Oil tankers leased by Chevron at the Bajo Grande refinery on Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela circa October 2025. Tankers carry between 100,000 and 230,000 barrels of oil from Venezuela to the United States, possibly stabilizing energy needs in crises. (Shutterstock/Jose Bula Urrutia)

What Trump Does Not Understand About Venezuela’s Role in US Energy Security

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Infrastructure issues overshadow optimistic policymakers’ plans to rely on Venezuelan oil.

For many years, Washington’s energy security rested on two fundamental pillars: the first was strong domestic production, and the second was strategic petroleum stocks large enough to protect the economy during potential crises. Today, one of these pillars no longer appears as strong as it once was. Although the United States remains the world’s largest oil producer, large-scale withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), geopolitical crises, and supply disruptions in recent years have significantly weakened the country’s emergency oil buffer. Recent declines in oil prices may create a perception of market relief. However, lower prices do not always mean higher energy security. The real issue is not how cheap oil is today, but how prepared the United States is for the next energy crisis.

How a Three-Layer Energy System Is Replacing the Old Order

As of 2026, the United States’ energy security architecture has evolved into a complex system in which three distinct layers of stockpiles operate simultaneously: the SPR, commercial inventories, and an often overlooked import-based flow buffer. At this point, a critical question emerges: Does the United States truly maintain a second stock system, meaning an import-supported buffer that becomes active during crises? The answer is not straightforward because US energy security is now defined less by physical storage capacity and more by the flexibility of global supply chains. In other words, the structure referred to here is not physical storage but rather an indirect buffering mechanism enabled by the ability to redirect import flows during........

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