The president repeated similar remarks in a television interview, saying the US would be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry, without spelling out the details.Venezuela’s proven reserves are estimated at around 303 billion barrels, accounting for about 17 percent of global reserves, as per The Hill.Trump’s comments came hours after Washington announced it had captured Maduro in an overnight military operation. Maduro and his wife were taken from a military base and flown out of the country aboard a US warship, with Trump saying they were headed to New York to face criminal charges. He also said the US planned to run Venezuela temporarily until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” of power could take place, reported AP.As part of a weeks-long military pressure campaign ahead of the raid, US forces seized at least two oil tankers that Washington said were operating in violation of sanctions.Trump also issued a warning to other political and military figures in Venezuela, saying “what happened to Maduro can happen to them,” according to AFP. He again accused Caracas of using oil revenues to finance “drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”, allegations long denied by the Venezuelan government, as per AFP.Trump said he personally watched the military operation in real time and praised it as “extremely successful”, adding that US forces were prepared for further action if required.While US oil major Chevron already operates in Venezuela under limited sanctions waivers, Trump’s remarks signal a far deeper American role in the country’s energy sector once political control is restructured. How and when US oil firms would enter Venezuela, and under what legal framework, remains unclear.
