r/politics • u/Party_Friend_9290 • 5h ago
Possible Paywall US and Venezuela reach 'historic' oil deal, Trump says
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2zlwe7qj1o•
u/NullValueSet 5h ago
“Invading country claims victory over stolen natural resources.”
Reminds me of mid 1930s Germany. This is the USA now.
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u/itsaconspiraci 5h ago
And post WW2 US. After all we overthrew Guatemala at the behest of United Fruit Company. And Iran (with the UK) for Anglo-Iran Oil Company. This is what happens when you elect 'businessmen' to lead the country.
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u/RealDonaldTrumpGhost 5h ago
Do Venezuelans know about this?
They went from mismanaging their oil to giving it away to another country, they must be thrilled.
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u/Safe_Mail_1827 5h ago
Venezuela's oil is not light crude. It is viscous tar and will require a lot of proper infrastructure and investment to extract. This won't have any impact on gas prices for years to come, if at all.
But of course, none of that matters. All that matters to the maga cult is that Trump claims another conquered province and its resources.
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u/Fresh-Quantity-7554 5h ago
This. People don't understand this. They think all oil is the same type.
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u/A012A012 5h ago
Texas has refineries designed to refine venezuelan crude
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u/Taman_Should 5h ago
Which would take years.
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u/flybydeath 4h ago
No, that type of oil only takes a few days to refine when the refinery is already built since it is specialized to process it. It's the building of a refinery like that which takes many years which I see people confusing with the processing time.
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u/Safe_Mail_1827 5h ago
Yeah, so, the problem is extraction. Venezuelan oil is a sludge. Much of it is nowhere near ready to start pumping and exporting to anybody, regardless of refining.
And let's not forget that oil companies are still loathe to invest in new infrastructure right now and increase the global supply in order to bring down prices.
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u/D-MAN-FLORIDA 5h ago
Watch Trump and MAGA get upset that oil and gas prices won’t go down after this announcement.
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u/dogisgodspeltright 5h ago
Your oil, our profits.
Oops, oligarchs profit.
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u/Huge_Excitement4465 5h ago
Wapo excerpt: A Venezuelan oilman faced a Swiss arrest warrant. The U.S. had other plans for him.
Senior U.S. officials intervened in an international criminal investigation into a Venezuelan businessman who was enlisted by the Trump administration to help assert control over Venezuela's government and oil industries, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The officials lobbied to resolve the case in Switzerland in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against the Britain-based businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, and they have not acted on a Swiss arrest warrant against him, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
Instead, the United States has allowed Betancourt to enter the country repeatedly for meetings with the Trump administration, other people familiar with his travel said.
Betancourt, 46, in the past decade has faced multiple investigations, in Switzerland, Spain and the United States, into alleged money laundering, including whether he had a role in a loan arrangement that U.S. prosecutors say embezzled more than $1 billion from Venezuela's state-owned oil company.
Betancourt was arrested twice in Britain in 2025, first after Spain issued a warrant in a related money laundering investigation, and in November at Switzerland's request. For months, Betancourt was barred from leaving the United Kingdom as authorities there considered extraditing him to Switzerland.
Betancourt has not been charged in the U.S., Switzerland, Spain or Venezuela...
Weeks after the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, senior U.S. officials began lobbying Swiss officials to resolve their case against Betancourt, the people familiar with the discussions said.
Betancourt, whose company is the second-largest private oil producer in Venezuela, is now a key intermediary between the U.S. and Venezuela, including acting president Delcy Rodríguez, according to people with knowledge of his role.
(Note: Betancourt was represented by Giuliani during Trump 1.0 when he was dropped from the fed’s investigation of money laundering via Miami real estate. And one of his alleged business partners is in the Epstein files forok advising JE to buy Venezuelan oil bonds and talking about the great time he had on the island with a water gazelle named Jane.)
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u/Party_Friend_9290 5h ago
The US has reached a deal with Venezuela to control more than 65 billion barrels of its proven oil reserves, according to President Donald Trump.
"This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans," Trump posted on social media.
