Trump signs emergency order to protect US-owned Venezuelan oil revenues

• The White House says the move is aimed at advancing foreign policy.
• The order follows Trump’s meeting with top US oil executives.
• The newsletter states that the US president prevents revenue sequestration.
  

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect US-held money from Venezuelan oil sales after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, the White House said.

In an order signed Friday, Trump — who has made it clear that tapping Venezuela’s vast oil reserves was a key goal in the U.S. ouster of Maduro — is acting “in furtherance of U.S. foreign policy objectives,” the White House said in a bulletin accompanying the order.

The move follows a meeting Friday in Washington, where Trump pushed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela and received a cautious reception — with ExxonMobil’s chief executive describing the country as a “non-investor” without sweeping reforms.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips pulled out in 2007 after refusing requests by then-President Hugo Chavez to cede majority control to the state. They are fighting to recover billions of dollars they say Venezuela owes them.

Chevron is currently the only American company licensed to operate in Venezuela.

Trump’s executive order signed Friday declares a state of emergency “to protect Venezuelan oil revenues held in U.S. Treasury accounts from seizure or legal action,” according to a White House bulletin.

In fact, it places this income under special protection in order to prevent it from being seized by courts or creditors. The action is deemed necessary for US national security and foreign policy.

“President Trump is preventing a seizure of Venezuela’s oil revenues that could undermine critical U.S. efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the newsletter said.

Sanctioned by Washington since 2019, Venezuela holds about a fifth of the world’s oil reserves and was once a major supplier of crude to the United States.

But it produced only about 1% of total global crude output in 2024, according to OPEC, having been hampered by years of underinvestment, sanctions and embargoes.

Trump sees the country’s vast oil reserves as a windfall in his fight to further reduce domestic US fuel prices.

The executive order comes a week after US forces arrested authoritarian leader Maduro in a nighttime operation in the Venezuelan capital that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.