On Friday, Donald Trump summoned his largest donors — U.S. oil execs — to the White House, and exhorted them to invest $100 billion in Venezuela’s oil industry. The unspoken through line was that Trump would look ridiculous if they didn’t.
The CEOs weren’t exactly enthusiastic. Venezuela is known as one of the most dangerous places to operate a business, and oil firms in particular have expressed concern about the safety of their operations and their workers.
When Trump asked ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods how long it would take his company to restart operations there, Woods called Venezuela “uninvestable,” suggesting it wasn’t a matter of Trump just snapping his fingers.
First, “significant changes have to be made.” Woods told Trump bluntly, “There are a number of legal and commercial frameworks that would have to be established to even understand what kind of returns we would get on the investment.”
To a failed businessman selling himself as a savvy one, that assessment must have come as a shock.
Why Trump invaded
By now it is obvious to everyone that Trump didn’t topple Maduro to:
- Restore democracy after Maduro lost the 2024 election but refused to leave.
- Support Maria Machado after Maduro “banned” her candidacy but her coalition won by 37 points anyway.
- Protect Venezuelans living under a regime that disappears people.
- Better the lives of suffering Venezuelans in any way.
Instead, as Trump and his henchmen have made patently clear, he deployed the U.S. military against a foreign nation to “take back” oil and oil extraction equipment he claims was “stolen” from private investors in 1975. That was the year Venezuela passed the Oil Industry Nationalization Law and first appropriated its oil industry. It was also the year Maduro turned 12.
Trump’s claim Venezuela “stole” land from the U.S. is absurd. The U.S. never owned land there. No companies were kicked out of the country. When the oil industry was nationalized, companies like Exxon, Mobil, and Chevron were compensated, just not at the levels they wanted. They chose, 50 years ago, to let it go.
A failed businessman
After violating international law, mocking in particular the UN Charter that has kept WWIII at bay for 80 years, Trump gave U.S. oil executives their marching orders: they must rebuild Venezuela's fossil fuel industry.
But after bankrupting six businesses, closing one failed business after another, and now killing small companies with illogical tariffs, Trump’s hyped business acumen is thin. As Friday’s meeting made embarrassingly clear, Trump has no clue what it will take to rebuild Venezuela’s rusted-out oil infrastructure. He has not thought through what legal, structural, and market impediments exist, how much those impediments would cost to remove, or how it could be done. He also has no idea how much all of this would cost, or how many years it would take to see a return.
The kicker, to any successful CEO, is that Trump didn’t do this homework before he deposed Venezuela’s president and announced he’d be “running” the country.
Not all oil is the same
Oil in Venezuela is “sour.” This means it is extra-heavy, thick, and higher in sulfur than “sweet oil.” Sulfur must be removed from crude oil during the refining process. The more sulfur, the more refining is needed.
In result, Venezuelan oil is more expensive to extract, process and transport. More intensive industrial techniques are required, mainly specialized equipment for desulfurization (like hydrotreating/hydrocracking). Stricter safety protocols are needed to remove harmful hydrogen sulfide, adding significant costs and complexity.
Pioneer Energy reports that sour crude “presents a threat to both infrastructure and human health, requiring specialized equipment for sour service, safety procedures, frequent maintenance, and PPE and specialized training for workers.”
Although Trump would likely waive away corporate liability for killing workers and poisoning surrounding communities, CEOs know there is no guarantee courts will go along with him.
All major investments depend on the rule of law
The Dallas Federal Reserve confirms that oil investors are worried about a lack of clarity about America’s own economic outlook under Trump. Legal and market instability, along with low oil prices, makes investing in and operating Venezuelan oil fields an even higher-risk endeavor.
A central concern for industry executives is whether Trump “can guarantee the safety of the employees and equipment that companies would need to send to Venezuela, how the companies would be paid, whether oil prices will rise enough to make Venezuelan crude profitable, and the status of Venezuela’s membership in the OPEC oil exporters cartel.”
The political risk is of paramount concern. As Carrie Filipetti, former deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela told Politico, “It’s not just about getting rid of Maduro. It’s also about making sure that the legitimate opposition comes into power.”
History also matters. Chris Perez asks in his poignant substack, ‘How will Trump guarantee Big Oil that their investments will not be renationalized?’ How indeed. The only way to guarantee that is through prolonged U.S. operational and military presence, for which American taxpayers have little appetite.
Even without regime change, there’s climate change and pending legal liability. Big Oil has known since the 1950s that their product is killing the environment, but has lied about it for decades. Looking at pending legal dockets, that bill may soon become due. Then there’s legal uncertainty affecting safety, contractual relations, market regulations, import/export controls, OPEC, and economic controls, all of which would make or Venezuelan investments.
Given that the rule of law under Trump is already on life support, businesses are taking a wait and see approach, even here. Trump commanding his donors to rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry under these facts while he “runs” the country sounds like delusional gibberish.
- Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