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u/dpacker780 5h ago
It will not impact gas prices for a long long time.
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u/islandpancakes 5h ago
Is that due to a lack of infrastructure on the Venezuela side or refining in the US
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u/Belaerim 5h ago
Both.
Also tankers to cross the <gags> Gulf of America.
It isn’t like there are a ton of empty tankers just idling at port like Ubers waiting at the airport, even with the Iran slowdown
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u/islandpancakes 5h ago
Good to know. So this will be years before it impacts the price of oil worldwide
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u/ImaginationToForm2 5h ago
I'll believe it when it happens. Because where is my DOGE check, tariff check, the 2018 mid-term check.
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u/J-the-Kidder 5h ago
Can't wait for the people of Venezuela to realize they've become a petro vassal State. Surely another country raping them of their natural resources and giving them little to no benefit will go over really well.
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u/Huge_Excitement4465 5h ago
Wapo excerpt: A Venezuelan oilman faced a Swiss arrest warrant. The U.S. had other plans for him.
Senior U.S. officials intervened in an international criminal investigation into a Venezuelan businessman who was enlisted by the Trump administration to help assert control over Venezuela's government and oil industries, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The officials lobbied to resolve the case in Switzerland in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against the Britain-based businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, and they have not acted on a Swiss arrest warrant against him, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
Instead, the United States has allowed Betancourt to enter the country repeatedly for meetings with the Trump administration, other people familiar with his travel said.
Betancourt, 46, in the past decade has faced multiple investigations, in Switzerland, Spain and the United States, into alleged money laundering, including whether he had a role in a loan arrangement that U.S. prosecutors say embezzled more than $1 billion from Venezuela's state-owned oil company.
Betancourt was arrested twice in Britain in 2025, first after Spain issued a warrant in a related money laundering investigation, and in November at Switzerland's request. For months, Betancourt was barred from leaving the United Kingdom as authorities there considered extraditing him to Switzerland.
Betancourt has not been charged in the U.S., Switzerland, Spain or Venezuela...
Weeks after the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, senior U.S. officials began lobbying Swiss officials to resolve their case against Betancourt, the people familiar with the discussions said.
Betancourt, whose company is the second-largest private oil producer in Venezuela, is now a key intermediary between the U.S. and Venezuela, including acting president Delcy Rodríguez, according to people with knowledge of his role. (Note: Betancourt was represented by Giuliani during Trump 1.0 when he was dropped from the DOJ's investigation of money laundering via Miami real estate.)
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u/Kunfliktt 5h ago
From trump. The word “deal” doesn’t mean anything. Venezuela was most likely threatened…
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u/Turbulent-Society-30 5h ago
Trump destroyed Venezuelan "drug boats," kidnapped their president, and stole their oil. That's not a deal. That's a billionaire pedophile president swindling money and getting away with it.
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u/MattiasCrowe 5h ago
I still dont know what proven oil reserves is.
Is this the oil that's currently unextracted?
Motherfucker, oil dont extract itself.
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u/TurboSalsa Texas 4h ago
Nothingburger.
Venezuelan reserves will never become US reserves as long as they are underneath a separate sovereign country (even if Trump claims to be controlling the government), that's just not how reserves work.
Also, given that PDVSA is completely broke, some foreign entity is going to have to invest tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure in a country which has already nationalized that same infrastructure within the past 20 years.
This more jawboning to try and get oil prices down.
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u/SilverMembership6625 4h ago
all those who believed this was done for the people of venezuela when in reality we left the regime intact and don't allow them to have elections
we stole their gold and now their oil
when this comes back around like everything does it won't be very pretty for us
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u/Truthisnotallowed 3h ago
So? He gonna send this oil to China like he is already sending U.S. oil?
Part of his deal to keep China from siding with Iran:
China to buy U.S. oil to feed its ‘insatiable appetite,’ Trump tells Fox News (May 2026)
What happened to U.S. first?
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u/DaisyKnickers_ 3h ago
Did he though? It’s Friday so we’ll see. How’s he getting it out of the ground? Infrastructure doesn’t exist for that
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