Trump kidnapped Venezuela’s president. Now he’s hijacking its future

September 2, 2026 — 12:00pm

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The only thing missing from Donald Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal, so far, is Donald Trump jnr.

It has all the trademarks of a Trump deal, combining boldness and aggression with self-interest, albeit without, to date, Trump family participation.

Early this year, the Trump administration kidnapped Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, seized control of its oil revenues and gave its backing to the country’s unelected vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez.

According to Financial Times estimates, the US has collected about $US13 billion ($18 billion) of revenue from Venezuelan oil sales – ostensibly on Venezuela’s behalf – but it would seem only a fraction of the proceeds, held in a trust account in Qatar to protect them from US courts, have found their way back to Venezuela.

Trump’s Venezuela oil deal has seismic potential, but it’s an idea not a reality

After Maduro’s capture, Trump prophesied a boom in US oil company investment in Venezuela. Apart from Chevron, which retained operations in the country after the assets of other US oil companies were expropriated and nationalised by the Chavez regime in 2007, there’s been little if any activity.

Venezuela’s oil production remains at around a million barrels a day, a far cry from the 3.5 million barrels a day it was producing in the 1970s, before the first wave of nationalisation, or the 2.5 million barrels a day it was producing as recently as 2014. Where there were more than 200 oil rigs operating in 2014, there are less than a handful today.

The US oil majors have shown little interest in investing, again, in a politically unstable and dangerous environment and in an industry degraded by decades of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald