The Trump Administration announced a new agreement that will give the United States majority control over projects containing approximately 65 billion barrels of recoverable Venezuelan oil, roughly one-fifth of the country’s enormous reserves.

While Venezuela will formally retain ownership of its natural resources, the United States gains extensive economic and operational rights over their development. The agreement covers 17 oil fields, mostly in the Orinoco Belt and around Lake Maracaibo. The United States is expected to hold about a 55 percent participation in the partnership developing them.

Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez says the arrangement will last at least 25 years and attract approximately $100 billion in investment, while producing an estimated $209.3 billion in Venezuelan royalties and taxes

The Trump administration’s new agreement with Venezuela represents an extraordinary attempt by the United States to obtain direct influence over another country’s petroleum resources. Major oil companies have told President Trump they believe much of Venezuela’s oil reserves cannot be recovered for a profit due to the poor state of infrastructure in that country. While the White House touts the deal as a new source of revenue for the U.S., it could just as easily become a new financial liability due to the amount of money that will be needed to fix Venezuela’s oil sector.

Exactly how the deal will be enforced remains unclear because neither government has published the complete contract. Washington is expected to help select companies that operate the fields, while Venezuela has recently liberalized its hydrocarbons laws to permit considerably greater foreign participation.

The United States also possesses enormous financial leverage through sanctions, access to American markets and control over some Venezuelan oil revenues. Legal experts nevertheless question whether the new arrangement complies fully with Venezuela’s constitution and petroleum laws.

For global energy markets, the deal could eventually be significant but is unlikely to produce an immediate flood of oil. Venezuela possesses roughly 303 billion barrels of proven reserves, the largest total in the world, but decades of underinvestment have left production far below its potential.

Rehabilitating pipelines, wells, electrical systems and refineries could take years. If production eventually rises substantially, however, greater Venezuelan exports could put downward pressure on world oil prices, increase supplies to Gulf Coast refineries designed for heavy crude, reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern supplies and weaken the market power of competing producers.

Venezuela’s Interim President Rodríguez can portray American investment as the means of rebuilding an economy devastated by years of declining petroleum production. But both opposition figures and former supporters of Hugo Chávez have criticized the arrangement as surrendering too much control over the country’s most important national resource. The deal could therefore reinforce Rodríguez’s government economically while simultaneously fueling Venezuelan nationalism and accusations that Washington is placing access to oil above democratic reform.

The 2026 agreement marks a notable historical reversal. After a century in which Latin American governments sought to remove foreign control from their oil industries, the United States is once again becoming directly involved in deciding how some of Venezuela’s most valuable petroleum reserves are developed. Whether the arrangement becomes an economic revival or a new source of political resentment will depend largely on who ultimately benefits from the oil beneath Venezuelan soil.