WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump invited executives of large oil companies to the White House on Friday to discuss investment opportunities that will restore Venezuelan oil infrastructure.
“We’re going to discuss how these great American companies can help rapidly rebuild Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry and bring millions of barrels of oil production to benefit the United States, the people of Venezuela, and the entire world,” Trump said as he welcomed the executives.
“When you add Venezuela and the United States together, we have 55 percent of the oil in the world,” Trump said, noting that major oil companies will be spending at least $100 billion to “rebuild the capacity and the infrastructure necessary” in Venezuela.
He said companies will have security guarantees, and they will be using American workers, but mostly Venezuelan workers.
Companies that attended the meeting in the East Room included Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Continental, Halliburton, HKN, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas, Repsol, Eni, Aspect Holdings, Tallgrass, Raisa Energy, and Hilcorp.
“A very big factor in this involvement will be the reduction of Oil Prices for the American People. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly of all, will be the stoppage of Drugs and Criminals coming into the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
The administration is relying on large U.S. oil companies to rebuild the country’s crumbling oil infrastructure following the ousting of regime leader Nicolás Maduro.
In a recent interview, Trump told The New York Times that he plans to rebuild Venezuela “in a very profitable way.”
“We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil,” he said, noting this would help lower global oil prices while returning the money to Venezuelans, “which they desperately need.”
The Trump administration expects large American companies to extract oil from the country’s rich reserves and to control the global distribution of that oil for the foreseeable future.
The Energy Department outlined its strategy on Jan. 7, stating that all proceeds from oil sales will be controlled by the U.S. government and distributed for the benefit of the Venezuelan and American people. The administration is now selectively removing sanctions on Venezuelan oil to allow its export and sale in global markets.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Minnesota on Jan. 8, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that big oil companies, which move slowly and have corporate boards, are not interested in Venezuela. Instead, small companies are more interested in going to Venezuela. Bessent said that independent oil companies, individuals, and wildcatters—companies that drill oil wells—are calling the administration non-stop because “they want to get to Venezuela yesterday.”
In his Truth Social message, Trump highlighted strong interest from big oil companies.
“The largest Oil Companies in the World are coming to the White House at 2:30 P.M. Everybody wants to be there,” Trump wrote.
“It’s too bad that the Ballroom hasn’t completed because, if it were, it would be PACKED. We apologize to those Oil Companies that we cannot take today.”
After being captured in Caracas by the U.S. military, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were transferred to New York City on Jan. 3 and are currently being held in jail. At their first court appearance on Jan. 5, both pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include drug trafficking and collaborating with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro told the court that he is still the president of his country and that he was kidnapped.
On that same day, Venezuela’s parliament swore in Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, as acting president.
“The American people, energy companies, and the Venezuelan people will all greatly benefit from these new, unprecedented investments in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure thanks to President Trump,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told The Epoch Times in a statement.