Trump Says US Has Struck Deal for Majority Control of Venezuelan Oil Skip to main content

Trump Says US Has Struck Deal for Majority Control of Venezuelan Oil

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By Tanha Sagar | Published on

Trump and Venezuela's interim government both confirmed a 65-billion-barrel oil agreement Friday, but neither side has published the contract, and its legal terms remain contested.

CARACAS/WASHINGTON — August 29, 2026

President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States has entered an agreement he described as giving Washington majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves, calling it "the biggest oil deal in world history." Venezuela's interim government confirmed the outlines of an agreement the same day. Neither government has published the underlying contract, and central details — including its corporate structure, its legal basis and the identity of the private partner involved — remain unconfirmed beyond the public statements of the two governments and accounts from unnamed officials.

The announcement came in a social media post by Trump on Friday evening, less than eight months after US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a January raid, after which his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, assumed the interim presidency under Venezuela's constitutional line of succession. It is the most consequential step yet in a monthslong effort by Washington to translate its post-raid leverage over Caracas into economic access to the country's oil — home to the world's largest proven reserve base — though how much of that access has actually been secured in enforceable legal terms is not yet independently verifiable.


What Washington and Caracas Announced

In his Truth Social post, Trump credited Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — whom the administration now styles "Secretary of War" under an executive order that has not been codified into law by Congress — with negotiating the arrangement directly with Rodríguez, and said the United States had secured majority control of the reserves "at no cost to the American Taxpayer" through a partnership with private business. Those are Trump's own characterizations of the negotiation, not independently confirmed facts about how the talks unfolded. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN the deal grants Washington 55 percent effective output of a newly formed private joint venture that would become the second-largest private holder of oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Aramco.

Rodríguez's government, in a separate statement, described the arrangement as covering the development of 17 oil fields with a combined proven potential of 65 billion barrels — a subset of Venezuela's roughly 303-billion-barrel total proven reserves, not the country's entire reserve base — and said it could draw roughly $100 billion in private investment while eventually generating more than $209 billion in tax revenue for Caracas. Those investment and revenue figures are the Venezuelan government's own projections, not independently audited estimates. Rubio, in a separate post, said the agreement would bring billions in private investment into Venezuela and help lower US gas prices.

An unnamed US official told several news organizations that the agreement grants the new joint venture 100-year development rights over the fields, and that an as-yet-unnamed private operator would partner with the US government inside the venture. According to NPR, an unnamed official also said oil purchased through the new company would go toward replenishing the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and toward military use. Neither government has released the underlying contract text, and none of these mechanics has been verified against a published document.

What Remains Unknown

As of this writing, no signed contract, executive order text, or joint statement spelling out the deal's legal instrument has been made public by either government. That leaves several basic questions unanswered: whether the arrangement is a binding contract, a memorandum of understanding, or a license issued under existing US sanctions authority; which specific fields are covered and their current production status; who the private operator is; how the reported 55-percent figure is calculated — equity, output share, purchasing rights, or some combination; and whether the US Congress or Venezuela's legislature has any formal role in approving it. Readers should treat the numbers in this article as reported claims from the two governments and from officials who were not authorized to speak publicly, not as the terms of a verified contract.

Verified Fact, Official Position or Unconfirmed Claim?

Several elements of the story rest on different levels of confidence. The existence of an announced agreement, the 65-billion-barrel figure and the 17-field scope are official positions independently confirmed by both the White House's public statements and Rodríguez's government, making them more than a single-source claim. But the specific mechanics — the 55-percent effective-output structure, the identity of the private operator, and the reported 100-year lease term — trace back to unnamed officials speaking to individual outlets, and have not been verified against a published document.

The 100-year term is also legally disputed. Venezuela's reformed hydrocarbons law reportedly caps mixed-company contracts at 25 years with a single 15-year extension, meaning a century-long lease would sit outside that statutory framework for that type of contract unless the deal takes a different legal form or the law is further amended — a discrepancy raised in reporting on the fields under discussion but not yet addressed publicly by either government. It is not established which type of contractual vehicle — mixed company, license, or another structure — the reported 100-year term would fall under. Reuters, Axios and Bloomberg had each separately reported preliminary talks over a group of unnamed fields a day before Friday's announcement, citing unidentified sources on both sides, but none named the specific fields involved.

From Maduro's Capture to a Contested Contract

The oil deal is the latest stage in a rapid realignment that began on January 3, 2026, when US special operations forces launched a raid on Maduro's compound at Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flying them to the United States to face narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking charges, to which Maduro has pleaded not guilty. The operation followed more than a year of escalating US pressure, including a doubled bounty on Maduro, a naval buildup in the Caribbean under Operation Southern Spear, strikes on vessels the US alleged were trafficking drugs, and the seizure of oil tankers leaving Venezuelan ports.

