Trump to meet oil executives over Venezuela investments – BBC

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the former governor of the oil-rich state of North Dakota, says that the world is safer because of Trump’s actions to remove Venezuela’s president.

Venezuela, he says “was a playground” for America’s adversaries, he says, also praising Trump for taking a tough position on Iran as well.

The normalisation of relations with Venezuela will benefit the US, he says, adding that the US is now asserting influence over Latin America for the first time in 125 years.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now speaking.

He says it is not in the US’s interest to have adversaries in the Western Hemisphere.

There are three phases to the plans for Venezuela, Rubio says, The first and current phase is stabilisation. The second will be reconciliation, which must happen “internally among the different sectors of society and politics”.

The third and most important phase will be normalisation of the country, he says.

That will be “when the country fully transitions into a normal country, that we have strong economic and diplomatic and relations with, that is friendly towards the United States, that’s not a foothold for our adversaries, that serves our interests, but also the interests of the people”, Rubio says.

He calls this process historic and thanks President Trump.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

JD Vance has just explicitly taken a moment to contrast the operation in Venezuela with the “endless” military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan during the “War on Terror” that began in 2001.

This is a nod to Trump’s MAGA base, and to the fact that Trump campaigned on a vow to avoid long-running, bloody and costly “nation-building” missions overseas, with limited success.

Since last Saturday, administration officials have repeatedly pointed out that the Maduro raid was conducted quickly, with no US casualties, and took place in this hemisphere, which Trump has vowed to protect from adversarial nations abroad.

This has been dubbed the “Don-roe doctrine”, a play on the Monroe Doctrine first unveiled in 1823.

Broadly, this is an argument that seems to have landed with Trump’s supporters, very few of which have come out openly to criticise the mission.

I was in Florida a few hours after the Maduro raid was announced, and I also found it to be one that resonated with everyday voters.

One man, a Florida resident who once sold “Trump dogs” – enormous hot dogs – to other supporters near Mar-a-Lago, told me he believes the US is “behaving like a super power again” at little cost in blood and treasure to the US.

Several speakers, including Vance, Rubio and Burgum, have also characterised the Venezuela operation as an anti-narcotics move – an assessment which is disputed by many observers.

Vice-President JD Vance is now speaking. He says the previous administration got the country involved in “endless quagmires” overseas without benefits to the American people.

He says Trump’s actions in Venezuela will “stop the flow of drugs into our country” and allow the US to control “one of the great energy reserves that exist anywhere in the entire world”.

“These are the greatest oil people anywhere in the world,” Trump says about the executives in the room.

One man there, he says, is known for his ability to “stick a straw in the ground, and oil comes gushing out”.

Trump says the US will rapidly take over Venezuela’s oil supply, which will generate “great wealth” for the people in the room and for the US economy.

“We’re going to have this done very quickly, almost immediately,” he says.

He shouts out the executives from several major companies, including Chevron, Exxon, and Conoco.

Trump says the plan is for the US’s “giant oil companies” to spend “at least $100bn (£74.6bn) of their money, not the government’s money” to rebuild oil production capacity and infrastructure in Venezuela.

Venezuela has also agreed to allow the US to begin refining and selling 50 million barrels of its oil indefinitely, he adds.

“We have the refining capacity.”

Trump says the US seizure of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro in “one of the most spectacular” military operations in American history.

He says Maduro has killed “millions of people” and committed crimes in the US.

Maduro has previously called the allegations a tool to further plans for getting access to Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.

Trump says Maduro’s departure means a better future for both countries and will give the US lower energy prices.

The US built Venezuela’s oil industry, Trump says, “but they stole our assets like we were babies” and the US didn’t do anything about it.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

Trump is clearly feeling like it’s been a good year so far – particularly with Venezuela, oil and his ongoing ballroom project, which he stopped to admire from the East Room’s window for a moment.

For one, Trump appears to be happy with the cooperation he’s receiving from the government of interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, which will provide the US with between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil at market price.

“That’s a lot of oil,” he said. “And it’s on it’s way to the United States right now. And we’re working very well with them, obviously, or they wouldn’t have been so generous.”

This will be troubling news to opposition leader María Corina Machado and many Venezuelans in exile, who have expressed opposition to Maduro government insiders remaining at the helm of the South American country.

The US president – who appears to be wearing a lapel pin depicting himself – briefly touched upon one of the major challenges in revitalising Venezuela’s oil industry, but provided no details on how the administration plans to address that.

