WASHINGTON — The United States and Venezuela have agreed to a deal that would give Washington a major stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves, President Donald Trump said Friday.

“At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer,” Trump said in a post on social media.

The total volume cited by Trump exceeds the entire domestic U.S. endowment of proved reserves. The president didn’t disclose the percentage of those under U.S. control.

The announcement comes amid a worldwide race to secure oil supplies disrupted by the war in Iran, and as Trump confronts voter concerns about gasoline prices and inflation ahead of the November midterm elections.

While full details of Trump’s plan remain unclear, Bloomberg previously reported that the U.S. was pursuing a major stake in Venezuelan oil reserves via a potential partnership between the Department of Defense and Alejandro Betancourt, a controversial energy investor who has become a key middleman between the two countries.

The negotiations were focused on as many as 17 oil fields that span Venezuela’s main petroleum basins, according to people familiar with the matter.

The president’s plan represents an unparalleled modern-day intervention into another country’s economy, hearkening back to British government control of Iran’s oilfields and the division of Iraqi assets among U.S. and European nations a century ago.

It’s also an untested maneuver — one that could be vulnerable to legal challenges and political shifts in Washington. It’s not clear that Trump’s arrangement would be fully embraced by a future American president, or how it might endure any future political upheaval in Venezuela.

“For the Venezuelan people, this deal will bring nearly $100 billion in private investment, support thousands of high-paying jobs, and drive the reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy,” Rubio said Friday evening in a post on X.

While Venezuela’s crude output has risen this year, the country pumped just 1.16 million barrels a day in July, according to a Bloomberg survey. That’s less than half the amount it produced a decade ago, a reflection of an earlier exodus by many Western energy companies and years of under investment and corruption that left the country’s oil sector in tatters.

Nonetheless, Trump’s gambit is in keeping with his so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’ to extend American influence throughout the Western Hemisphere. Since U.S. forces captured longtime leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3 and Rodríguez took power, Trump has sought to exert leverage over the nation and its vast mineral and oil resources.

He’s described Venezuela as the 51st state and boasted frequently that much of the country’s crude — and oil revenues — are flowing to the U.S.

The plan also dovetails with Trump’s second-term moves to directly intervene — and take federal government stakes — in commercial ventures aimed at strengthening U.S. supply chains for semiconductors, critical minerals and batteries.

(John Harney and Joe Carroll contributed to this report.)

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