Rodríguez has since signed legislation opening the country's oil sector to privatization, reversing a policy that had been in place since Hugo Chávez's nationalizations in the 2000s. Separately, in the weeks after the January raid, the two governments struck an earlier, smaller arrangement covering roughly 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, with initial proceeds routed through an escrow account in Qatar — an arrangement that drew scrutiny from congressional Democrats over its transparency. It has not been established whether or how that Qatar-linked mechanism carries over to the much larger 65-billion-barrel agreement announced Friday; the two arrangements have been reported separately and should not be assumed to be the same structure. Chevron, the only major US oil company that had continued operating in Venezuela under a special sanctions license, expanded its stake in a joint venture with state firm PDVSA to 49 percent in a swap that financial-press reporting dates to April 2026 and that Chevron's own newsroom confirmed in a statement published June 8, gaining rights to an adjacent Orinoco Belt block. Oilfield services firm SLB and Hunt Oil have since signed their own, separate agreements with PDVSA, according to financial-press reporting. By contrast, ExxonMobil, which along with Chevron and ConocoPhillips had operated in Venezuela for decades before Chávez-era nationalizations, has been notably more cautious: CEO Darren Woods told Trump in January that under the country's current legal and commercial framework, Venezuela remained "uninvestable."

Why Now: An Oil Market Under Strain

The announcement lands amid mounting pressure on the Trump administration to ease US fuel costs. The ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran, now six months old, has slowed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a corridor that carried roughly a fifth of the world's petroleum before the war, according to NPR reporting. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell below 300 million barrels in early August, a decline of more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026. The average US price of gasoline stood at roughly $4.09 a gallon on Friday, up from about $3.21 a year earlier, according to AAA data cited in US news reports. Trump also faces midterm elections in which high gas prices have become a political liability.

Oil markets, however, did not treat Friday's announcement as an immediate supply fix. Brent crude slipped roughly 0.4 percent to settle near $89 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate eased to about $83, with both benchmarks on track for a weekly loss of 4 to 5.5 percent — moves traders attributed mainly to separate reports that Iran and Oman were negotiating a partial reopening of Hormuz shipping lanes. Analysts have cautioned that any Venezuelan supply increase tied to the deal would take years, not months, to materially affect US gas prices.


Key Actors and Their Positions

For Trump and Rubio, the deal is framed as a taxpayer-free way to more than double US-controlled oil reserves and eventually push down fuel prices. For Rodríguez, it is framed as the foundation of Venezuela's economic recovery after decades of decline under state control. Both framings are official positions rather than independently verified outcomes; economists and oil analysts caution that any of these effects would take years to materialize, if they occur at all.

Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University's Baker Institute, has repeatedly cautioned that reviving Venezuela's oil sector to its historical peak would require on the order of $100 billion in investment and many years of work, given decades of underinvestment and degraded infrastructure. He has said that oil companies, many of which were burned by earlier nationalizations, are likely to be cautious about committing capital until legal terms are clearer.

Congressional Democrats have raised sustained objections. Reps. Sean Casten and a dozen colleagues warned 21 oil and services companies in January that any deal reliant on the administration's claimed authority over Venezuelan oil assets carried legal and civil risk, citing Congress's war-powers authority and limits under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff have separately pushed legislation for an independent audit of the Qatar escrow account tied to the earlier 50-million-barrel arrangement. Other lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward Markey, have characterized the underlying military operation and its oil aftermath as an unauthorized use of force.

Reaction inside Venezuela has been more divided than the two governments' public statements suggest. An unnamed Venezuelan opposition figure, cited by The Guardian, described the arrangement bluntly: "It's a land grab — a massive land grab." That criticism reflects concern, voiced by parts of the opposition, that a US intervention originally framed around democratic transition has shifted toward securing resource access, with limited visible role for Venezuela's National Assembly in approving the terms. Other opposition figures, including Nobel laureate María Corina Machado, have more broadly endorsed the Trump administration's pressure campaign against the prior Maduro government, though neither Machado nor other prominent opposition leaders have issued a public statement specifically addressing Friday's 65-billion-barrel announcement as of this writing.

Legal and Practical Doubts

Beyond the lease-term discrepancy under Venezuelan law, US legal experts have flagged a separate ambiguity: Washington formally recognized Venezuela's opposition-aligned National Assembly as the country's legitimate government starting in 2019, a recognition that, if still in force, would complicate the legal basis for the US to negotiate oil terms directly with Rodríguez's interim executive. Other analysts have questioned whether US control over how Venezuela's oil proceeds are spent is consistent with the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, which restricts how the federal government may direct funds not appropriated by Congress.