Notably, Trump also framed the Venezuelan oil as helping his domestic-policy agenda to reduce energy prices for Americans – which some will see as an attempt to placate supporters who are weary of interventions abroad.

Trump goes to thank Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and says that he prefers this administration to the one he had in his first term in office.

He also thanks Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who he calls one of the world’s great “oilmen”, and also thanks Chris Wright, who he says took “one of the greatest pay cuts” when he joined the White House to help oversee the US seizure of Venezuela’s oil.

By way of background, Energy Secretary Chris Wright explained at an energy industry conference in Miami earlier this week that the US will be controlling the flow, sale, and revenue of Venezuela’s oil.

“Instead of the oil being blockaded, as it is right now, we’re going to let the market, let the oil flow, sell that market to United States refineries and to around the world to bring better oil supplies, but have those sales done by the US government and deposited into accounts controlled by the U.S. government,” Wright said at the conference, which was organised by Goldman Sachs.

“And then from there, those funds can flow back into Venezuela to benefit the Venezuelan people, but we need to have that leverage and that control of those oil sales to drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela,” Wright added.

Trump says the US will decide which oil companies can go into Venezuela to extract oil.

Before the US operation, oil companies couldn’t go into Venezuela because they “had no guarantees, had no security”, he says.

“You’re dealing with us directly. You’re not dealing with Venezuela at all,” he says.

Trump says 30 million barrels of oil from Venezuela worth $4bn are on their way to the US.

He says some of the money will go to the US and Venezuela and some will go to oil companies.

The president tells the room that they’re going to discuss how Venezuelan oil can benefit both Venezuela and the US.

Trump says that many more executives hoped to attend the meeting, but that space at the White House is limited.

“If we had a ballroom,” more people could be accommodated, he says, referring to plans to build an expansive new ballroom at the White House, which would fit 1,000 people.

Trump then stands up to gaze out the window at the foundation being built for the ballroom, saying it would be a better venue for a meeting like this.

Trump praises the US military’s operation last Saturday, in which they seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

He says other countries have been congratulating the US for the operation, which he says did not cost any US lives or equipment.

Trump then turns to welcoming oil and gas executives.

The meeting is now under way.

Trump arrived to a standing ovation and the song “Hail to the Chief” playing.

He takes a seat at the centre of the table and begins by touting the US’s latest economic numbers.

Sarah Smith
North America editor, reporting from the White House

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice-President JD Vance just arrived – with conservative media presenter Tucker Carlson.

Sarah Smith
North America editor reporting from the White House

Inside the east room of the White House about a dozen oil exes are seated around a long U-shaped table waiting to meet President Trump and senior administaiton officials. Their meeting will be conducted in front of the press and TV cameras.

Whispered conversations are taking place around the room. Doug Burgum is in a private huddle with Chris Wright and Jarrod Agen of the Energy Dominance Council.

Norberto Paredes
BBC Mundo, reporting from Caracas

Venezuela’s economy depends heavily on oil.

For decades, crude exports were the main source of dollars coming into the country, helping to pay for imports like food, fuel, and medicine.

But years of mismanagement, falling production, and international sanctions have sharply reduced that income.

The Trump administration argues that controlling access to Venezuelan oil is necessary to stabilise the country.

However, critics say that external control risks deepening hardship for ordinary Venezuelans, who are already struggling with inflation and a weakened currency.

Some economic projections paint a stark picture: the International Monetary Fund predicts that inflation could rise to around 680% in 2026 if current pressures persist. That was before the events of last weekend.

Food and services have all become more expensive, even since then.

For most Venezuelans, negotiating rising food bills and coping with fluctuating exchange rates is part of daily life.

Executives from 17 oil and gas companies are expected at the meeting with Trump, according to a White House official.

That includes major companies like Chevron, Exxon, Shell, Valero, and Conoco Phillips as well as smaller companies like Raisa Energy and Aspect Holdings.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will also be in attendance.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

It’s a cold, wet and unpleasant day here at the White House, which went from being eerily quiet to buzzing and busy in less than an hour.

We were not expecting to see President Trump or the oil executives today. Until just a short while ago, the event was listed as “closed press” and was expected to take place in the Cabinet Room, a cramped space with little room for reporters.

Now, the event has opened to a broad range of reporters, several dozen of whom were waiting outside in the cold to be escorted to the East Room, a much larger space reserved for bigger events.

The president, for his part, seems slightly displeased by the venue, saying that the crowd awaiting this meeting highlights the need for his new ballroom.

“It’s too bad that the ballrom hasn’t [been] completed, because, if it were, it would be PACKED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.