Trump says Venezuela stole American oil. Here's what really happened.
When President Trump announced the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Saturday, he justified the military operation in part by framing it as a move to recover assets that he claims had been stolen from U.S. companies.
"Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars," Mr. Trump said. "This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country."
Who owns Venezuela's oil?
The president's focus on Venezuela's oil is now raising questions about American energy companies' activities in the country, as well as whether U.S. oil giants might now work to revive its floundering petroleum industry. Venezuela's constitution states that the nation owns all mineral and hydrocarbon deposits — its oil and natural gas reserves — within its own territory, including those that lie beneath the country's seabed.
Mr. Trump "talks about them taking our oil — the oil itself was never 'our oil'," Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, told CBS News, adding that the nation's vast crude reserves "belong to the government of Venezuela."
What's also true, however, is that U.S. oil companies had contractual agreements with Venezuela to extract, process and transport its oil, as well as to share in the revenue from oil sales.
Mr. Trump's claims of theft reflect actions by then-Venezuela leader Hugo Chávez to nationalize the nation's energy sector in 2007 and to confiscate the production assets of Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips after they left the country, Gross said.
Those seizures have led to years of lawsuits and efforts by the companies to recoup their losses. While a World Bank arbitration panel has ruled in favor of the oil companies, the money has yet to be recovered.
"It is beyond question that there are a number of U.S. companies and others out there who have claims against Venezuela that have been trying to get those claims satisfied for many years," Ted Posner, a partner at law firm Baker Botts and a former assistant general counsel for international affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told CBS News.
The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.
Oil industry executives met on Friday afternoon at the White House with Mr. Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to discuss Venezuela. Representatives from Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips attended, including ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance.
"ConocoPhillips continues to monitor developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability," the company said in a statement prior to the meeting.
Said a Chevron spokesperson after the meeting on Friday: "For more than a century, Chevron has been a part of Venezuela's past. We remain committed to its present. And we stand ready to help it build a better future while strengthening U.S. energy and regional security."
Exxon didn't respond to requests for comment.
Chávez's power play — and corruption
Venezuela's government has a long history of nationalizing its oil sector, with state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, taking over the industry in the 1970s. Exxon and other foreign oil companies continued to operate in the country by signing contracts to provide technical assistance and other expertise to PDVSA.
In the 1990s, Exxon and other large petroleum companies were invited by then-Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez to return in an effort to develop the oil reserves in the Orinoco River Basin, according to "Energy in the Americas," a book published by the University of Calgary Press.
But in 2003, Chávez fired thousands of PDVSA workers after they went on strike. Four years later, he expanded the nationalization push by requiring foreign companies to give majority ownership of their ventures to PDVSA. Exxon and ConocoPhillips failed to strike a deal with Venezuela, while BP, Houston-based Chevron, Norway's Statoil and France's Total signed pacts giving majority stakes to PDVSA, allowing them to remain, Reuters reported in 2007.
"Some agreed, and some did not, and assets were expropriated," Gross said.
Amid widespread corruption under Chávez, as journalist Anne Appelbaum noted in a 2024 book, hundreds of billions of dollars were siphoned off from PDVSA and other Venezuelan companies and subsequently disappeared into private bank accounts around the world.
A 2017 investigation by U.S. and Portuguese authorities found that PDVSA executives had funneled millions of dollars into Portugal's Banco Espirito Santo.
Venezuela owes billions to Big Oil
Chávez's strong-arm tactics led to efforts by Exxon and ConocoPhillips to seek compensation for their assets, with Exxon claiming it had lost $16.6 billion due to the nationalization campaign. A World Bank arbitration panel in 2014 awarded the company one-tenth of what it had sought, but that same body later annulled most of that award.
In a separate case, an international tribunal ruled that Venezuela owed $8.7 billion to ConocoPhillips in compensation for the 2007 seizure of its assets.
Other industries also had their assets taken away under Chávez's 14-year reign, and companies have filed at least 60 arbitration claims against Venezuela since the 2000s, according to Luisa Palacios, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.
"The value of these liabilities is estimated at $20 to $30 billion or about 10% to 15% of the almost $200 billion in international debt obligations Venezuela owes," she said in an article this week published by Columbia.
"Venezuela could pay off these claims by inviting investors back to the country," she noted. "That could be done through debt-for-equity swaps or by linking future oil production to repayment of current debts. However, restructuring the country's foreign obligations will likely be needed for Venezuela to fully realize its oil potential."
U.S. wasting no time
Venezuela's oil reserves are estimated to be the world's largest, with more than 303 billion barrels. That represents about 17% of the world's total oil supply, according to OPEC data.
But Venezuela's crude oil production has plunged, with the industry today pumping 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day, down from more than 3 million per day in the early 2000s. That output has nosedived due to chronic underinvestment, government mismanagement, and the impact of U.S. and international sanctions.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the U.S. will export between 30 million and 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela, which will be sold at "market rates," with revenue used "in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Venezuela's interim government had agreed to release the oil.
Although Mr. Trump is pushing U.S. oil companies to invest in Venezuela following Maduro's capture, they may need assurances before committing to new ventures, Gross said.
"The political situation in Venezuela is really uncertain right now. Before a company is going to realistically invest a lot of money, they will want a stable political situation," she added.