How Trump’s Venezuela Oil Deal Gives the US Direct Control

While Venezuela isn’t the powerhouse oil producer it used to be, the country nonetheless has some of the world’s largest oil reserves. When the US seized then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, US President Donald Trump was clear that the raid was as much about oil as it was about the narco-terrorism and drug charges leveled against the strongman leader now being held in a federal jail in New York City.