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**JANUARY 26, 2026**

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Trump’s coup against Venezuela and his plans to steal the country’s vast oil reserves don’t make much sense unless you view it all as yet another big wealth transfer upwards [link removed]. The oil industry’s hand-wringing about how much it will cost them to revitalize the infrastructure? That’s for show. The real financiers of that project are taxpayers, who will underwrite it with money that could otherwise be used for social programs. There’s no guaranteed returns on the investment for us. But for the guys at the top, it’s all but assured.

**–Whitney Curry Wimbish, staff writer**

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Michael A. McCoy/AP Content Services for Fossil Free Media

Venezuelan Oil Revitalization: Paid For With Your Taxes [link removed]

American oil executives have spent weeks protesting that spending their own assets to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry is too costly. Estimates of capital needs for some existing oil fields range from $10 billion to $20 billion, while developing new fields could take up to $100 billion over a decade, according to the Council on Foreign Relations [link removed].

That expense is so out of the question, said Darren Woods, chief executive of the nearly $550 billion ExxonMobil Corp., that it makes Venezuela “uninvestable,” he told Trump at a meeting with several oil majors, including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell. It was a description multiple [link removed] news [link removed] outlets [link removed] noted at the time without including Woods’s caveat that his assessment could change if the “commercial frameworks” and legal system were significantly altered, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks [link removed]. Because it is currently uninvestable, he said, there “has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be a change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

“We’re confident that with this administration and President Trump working hand in hand with the Venezuelan government that those changes can be put in place,” Woods went on to say.

In other words, “Does Big Oil want to go into Venezuela? The answer is yes, if we guarantee the profits,” said Lukas Ross, deputy director of climate and energy at Friends of the Earth Action (FOE).

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