Trump admin sends tough private (and transactional) message to oil companies on Venezuela [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: Politico

Trump admin sends tough private message to oil companies on Venezuela

The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas.

By Ben Lefebvre, Zack Colman and James Bikales
01/03/2026 02:35 PM EST

American oil companies have long hoped to recover the assets that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime ripped from them decades ago.

Now the Trump administration is offering to help them achieve that aim — with one major condition.

Administration officials have told oil executives in recent weeks that if they want compensation for their rigs, pipelines and other seized property, then they must be prepared to go back into Venezuela now and invest heavily in reviving its shattered petroleum industry, two people familiar with the administration’s outreach told POLITICO on Saturday. The outlook for Venezuela’s shattered oil infrastructure is one of the major questions following the U.S. military action that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.

But people in the industry said the administration’s message has left them still leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a country where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future.

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Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezuela-oil-us-companies-return-00709782