President Donald Trump has called the agreement giving the US access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves "the biggest oil deal in world history." This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The White House has said little about the deal beyond Trump's social media post. The agreement was announced Friday night. It gives the US a stake in Venezuela's vast oil reserves, a step toward Trump's goal of extracting energy from the country after American forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in a middle-of-the-night raid in January and brought him to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.
Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, described the deal as a step toward economic recovery that will modernize the country's oil industry. But answers to questions such as how soon the reserves could be drilled and who will pay to make it happen were not immediately clear. No text of any agreement has been released.
The US government and an unnamed private operator in Venezuela formed a new private company that was given the rights to vast, untapped oil fields for 100 years.
A statement from Rodríguez said the deal involves the development of 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. It said the agreement could draw $100 billion in investment into Venezuela's oil industry and yield over $209 billion in taxes for Caracas.
Trump said the agreement was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Rodríguez. The deal gives the US 55% effective output of the new private company, including an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. American purchases of the oil will go toward the US strategic oil reserves along with the military, according to a US official.