The Trump administration is talking to the interim Venezuelan government about buying a massive stake in the country’s huge oil reserves. The US kidnapped Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro on 3 January 2026. Since then, the US has dealt with Maduro’s successor, the much more pliable Delcy Rodriguez.
Venezuela: who saw this coming?
Axios reported on 27 August that two US officials had confirmed:
The historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves.
Indeed, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. And US military intervention was framed as a counter-narcotics mission, thought that narrative has shifted over time. The US is currently fighting a war against Iran and supporting one in Ukraine. Meanwhile, American oil reserves are at a 40 year low. Trump is also eager to bring the western hemisphere firmly under US control.
Axios reported:
Trump began privately discussing ways to have an ownership stake in Venezuelan oil fields even before he authorized the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, who faces narco-terrorism charges in New York.
One US official said:
President Trump is close to securing America’s energy future for generations to come, not just in the U.S. but in the hemisphere.
Axios also reported:
Venezuela’s oil sector fell into a relative state of disrepair because of the legacy of socialist mismanagement by Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, after he took over in 1999.
It is likely the US would need to develop this ageing infrastructure. Though there have been warnings that the Chavista movement which brought Chavez and Maduro to power is finally stirring after the January raid.
Homeland empire
As the Canary wrote in May 2026:
Latin America is still central to current US colonial ambitions. American shadow war operations are popping up left, right and centre as the US seeks to dominate.
Trump’s 2025 national security strategy said as much. The US wants to ensure:
the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.
And that those pliable governments, like Venezuela now has:
cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations.
Trump and his cronies want:
a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains.
Through force as much as through negotiation, the current US administration is determined to secure what is considers its ‘backyard’. That includes backing dictators and assuring access to essential resources – not least oil reserves in Venezuela. The official US narrative is one of moral panic. ‘We’re countering ‘narco-terrorism’, they say. But strip that back and you’re looking at old-fashioned colonialism.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
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