The US now has a majority right to about one-fifth of Venezuelan crude. Yet many questions remain unanswered
ON AUG 28, 2026, US President Donald Trump announced what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history”: a US-brokered agreement giving American interests majority control (55 per cent) of a new joint venture holding rights to more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude.
Negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth with Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s interim president, the arrangement is structured not as a purchase but as an equity stake, a public-private partnership overseen by the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital, with private companies holding the operating side of the venture.
The deal lands at a fraught moment. Petrol prices have jumped more than 20 per cent since the US entered its confrontation with Iran, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve sits near 1980s-era lows, and Trump is under real political pressure to show he can bring pump prices down.
