3 Days After Maduro’s Capture, And Trump Has Inked Multi-Billion-Dollar Oil Deal to Be Used to Benefit the Venezuelan and American People

The rest of the world is learning again what Americans found out years ago: When Donald Trump moves, he moves fast.

Just as the onetime celebrity real estate magnate and reality TV impresario has remade the history of American politics in the short decade since he rode down the escalator in New York’s Trump Tower, he has remade global relations with his bulldog tenacity for his own country’s interests and his willingness to call out the international elite.

Now, only three days after a lightning raid brought Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro from a presidential palace to an American prison cell, Trump is moving fast on Venezuela’s most important export — and both Venezuelan and American citizens are likely to benefit.

In a post Tuesday on the social media platform, the president announced that what remains of the government in Venezuela has agreed to turn over to the United States 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to be sold at market rates, with the proceeds “used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

Donald J. Trump Post 06:46 PM EST 01.06.26

I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America. This Oil will be sold at its Market…

— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 7, 2026

That is a far cry from when — as recently as last week — Venezuela’s oil exports were used to benefit only the corrupt Maduro dictatorship and its allies, like Cuba’s totalitarian regime or the Chinese Communist Party.

When Cuba posted its flags at half staff after Maduro’s capture, as The Associated Press reported, the official reason was the deaths of Cubans on Maduro’s protection squad. But the mourning might have had much more to do with Cuba losing its main oil supplier.

As for China, that country has for years been the main market for Venezuelan oil that was under international sanction, according to Forbes.

China responded to Maduro’s capture by claiming it was “deeply shocked and strongly condemns” the action, according to Reuters.

But what China “strongly condemns” is Venezuelan oil being used for purposes other than greasing the wheels of the Chinese economy.

How it will now be used will be determined by Trump for the foreseeable future, and it’s a rock-solid certainty that that use won’t involve propping up Cuba’s dying communist dictatorship or enriching the butchers of Beijing.

Two decades of socialist dictatorship in Caracas — first under the late Hugo Chavez, then under Maduro — have destroyed the country’s economy, including its all-important oil industry.

The country has the largest oil reserves in the world, as Reuters reported Saturday, but “its crude output remains at a fraction of capacity due to mismanagement, lack of investment and sanctions, official data shows.”

All that’s due for a change, as shown by Maduro’s appearance as a prisoner in a federal courtroom in New York on Monday.

The value of the oil in Trump’s announcement varies widely between 30 million and 50 million barrels. But a midpoint number of 40 million barrels, at a value of $60 per barrel (the rough going rate on the day of Trump’s announcement Monday), would amount to $2.4 billion.

That might amount to a rounding error in the context of the United States federal budget (or the federal debt), but it could be serious money in alleviating some of the problems imposed on Venezuela by its rapacious socialist governments.

Of course, Trump will have to deal with the remains of Maduro’s government in implementing his plans, and an infamously corrupt regime isn’t going to turn into a church choir overnight.

But Trump’s career in politics has been a blur of activity — he made history setting a new course for the U.S. in his first term on many fronts, even hampered by an unnecessary special counsel investigation, an impeachment-minded Democratic Congress, and a ludicrously hostile mainstream media.

In his second term, he’s doing the same.

And whether it’s in Venezuela, in Iran, or within or protecting U.S. borders, he’s doing it fast.

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