Natalie Kitro: I'm Natalie Kitro. This is the Daily. In the days since deposing Nicholas Maduro, President Trump has given several justifications for his dramatic action in Venezuela.

Donald Trump: Number one, the drugs are pouring into the country. You know that. Number two, the people are pouring into the country. But the thing Trump is most focused on, the thing he keeps pointing to as central to his ambitions, is oil. We're going to take back the oil that frankly we should have taken back a long time ago. We're taking back what was taken from us. They took our oil industry. We built that entire oil industry.

Natalie Kitro: Specifically, opening Venezuela's vast oil fields to American companies. Today, my colleague Anatoli Kurmanaev explains the history behind Trump's claim that this is our oil and what it would really take to get it back.

Natalie Kitro: Anatoli, welcome back to the show. Let's just start with a basic question, which is why is Trump so focused on Venezuelan oil?

Anatoli Kurmanaev: Venezuela is a quintessential petrostate. It is arguably the first petrostate. It is a nation that has been built by oil that defines itself through oil. And if you are an American president who sees the world through the prism of natural resources, who sees the world through the geopolitics of energy and control of energy resources, then Venezuela is your natural target. As my colleague Rebecca Elliot wrote, you have a country that is today the world's largest oil producer, the United States, targeting the country with the world's biggest oil reserves, Venezuela. It is in a way a natural relationship, a natural tango, shaped by drama, cooperation, competition, and all sorts of conflicts.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: For us as reporters, one of the most shocking elements of this whole drama is just how explicit Trump is being about his motives. The driving aspect of this whole campaign against Maduro is about oil. Trump and his allies, like top advisor Steven Miller, have been saying that the US is reclaiming what's rightfully theirs. Miller said, "American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property." It's wild and incendiary, but it does contain a grain of truth. To understand where he comes from, you have to go back to the beginning of Venezuela's oil industry a century ago.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: The industry really takes off in the 1920s, propelled by mass migration of American oil workers. American oil companies operate the wells, and those workers started building towns built in the American way with American grids, suburban houses, schools, baseball, and churches. Those towns gradually grew into cities imitating American way of life. Venezuela basically entered modernity through the prism of how American oil workers saw the world.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: By the 1950s, Venezuela was the world's largest oil exporter, making tremendous amounts of money. The dictator at the time, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, poured that oil wealth into infrastructure, building tunnels, bridges, and highways. Venezuela became this mecca of modernity. But then, Venezuelans began to question the status quo which gives the bulk of the wealth towards the corporations. Venezuela really becomes the driver of a movement called resource nationalism.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: In late 50s, a Venezuelan statesman called Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo travels to the Middle East and convinces other oil nations that if we bond together, we can assert our sovereignty and minimize the influence of corporations. This becomes OPEC. Then in the 1970s, a pro-US president Carlos Andrés Pérez decides to nationalize Venezuela's oil industry, creating a state-owned company known as PDVSA.

Natalie Kitro: That nationalization sounds successful, fueling education and poverty alleviation. But you described it as both a blessing and a curse.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: Yes, Venezuela became addicted to oil. In the 80s, oil prices dropped and cracks appeared in the economic model. The government's solution was the Orinoco oil belt, which contains the world's largest reserves, but it's locked in sludgy tar that requires cutting-edge technology from American corporations. This led to the "oil opening," allowing foreign companies to take the lead. But economic stability never came back, fueling the rise of Hugo Chávez.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: Chávez won in 1998 with the message "Venezuelan oil belongs to Venezuelan people." He fired PDVSA's technocrats and replaced them with political appointees. After the 2002 strike, he fired tens of thousands of skilled workers, turning PDVSA into a political tool that even ran supermarkets and daycares. Corruption increased, expertise was lost, and production declined. In 2007, he launched another wave of nationalizations, forcing foreign companies to give up control. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips refused and left, starting legal processes for billions in damages. This is what Trump refers to as "theft."

Anatoli Kurmanaev: When Chávez died in 2013, the rickety system he built fell apart like a house of cards. Venezuela entered the biggest economic crisis in modern history outside a war zone, with inflation hitting 700%. The oil industry became a shell of itself; wells dried up, and people were taking apart infrastructure for scrap.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: Trump's sanctions during his first term further hit Maduro's government, making it illegal to sell oil to the West. This forced Maduro to change tack, entrusting Delcy Rodríguez to fix the economy. She launched "stealth privatization": on paper, oil belongs to the people, but secret contracts give foreign companies control and a bigger share of profits. By late 2025, production reached 1.2 million barrels per day—a fraction of the past, but a significant improvement.

Natalie Kitro: Trump is now saying US companies will revive the industry. What would that take?

Anatoli Kurmanaev: It would take tens of billions of dollars. Delcy Rodríguez took the "low-hanging fruits." To significantly improve production requires massive investment. The oil industry isn't a spigot; once infrastructure decays, it's expensive and time-consuming to repair. American oil executives are cautious. While Chevron stayed, ExxonMobil said Venezuela today is "uninvestable."

Anatoli Kurmanaev: The challenges are many: first, political stability. Delcy rules through the threat of US force, but internal rivals remain. Second, legal guarantees—companies don't want to be burned again. Finally, the energy revolution—companies wonder if this oil will even be needed in 15 years.

Natalie Kitro: If things work out, what does the US gain?

Anatoli Kurmanaev: The US would gain a massive source of oil, meaning global and domestic gas prices would fall. This is crucial for Trump's domestic politics. Geopolitically, it gives the US massive power. If Trump can set global oil prices by turning the Venezuelan spigot on and off, Russia will find it difficult to achieve its goals without bowing to US needs. China, while moving to EVs, will remain reliant on oil imports for decades; if Trump controls the source, he can force Beijing to bow.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: For now, the Venezuelan interim government seems willing to do Trump's bidding, even preparing legal reforms. But history shows that such ambitious, long-term plans rarely turn out as envisioned. The future of Venezuelan oil may look very different from how Washington sees it now.

Natalie Kitro: Anatoli, thank you.

Anatoli Kurmanaev: It's a pleasure to be here.