WASHINTON (CONVERSEER) – President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the “interim authorities” in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States to be sold at “market price.”
In a Tuesday evening statement on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America.”
Trump added, “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”
In his Truth Social post, the president confirmed that he directed Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to immediately start executing his plan to transfer Venezuelan oil to the United States. Trump explained that the transfer will be conducted by storage ships and that the millions of barrels of oil will be unloaded at docks in the United States.
According to Fox News, Trump’s announcement on Tuesday comes prior to an upcoming meeting at the White House with top American oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. The outlet noted that the oil companies are expected to meet with the president at the White House this week regarding potential investment in improving Venezuela’s oil operations following the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
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After announcing the capture of Maduro, Trump indicated that U.S. oil companies would help to rebuild Venezuela by fixing the country’s oil industry.
“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 oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” the president stated.
On Wednesday, Wright announced that the Trump administration is going to “let the oil flow” in Venezuela, sell the oil to refineries in the United States and across the globe, and ensure that the oil sales are “done by the U.S. government and deposited into accounts controlled by the U.S. government.”
“Then from there, those funds can flow back into Venezuela to benefit the Venezuelan people, but we need to have that leverage and that control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela,” Wright added.
