The United States may not oversee Venezuela and control its oil revenue for years, President Donald Trump said in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday.
“Only time will tell” how long the United States will oversee Venezuela, Trump said. When asked by this newspaper whether it will be three months, six months, a year or more, Trump said: “I can say a lot.”
“We’re going to rebuild in a very profitable way,” Trump said of Venezuela, where he sent troops to seize President Nicolás Maduro during an overnight raid on Saturday.
“We’re going to use oil, and we’re going to take oil. We’re lowering oil prices, and we’re going to be giving Venezuela money, which they desperately need.”
Trump on Tuesday unveiled a plan to refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil that was stuck in Venezuela under the US embargo.
Venezuela sits on one of the world’s largest oil deposits – but not all oil is created equal. CBC’s Johanna Wagstaffe explains that millions of years of sea burial and oil-eating microbes have turned that reservoir into one of the world’s heaviest, hardest-to-remove crudes.
Trump told the Times that the US “gets along very well” with the government of the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, who was loyal to Maduro’s ousted vice president.
“They’re giving us everything we feel is necessary,” Trump said, referring to the Venezuelan government.
He declined to comment when asked if he had spoken to Rodríguez personally, but said Secretary of State Marco Rubio talks to him “all the time.”
“I will tell you that we are in constant contact with him and the management.”
The Times said Trump declined to answer questions about why he does not support the Venezuelan opposition, who are hardline politicians. Washington had considered Edmundo González – who ran against Maduro in the 2024 election after Maria Corina Machado was banned from the race – who officially won the vote.
Shortly after Maduro’s capture, he said that Machado did not have the support of the Venezuelan people, without providing any specific information to support that contention.
Trump told The Times reporters that he would like to eventually go to the South American country.
“I think sometimes it will be safe,” he said. In the 2024 presidential election campaign, he repeatedly said that the capital Caracas is safer than “many of our cities,” as he sought to undermine Democratic leadership in several American cities.
Oil industry executives will meet at the White House
Trump has said that the United States intends to “run” Venezuela, while other US officials have indicated that their current plan is to have influence without military intervention.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has been impoverished in recent decades, as eight million people have fled abroad in one of the world’s biggest migration crises.
The United States is tightening its grip on Venezuelan oil production after seizing two more tankers, one of which is flying the Russian flag. The US said the tankers were part of a ‘shadow fleet’ carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil.
Washington and the Venezuelan opposition have long criticized the corruption, mismanagement and brutality of the ruling Socialist Party. Maduro blamed economic damage on US sanctions.
Several US officials said on Wednesday that the United States needs to take control of Venezuela’s oil sales and revenues permanently in order to restore the country’s oil industry and rebuild its economy.
Trump is scheduled to meet with the heads of major oil companies at the White House on Friday to discuss ways to increase oil production in Venezuela.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday said he spoke with executives from Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron immediately after Maduro was arrested, and he expects them to cooperate in revitalizing Venezuela’s oil sector.
“Are they going to put billions of dollars into building new infrastructure in Venezuela next week? Of course not,” he said. “But they want to be effective advisors and facilitators in that process.”
Senate vote to limit Trump on tap
The US Senate is expected to consider a resolution on Thursday that would prevent Trump from taking military action against Venezuela without Congressional approval.
The US Constitution requires any president to get the approval of Congress before starting a long-term military operation.
The Trump administration says it has a three-step plan for recovery, stabilization and rehabilitation of Venezuela, which involves the US selling 30 to 50 barrels of the country’s oil on the world market. Former US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro tells Power & Politics that he doubts the plan.
A number of Republican lawmakers this past week who opposed the military decision insisted that Maduro’s seizure was a law enforcement operation, not a military operation, pointing to the long-standing US case of the Venezuelan dictator’s abduction.
They also say Trump is within his rights as commander in chief to launch limited military action he feels is necessary for national security.
Republicans have blocked previous measures introduced since the Trump administration stepped up military pressure on Venezuela over the summer, when it doubled the reward for Maduro’s capture and, since September, carried out US military strikes on boats the administration says are transporting drugs.
Since Maduro’s capture, some lawmakers have accused the administration of misleading Congress, including Democrats publicly and some Republicans behind the scenes.
Some Republicans may be wary of a long and expensive regime change campaign in Venezuela. Trump on Wednesday said on his Truth Social website that he wants the US military budget to increase to $1.5 trillion from $1 trillion US.
Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia co-sponsored the resolution.
“President Trump’s unauthorized military invasion of Venezuela to arrest Maduro — no matter how bad — is a sad return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere,” Kaine said in a recent statement.
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“That history is full of failures, and the repetition of them makes it difficult to make a direct claim that other countries should respect the sovereignty of the United States when we do not.”
Passage in the Senate would be a major blow for lawmakers who have been pressing the war power issue, although it would need the support of at least four Republicans, as Vice President JD Vance broke a tie vote.
That assumes all Democrats support the measure. Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against the measure in October, and has expressed support for the US invasion that captured Maduro.
But to become law, the resolution would have to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives and survive Trump’s expected vote, which would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
