WASHINGTON — While he was out of office, President Donald Trump mused about what would have happened if the United States had taken control of Venezuela.

“We would have gotten all that oil,” he said in a speech at the North Carolina Republican Convention in 2023. “It would have been right next door.”

On Saturday, Trump made it clear that he now intends to follow through.

In the past year, as the Trump administration built up pressure against Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, the president and his top aides said that the aggressive U.S. actions were necessary to curb drugs and migration from that country. But on Saturday, as Trump discussed the predawn attack on Venezuela that led to the capture of its leader, it was evident that the president’s longtime fixation on oil was a driving factor in his decision to green-light the mission.

“We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump told reporters as he celebrated the seizure of Maduro, promising that U.S. companies would be able to tap more of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

The money made, he said, would go not only to the people of Venezuela, but also to U.S. oil companies and “to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.”

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Ramping Up Venezuelan Production Will Take Years

There was little immediate clarity as to how the White House envisions the United States profiting from Venezuela’s oil. Analysts warn that large increases in the country’s oil production could take years and tens of billions of dollars in spending. But Trump indicated that the country’s oil wealth was a key factor not only in his decision to attack, but also in pledging that the United States would “run” Venezuela for the foreseeable future.

“It won’t cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial,” Trump said, adding that “we’re going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend.”

Venezuela has about 17% of the world’s known oil reserves, or more than 300 billion barrels, more than any other country. But its production is only about 1% of the world total.

Before Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976, U.S. companies including Exxon, Mobil and Gulf Oil were major players. The country reopened its oil industry to foreign drillers in the 1990s, but Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor, began another phase of nationalization in 2007. U.S. oil giants including Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips claimed they were owed billions of dollars in compensation because their operations were seized.

Trump Administration: Venezuela Stole Oil From US

That history feeds the Trump administration’s contention that Venezuela stole oil from the United States — an argument that the White House increasingly made in the weeks before Saturday’s attack. Stephen Miller, the senior Trump adviser central to the president’s immigration crackdown, posted on social media last month that “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela.”

“If you remember, they took all of our energy rights; they took all of our oil from not that long ago,” Trump said last month. “And we want it back.”

Laying claim to other countries’ oil has long been a fixture in Trump’s rhetoric.

“I’ve been saying it for years. Take the oil,” he told The New York Times in 2016, when asked how his strategy to fight the Islamic State group in the Middle East would differ from President Barack Obama’s approach.

As the Trump administration increased its pressure on Maduro during the past year, oil was not initially central to its public rationale. Instead, the White House focused on claims that Maduro had directed drug trafficking and gang members who migrated to the United States — some of which have been disputed by Trump’s own intelligence agencies. When Trump said in March that he would impose tariffs on countries that buy Venezuelan oil, he said he was doing it because, he claimed, Venezuela had “purposefully and deceitfully” sent “murderers and people of a very violent nature” to the United States.

But behind the scenes, as the Times reported last month, the future of Venezuela’s oil was central to Trump’s deliberations as early as last spring. The White House saw the pressure campaign against Venezuela as a way to combine three separate policy goals: crippling Maduro, using military force against drug cartels, and securing access to Venezuela’s oil reserves for U.S. companies.

Chevron Operates in Venezuela

Chevron has in recent years been the only U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela, thanks to permission from the governments of both countries to produce and export oil there. Chevron’s activities played into the White House deliberations, as the company lobbied the White House for an extension of the Biden-era license that allowed it to expand its operations in Venezuela, as the Times previously reported.

However, on Saturday, Chevron was circumspect, even after Trump said U.S. companies would soon spend “billions of dollars” on Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.

The company initially sent reporters a statement saying it was “prepared to work constructively with the U.S. government during this period, leveraging our experience and presence to strengthen U.S. energy security.” It later said the statement was incorrect and issued a new one that removed mention of the U.S. government.

“Chevron remains focused on the safety and well-being of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets,” the company said. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Anton Troianovski/Adriana Loureiro Fernandez

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