Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s contentious energy pact with Donald Trump, insisting the country will retain ownership and sovereignty over its vast oil reserves.
Rodríguez assumed power in January after Trump ordered the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and used a televised address on Saturday to rebut criticism of what the U.S. leader called “the biggest oil deal in world history”.
“The advantages are limitless,” she said, noting that the agreement would help develop the economy, generate more than $209 billion (£154 billion) and turn Venezuela into an energy powerhouse.
She added that the nation’s unparalleled oil wealth requires investment, technology, infrastructure and production capacity to convert reserves into prosperity for its people, warning that merely listing reserves in statistics is useless without development.
Trump announced the “groundbreaking” deal on Friday, describing it as a historic transaction that more than doubles U.S. oil reserves and guides Venezuela toward “Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity”.
On Sunday he wrote on Truth Social that the Venezuelan oil will be used to fill the Strategic National Reserve, which he said had been depleted by “Sleepy Joe” Biden, and that a “topping‑out” process will soon begin as a gift from Venezuela to the American people.
Hours after seizing Maduro on 3 January, Trump warned Rodríguez that failure to comply would bring a “very big price, likely greater than Maduro’s”.
Details of the secret agreement remain sparse, but reports say the United States will assume control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves.
Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven crude reserves—about 303 billion barrels—compared with Saudi Arabia’s 268 billion and Iran’s 208 billion. Rodríguez said the pact involves 17 strategic oilfields capable of producing more than 1.5 million barrels per day.
The deal has provoked anger among the opposition and within the Chavismo movement of which Rodríguez is a part.
A senior opposition figure, speaking anonymously, called the agreement “a massive land grab” by a “rapacious, mafioso United States”.
Read next
Nepal Headteacher Rescues 900 Children from Deadly Flash Flood
A headteacher in Nepal ordered the evacuation of 900 pupils from his school just before a massive wave of water hit their town during the catastrophic flash floods that have claimed nearly 800 lives and left thousands unaccounted for.
Rajendra Dawadi, headteacher of Tribhuvan Trishuli secondary school in Nuwakot, which
"The river has taken everything": people return to the remains of their homes in Nepal
Since the catastrophic floods swept through the Himalayan valleys of Nepal and Tibet, the death count has kept climbing. Hundreds of bodies have emerged from the thick, tar‑like mud that remained after the waters receded, and the toll stood at 797 in Nepal and Tibet by Sunday.
Morgues across
Ten years later: a solitary Black woman stands defiant against Swedish neo‑Nazis
An iconic photograph captured a solitary Black woman, her fist raised, blocking a column of hundreds of uniformed neo‑Nazis marching in 2016, and the image splashed across headlines worldwide.
At the time the picture was celebrated as a emblem of resistance to the far right. A decade later, as