Trump promises oil executives 'total safety' if they invest in Venezuela
after Maduro ouster
[January 10, 2026]
By JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called on oil
executives to rush back into Venezuela as the White House tries to
quickly secure $100 billion in investments to fix the country's
neglected infrastructure and fully tap into its expansive reserves of
petroleum.
Since the U.S. military raid to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás
Maduro on Saturday, Trump has quickly pivoted to portraying the move as
an economic opportunity for the U.S. He has seized tankers carrying
Venezuelan oil, has said the U.S. is taking over the sales of 30 million
to 50 million barrels of previously sanctioned Venezuelan crude, and
plans to control sales worldwide indefinitely.
At the White House meeting, major oil companies said they were
interested in the opportunity but expressed caution given their past
experience in the country. “If we look at the commercial constructs and
frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s un-investable,” said
Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
Trump used the meeting to publicly assure executives that they need not
be skeptical, even though the South American country has a history of
state asset seizures, ongoing U.S. sanctions and decades of political
uncertainty.
“You have total safety,” Trump told the executives. “You’re dealing with
us directly and not dealing with Venezuela at all. We don’t want you to
deal with Venezuela.”
Trump added: “Our giant oil companies will be spending at least $100
billion of their money, not the government’s money. They don’t need
government money. But they need government protection."
The president said the security guarantee would come from working with
Venezuelan leaders and their people, instead of deploying U.S. forces.
He also said the companies would “bring over some security.”
Trump urges Big Oil to take the plunge
The meeting came on a day when U.S. forces seized their fifth tanker
over the past month that has been linked to Venezuelan oil, an action
reflecting the determination of the U.S. to fully control the exporting,
refining and production of Venezuelan petroleum.
It’s part of a broader push by Trump to keep gasoline prices low. The
incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential
powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can
bring down energy prices at a time when many voters are concerned about
the cost of living.
Trump played up the potential for major oil companies to strike big,
while acknowledging that the executives were sharp people who were in
the business of taking risk, a nod to the reality that he's asking for
investments in Venezuela at a moment when the country is teetering and
economic collapse is not out of the question.
ExxonMobil CEO Woods said his company would send a team to assess the
situation, and noted its assets had been seized there — twice — in the
past. “Significant changes have to be made to those commercial
frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment
protections and there has to be change to the hydrocarbon laws in the
country," Woods said.
Other companies represented at the meeting included Chevron, which still
operates in Venezuela, as well as ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Valero,
Marathon, Shell, Singapore-based Trafigura, Italy-based Eni and
Spain-based Repsol.
Venezuela’s oil production has slumped below 1 million barrels a day.
Trump, however, expressed confidence that Big Oil is ready to take the
plunge.
“You know, these are not babies,” Trump said of the oil industry
executives. “These are people that drill oil in some pretty rough
places. I can say a couple of those places make Venezuela look like a
picnic.”
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President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil executives
in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
After the meeting, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters that
the companies showed “tremendous interest,” adding that Chevron made
a specific pledge. Wright said it could take eight to 12 years for
daily production in Venezuela to triple to 3 million barrels a day.
Trump suggests China and Russia also want Venezuelan oil
The president also offered a new rationale for ousting Maduro and
demanding the U.S. maintain oversight of the Venezuelan oil
industry, saying, “One thing I think everyone has to know is that if
we didn’t do this, China or Russia would have done it."
Tyson Slocum, director of the consumer advocacy group Public
Citizen’s energy program, criticized the gathering and called the
U.S. military’s removal of Maduro “violent imperialism.” Slocum
added that Trump’s goal appears to be to “hand billionaires control
over Venezuela’s oil.”
The White House has been seeking to show it has a stable
relationship with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez.
While Rodríguez has publicly denounced Trump and the ouster of
Maduro, the U.S. president has said that to date Venezuela's interim
leader has been cooperating behind the scenes
Meanwhile, the United States and Venezuelan governments said Friday
they were exploring the possibility of restoring diplomatic
relations between the two countries. A small team of U.S. diplomats
and diplomatic security officials traveled to Venezuela on Friday to
make a preliminary assessment about the potential reopening of the
U.S. Embassy in Caracas, the State Department said in a statement.
Trump to meet Machado next week — and Colombia's Petro next month
Trump also announced Friday he’d meet next week, either Tuesday or
Wednesday, with Maria Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s
opposition party. Trump has declined to back Machado, even as the
U.S. and most observers determined her opposition movement defeated
Maduro in Venezuela's last election. Trump said following Maduro's
ouster that Machado “doesn’t have the support within, or the respect
within, the country” to lead.
Trump earlier said he would meet Colombian President Gustavo Petro
in early February. Trump had made vague threats to take similar
action against Petro after the capture of Maduro, describing the
Colombian leader as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling
it to the United States”
Trump abruptly changed his tone Wednesday about his Colombian
counterpart after a friendly phone call in which he invited Petro to
visit the White House.
The seeming détente between Petro, a leftist, and Trump, a
conservative, appears to reflect that their shared interests
override their deep differences.
For Colombia, the U.S. remains key to the military’s fight against
leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers. Washington has provided
Bogotá with roughly $14 billion in the last two decades.
For the U.S., Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producer,
remains the cornerstone of its counternarcotics strategy abroad,
providing crucial intelligence used to interdict drugs in the
Caribbean. —-
Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Michelle Price and Seung Min
Kim contributed to this report.
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