The U.S. Will ‘Indefinitely’ Take Over Venezuelan Oil Sales and Revenue

The Trump administration plans to “indefinitely” take control of Venezuelan oil sales, sell the country’s oil production into the global marketplace, and put the revenues into accounts controlled by President Donald Trump, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Wright offered the first concrete — albeit light on details — plan for how the Trump administration wants to control Venezuela’s oil industry, the country’s primary source of revenue, at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami Wednesday.

“Indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” he said.

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday briefing that “all proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan crude oil and products will first settle in U.S.-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks to guarantee the legitimacy and integrity of the ultimate distribution of the proceeds.

“Those funds will be disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the United States government,” she added at the briefing, which took place after Wright’s speech.

Leavitt also confirmed that the Trump administration will selectively roll back some sanctions to enable the export and sale of the oil.

During his speech Wednesday morning, Wright described how the administration envisions controlling the oil industry moving forward, describing plans to work with the Venezuelan government and eventually allow imports of tools and parts to stabilize the country’s deteriorating oil infrastructure.

Wright also said that the crude would flow to U.S. refineries in the Gulf region, which were designed to process the type of oil coming from Venezuela and would benefit economically from a new influx.

Since Nicolás Maduro’s capture, Trump has repeatedly insisted that American oil companies will invest billions of dollars in Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.

On Wednesday, Wright became the first administration official to acknowledge that those companies — wary of the country’s political instability, debt problems, and security vulnerabilities — will not be doing any sort of significant investment in the near term.

Rather, the goal would be “in the long run, to create the conditions that the major American companies, that were there before, maybe they weren’t before, but want to go, will go in again,” he said at the conference.

Oil analysts told NOTUS that it’s very unlikely any major oil company would want to significantly invest in Venezuela without security and stability guarantees that stretch at least five to ten years. Leavitt said during her briefing that Wright will be meeting with companies while in Miami for the Goldman conference, and Trump will be meeting with oil executives on Friday.

While the total amount of oil that Venezuela can currently produce is small compared to U.S. and global oil production, the Trump administration taking control of the country’s oil sales means almost complete control over the purse strings for the Venezuelan government.

Venezuela’s oil production rates fell dramatically after the imposition of U.S. sanctions in 2019, but oil remains the country’s primary source of revenue. About half of the government’s spending budget comes from income from the state-owned oil company, according to a Lloyd’s Bank analysis.

In his speech, Wright described the revenue from the oil sales as “leverage” that could eventually be given to the people of Venezuela after forcing changes within the country, but he did not provide specifics about what that plan entails or what it would take for the U.S. government to give the money back to those within the country.

“Their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America,” Leavitt said during her briefing.

“The question is: how much of this money are they going to channel back to the Venezuelan government, and how are they going to expect that to be used?” said one local industry analyst, requesting anonymity to speak candidly on the matter. “What’s this all going to look like? They do need to get some money back into the economy, especially given the situation right now with the exchange rate and the repercussions on inflation.”

“This is something that has probably never been seen before,” he added.

The U.S. government will also invest in making improvements to Venezuela’s dilapidated electric grid, the Department of Energy announced in a fact sheet released Wednesday.

The U.S. has already begun the process of taking Venezuelan oil and selling it, Trump announced Tuesday night in a post on Truth Social. Trump said in the post that he will control the proceeds from the sales.

The U.S. blockade on Venezuela’s oil exports had forced production to slow because the country had nowhere to put any oil it was producing. Now, with the sale of the oil that’s currently sitting in the country and afloat in sanctioned tankers, production can resume.

This article has been updated with comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and a fact sheet from the Department of Energy.