Trump: Large U.S. Oil Companies to Invest Billions in Venezuela

By Admin. Updated 2:28 p.m., Saturday, January 3, 2026, Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4).

United States President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that major U.S. oil companies will invest billions of dollars to repair Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure and generate revenue for the South American nation.

The announcement came during a press conference called to discuss the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. ‘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,’ Mr Trump told reporters.

He described Venezuela’s oil sector as ‘a total bust for a long period of time’. ‘They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place,’ he added.

Mr Trump also stated that the U.S. will administer Venezuela until a safe, peaceful, and judicious transition can occur. ‘We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious because that’s what we’re all about,’ he said.

‘We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country. It’s their homeland. And we can’t take a chance if somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We’ve had decades of that,’ Mr Trump added. ‘We’re not going to let that happen.’

He warned that the U.S. stands ‘ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so’.

Context and Reactions

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. U.S. economic sanctions have long hampered its ability to export oil, including recent seizures of Venezuelan tankers. After sanctions devastated the economy, Venezuela turned to BRICS nations, particularly China and Russia, for financial support, with oil investments under discussion.

Russia and others have accused the U.S. of using narcotrafficking allegations against the Maduro regime as a pretext for intervention, motivated primarily by Venezuela’s oil resources. Political and international relations experts have anticipated U.S. discomfort with the expanding influence of China and Russia in the Americas, long viewed as its historical sphere.

Mr. Trump has accused Mr. Maduro of drug and gang activities against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and says Mr. Maduro and his wife will answer to the charges on U.S. soil.

Background

Saturday’s developments follow months of U.S. military build-up in the Caribbean Sea, including strikes on vessels designated for narcotrafficking involvement. They align with longstanding U.S. actions, such as a bounty on President Maduro and seizures of sanctioned oil tankers.

The Venezuelan government condemned the U.S. moves, accusing it of targeting the nation’s strategic resources—oil and minerals—to erode its sovereignty. ‘They will not succeed,’ it insisted, adding: ‘This act constitutes a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations, especially Articles 1 and 2, which enshrine the respect for the sovereignty, the legal equality of States, and the prohibition of the use of force. Such an aggression threatens international peace and stability, specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean, and puts the lives of millions of people at serious risk.’

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