The Hole in Donald Trump’s Venezuelan Oil Strategy

Flames rise from flare stacks at a refinery in the Venezuelan state of Falcón, in January, 2026.Photograph by Matias Delacroix / APSave this story Save this story Save this story Save this story Jarrod Agen, the head of President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, was in a celebratory mood. Just after one o’clock on April 30th, he landed in Caracas, Venezuela, on the first direct commercial flight to arrive from the United States since 2019. Only a few months before Agen’s trip, the Venezuelan government had accused the U.S. of orchestrating an imperialist scheme to plunder its resources. Now regime officials waited patiently on the tarmac as the plane carrying Agen’s delegation passed under the streams of a water salute and rolled to a stop. The pilots leaned out of the windows of the cockpit, unfurling American and Venezuelan flags for the cameras. Sporting a dark suit and gold-framed aviators, Agen descended the air stairs with a confident smile. “President Trump is a man of action,” he said. “We are moving at Trump speed to get things done.”

Since the day that Trump intervened in Venezuela, the President has been blunt about his motives. “We’re in the oil business,” he said, just after announcing the capture of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela has some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and U.S. companies once ran extensive operations there. But the regime had pushed almost all of these businesses out years ago, and Trump was eager to facilitate their return. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money for the country.” The U.S. took control of Venezuela’s oil exports, and officials were dispatched to Caracas to broker deals with the regime.

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