The United States and Venezuela have signed a 25-year agreement covering 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude, with President Donald Trump calling it the biggest oil deal in world history. The pact, announced Friday after months of secret talks, grants Washington operational control of 17 strategic oilfields targeting output above 1.5 million barrels per day.
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power in January after a US special-forces raid seized Nicolás Maduro, defended the deal in a televised address on Saturday, projecting revenues above $209 billion and insisting Caracas retains ownership and sovereignty over its 303bn-barrel proven reserves, the world's largest.
Trump said on Sunday the crude will be used to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which he claimed had been depleted under former president Joe Biden, calling the topping-out process a gift from Venezuela to the US people.
The agreement has drawn opposition from figures inside and outside the ruling Chavismo movement, with former PDVSA head Rafael Ramírez labeling it a neocolonial transaction and an unnamed opposition figure calling it a massive land grab by a mafioso United States.