Donald Trump announced today that the United States has secured a “historic” deal to control 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil — a figure so large it would require Venezuela to have been secretly drilling on the moon for the past three decades.
For context, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest proven oil reserve holder, sits on roughly 268 billion barrels. So Trump’s deal would give the US access to nearly a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s entire stash from a country that, until recently, could barely keep the lights on in Caracas.
Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez called the arrangement “significant to her country’s revival” — which is either the most optimistic assessment of a resource extraction deal in modern history, or she was reading from a script written by someone who has never attended an economics class.
The mechanics of how this works remain as clear as mud filtered through a oil derrick. Trump did not specify whether the US would actually pump the oil, buy it at a discount, or simply manifest it into existence through the sheer force of his dealmaking charisma. The administration’s official statement suggested the arrangement would somehow make Venezuela prosperous while also benefiting American energy independence — a feat typically requiring either divine intervention or a fundamental misunderstanding of how international trade functions.
Experts are still trying to figure out whether this is a binding contract, a handshake agreement, or simply what happens when someone mistakes a PowerPoint presentation for a treaty.