President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday evening that the interim government of Venezuela will be delivering 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States following the American spectacle of overthrowing the authoritarian government of the South American nation’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
In a social media post, Trump stated the oil would be sold at the market value, “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!”
Trump wrote in his statement that “I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”
Trump claimed that the oil turned over to the U.S. was “high quality” and “sanctioned.” U.S. crude futures dropped 1.3 percent to $56.39 per barrel as a result of Trump’s announcement.
It was announced three days following the capture of Maduro by U.S. forces in Caracas, along with his wife, and their transport to New York, where they are accused of a federal drug-trafficking conspiracy charge.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump would hold a meeting with leaders of the large U.S. oil corporations Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil, and other domestic oil manufacturers at the White House on Friday “to discuss making significant investments in Venezuela’s oil sector.”
Trump has indicated that the American oil firms would find themselves spending billions of dollars to restore the outdated oil production capacity of Venezuela. Chevron is the sole U.S. oil company that is operating in Venezuela at the moment.
Venezuela, under the then-President Hugo Chavez, nationalized the assets of ConocoPhillips and Exxon in the mid-2000s. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were acquitted on Monday when they were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. In that hearing, Maduro advised Judge Alvin Hellerstein that he was “kidnapped” and that he was a “prisoner of war.”
