"People react to the news of the US's capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Doral, Florida, on January 3, 2026. GIORGIO VIERA / AFP via Getty Images For months, U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed that his pressure campaign against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, backed by dozens of illegal killings through drone strikes, was about fighting drugs and cartels. But at his press conference after the U.S. abduction of Maduro, Trump couldn't stop talking about oil."
""We're gonna take back the oil," Trump brazenly said. "Very large United States oil companies" will "go in" and "spend billions of dollars," he promised. "We're gonna be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground." All told, Trump uttered the word "oil" at least 20 times during the press conference. Oil company stocks - ExxonMobil, Halliburton, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Phillips 66 - surged the following day,"
U.S. President Donald Trump led a pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that included drone strikes and culminated in a U.S. abduction of Maduro. Trump repeatedly emphasized seizing Venezuela's oil, promising that very large U.S. oil companies would enter, spend billions, and extract tremendous wealth. Following his remarks, major oil company stocks rose. The Justice Department dropped its claim that Maduro headed "Cartel de los Soles," implicitly conceding the term refers to politically corrupted officials rather than an organized drug cartel. The action aligns with a broader strategy of reasserting political and economic hegemony across the Americas backed by military threats.
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