On the ground, the deal's practical scope is also constrained. Of the reported 17 fields, US officials have acknowledged that several lack basic infrastructure and would require billions of dollars in new investment before producing meaningful output — a timeline measured in years rather than the 18 months Trump has previously suggested.

Market and OPEC Ripples

The announcement coincided with separate reports that Venezuela is weighing an exit from OPEC, the producer cartel it helped found in 1960. A Venezuelan departure, still described as under study with no final decision, would be the second exit from OPEC this year after the United Arab Emirates left in May, and would carry symbolic weight beyond its effect on global supply, given Venezuela's founding role in the organization.

Why It Matters

The deal, as announced, would extend a policy trajectory set in motion by January's military operation rather than mark an abrupt new direction. Analysts at institutions including the Atlantic Council have described the broader campaign as a signal of renewed US assertiveness in the Western Hemisphere. Some critics of the arrangement, including members of Congress cited above, have argued that its scale is without recent precedent for US economic involvement in a foreign state's oil sector and have drawn comparisons to the UN-administered Iraq oil-for-food program of the 1990s and 2000s — a comparison the critics themselves acknowledge is imperfect, since that program was run by an international body under UN sanctions rather than negotiated bilaterally by a single government. This publication has not independently verified the claim that the arrangement is historically unprecedented, and presents it here as the characterization of specific critics rather than as an established fact.

Scenarios Ahead

Most likely: implementation proceeds incrementally, led by Chevron and a small number of established operators, with output gains materializing over two to three years and limited near-term effect on US gas prices. Congressional oversight fights continue without successfully blocking the arrangement.

Alternative: legal challenges over the lease term, the Miscellaneous Receipts Act or the government-recognition question slow or reshape implementation, and cautious oil majors — as Monaldi has warned — hold back capital pending clearer legal terms, producing a smaller and slower rollout than announced.

High-impact scenario: political instability in Caracas, unresolved questions about Rodríguez's electoral mandate, or a further escalation of the Iran war combine to disrupt execution entirely, turning the deal into a flashpoint in a broader confrontation between Congress and the White House over war powers and control of foreign resources.

What Relevant Authorities Should Consider

For Congress: obtaining full public disclosure of the contract's legal basis and terms — including the claimed authority under IEEPA — before further funds, licenses or sanctions relief are implicated, and completing the proposed audit of the Qatar-routed proceeds.

For the State Department and Treasury: clarifying which Venezuelan authority the US legally recognizes for purposes of this agreement, to reduce legal exposure for participating companies and avoid disputes with Venezuela's creditors over the proceeds.

For prospective investors: seeking independent legal review of the lease term against Venezuela's hydrocarbons law before committing capital, given the gap between the reported 100-year duration and the statutory 25-plus-15-year cap.

For Venezuela's interim authorities: establishing a credible, internationally monitored electoral timeline, which would strengthen both the domestic legitimacy and the long-term legal durability of any oil agreements signed in the interim period.

Conclusion

Both governments have now publicly confirmed the existence of an oil agreement and its headline figures, moving the story from rumor to acknowledged fact. But the underlying contract, its precise legal basis and its enforceability remain undisclosed, and the arrangement sits atop unresolved constitutional and international-law questions stemming from the military operation that preceded it. Whether the deal ultimately reshapes global oil supply and US-Venezuela relations, as its architects promise, will depend less on the numbers announced Friday than on whether the investment, infrastructure and political stability required to realize them actually materialize — and on whether Congress moves to either constrain or formally examine the executive branch's expanding role in shaping how a foreign nation's oil wealth is developed and sold.

 

Sources

NPR / Associated Press, "Trump says U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela...," Aug. 28, 2026

CNN, "Trump says US reaches deal with Venezuela to control 65 billion barrels of oil," Aug. 28, 2026

NBC News, "US entered deal with Venezuela to take control of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves," Aug. 28, 2026

CNBC, "Trump announces deal with Venezuela to secure more than 65 billion barrels," Aug. 28, 2026

Chevron Corporation newsroom, "Chevron consolidates Venezuela heavy oil position in asset swap," June 8, 2026

Sean Casten et al., congressional letters on legal risk of Venezuela oil transactions, Jan. 28, 2026

US Energy Information Administration, Venezuela country analysis

Invezz, citing The Guardian, "Trump administration eyeing stake in Venezuelan oil fields? Here's what we know," Aug. 28, 2026

Additional background drawn from PBS NewsHour, CSIS, the Atlantic Council and OilPrice.com, cited inline above. This article reflects public reporting as of the afternoon of August 29, 2026, and will need updating as the underlying contract, if released, becomes available for direct review.

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