‘We’re going to be extracting numbers in terms of oil like few people have seen,’ Trump said – key US politics stories from 9 January 2025
Donald Trump had a message for fossil-fuel companies on Friday: Venezuela is now “open for business” as the US president vowed the country’s resources would be extracted for the benefit of the US, oil companies – and “some” money for Venezuelans.
At a roundtable press conference at the White House with more than a dozen oil executives, including leaders from Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, the US president doubled down on claims that Nicolás Maduro’s arrest presents American oil companies with an unprecedented opportunity for extraction.
In brief remarks, oil executives – for many, the first public statements since Maduro’s capture – expressed willingness to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure with the US government’s reassurances. Venezuela’s oil reserves are reputedly the world’s largest.
History from the past two decades has shown that foreign intervention can have an impact on a country’s oil output, but with mixed and unstable results.
