How Trump stole Venezuela’s oil money

Historically, financial scandals surrounding the White House have involved presidents misusing their office to raise money for their political campaigns. With Trump, it’s about naked self-enrichment. Credible estimates conclude that Trump has made over a billion dollars for himself since taking office, as well as enriching his family members and close associates. 

The looting of Venezuela by Trump is hardly talked about. Shortly after the US military raid to seize former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, Trump announced, “we’re in charge” of Venezuela. He had repeatedly delivered the line, “to the victor belong the spoils,” and from the outset he has made very clear his interest in Venezuela’s natural resources, especially its enormous oil reserves. 

The Trump administration had loudly proclaimed its anti-Marxist stance – but promptly installed the Marxist apparatchik Delcy Rodriguez as “interim” president, where she has continued the same authoritarian and statist policies of her predecessor. The tragic irony of Venezuela’s “liberation” was that the Maduro approach of cancelling elections and arresting opponents is still fully in place. 

The difference is that Rodriguez now runs the Venezuelan economy to suit president Trump. If the objective is to be a colonial profiteer, Venezuela is almost the perfect target. It has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, worth $20 trillion, as well as a wide array of mineral deposits, including gold and precious stones. For Trump, a man who loves big numbers, it was an irresistible target. It is also, thanks to years of corrupt and incompetent administration under Maduro and his predecessors, ripe for theft.

What has been overlooked is that, since January, the US has had full control of Venezuela’s oil exports. Trump himself announced at the outset, “that money will be controlled by me”. At the start, the US Treasury channelled the funds from these sales into a mysterious account in Qatar and has refused to offer any details to Congress, which is supposed to have oversight of the Treasury’s activities. It is notable that Qatar has gifted Trump a $400m jet.

Back in July, the Financial Times calculated that the US government had, at that stage, taken $13bn in oil revenues from Venezuela. Secretary of state Marco Rubio has claimed that the money was being used to pay civil servants in Venezuela, but it seems implausible that all of it was used for this purpose. It has been made very clear that decisions on use of that money are made by the Americans, not the Venezuelans. 

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Trump has said repeatedly that the US “was making a lot of money” from Venezuelan oil. In late October, Trump announced that a million barrels of Venezuelan oil were being “gifted” to the American taxpayers, claiming, in the context of the mid-term election campaign, that this was evidence of the success of the US military operation in the country. 

But this oil was part of a deal in which the Pentagon had taken a stake in a major Venezuelan oil company. This stake came with a guarantee that the US government will be able to acquire 20% of the company’s future oil output at $30 a barrel, rather than the market value (likely to be more than double that). 

This was Described by Trump as the “biggest oil deal in world history”. But really it is a simple case of extortion, that will provide ample opportunities for Trump to distribute patronage to favoured associates in the coming years.

Venezuela is being robbed for the political benefit of the Trump administration. But how are individuals and businesses in the Trump orbit also benefiting? In September, it was announced that Continental Resources, a US oil firm founded by Trump backer Harold Hamm, had secured a deal with the Venezuelan state-owned oil company to develop production in the Orinoco region. 

Another business, Heeney Capital, which has been included on delegations to Venezuela organised by the Trump administration, has secured rights to Venezuela’s gold mining and is looking at other opportunities in that sector. Venezuela has been frozen out of the US banking system by sanctions, but one new bank called Erebor, which had only been in existence for a few months, began reconnecting Venezuela with the US banking system in May this year. 

This was just a few weeks after the US Treasury had made it possible for a small number of Venezuelan banks to conduct business with the US. Erebor is backed by Trump-supporter Peter Thiel and was founded by two of Thiel’s associates.

Venezuela is now popping up all over the MAGA world. In May, an obscure investment fund called Rockville was established with the intention of making acquisitions in Venezuela. Its CEO is also the boss of a Trump-owned business that runs his Truth Social platform, and Rockville has a range of other close links to the Trump family. 

In another part of the MAGA universe, Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba was paid $50m by a Venezuelan billionaire to secure a pardon from Trump, even at the same time as Habba was an employee of the US Justice Department. Habba’s husband is a major player in Venezuela’s cement industry as well as having interests in a range of other sectors.

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This US campaign of corruption and theft needs Venezuela to remain a ramshackle dictatorship, where the rule of law and government transparency are distant prospects. That’s why a democratic transition in Venezuela is not something Trump wants. A democratic Venezuela with a government that held its previous rulers to account for looting the country would not be compatible with the enrichment schemes being operated by Trump. 

As he said in September when asked about Venezuelan elections, “I just don’t think they’re ready yet.” It was an odd statement. Venezuela held elections in 2024, its people demonstrating their readiness to stand up to government intimidation and the mistreatment of the opposition party. When the opposition won, the Maduro regime ignored the results and insisted it had triumphed, arresting thousands and killing dozens. 

But Trump’s defeat in the mid-terms has been so resounding that not even he can brazen his way out of it. And in the coming weeks and months, as the congressional committees in Washington begin to examine his administration’s dealings in Venezuela and the disappearance of vast amounts of its oil revenues into mysterious Gulf bank accounts, it’s not clear how Trump can worm his way out of that, either.