Trump seeks control of Venezuela’s oil to push US price toward $50 a barrel

Donald Trump plans to use Venezuela’s vast crude reserves to establish control of much of the western hemisphere’s oil and try to drive the US consumer price down to about $50 a barrel, according to reports. The Wall Street Journal, citing senior Trump administration officials, said the president has repeatedly raised the prospect of producing enough crude from Venezuela’s fields to cut the US price from more than $56 a barrel to about $50.

Global oil markets have already recorded large losses in recent years, with prices slumping by almost 20% in 2025 and marking three consecutive years of annual losses, the report noted. The White House confirmed the US planned to control Venezuela’s oil sales "indefinitely" after laying claim to 50m barrels of blockaded crude, which the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said could be worth up to $3bn and would be used to "benefit the Venezuelan people".

The US also seized a Russian oil tanker linked to Venezuela after a two-week pursuit, and Trump said Venezuela would use any profits to buy only US-made goods in a post on his Truth Social platform. Officials have suggested raising Venezuela’s output from about 1m barrels a day to roughly 3m bpd could lift US domestic production to about 14m bpd, or roughly one-third of the Opec+ output of 40m bpd.

Key Topics

Business, Donald Trump, Venezuela, Venezuelan Oil, Opec+, Chevron