Trump: Venezuelan oil to refill Strategic Reserves

Trump announced Sunday that oil secured under a sweeping new agreement with Venezuela will be used to refill the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, framing the deal as a long-overdue fix for an emergency stockpile he says was gutted under his predecessor. "One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves," Trump said in a Truth Social post, in which he blamed Joe Biden for emptying the reserve.

The announcement came two days after the administration unveiled what it is calling a historic energy pact. The president posted his intentions on Truth Social, two days after announcing an agreement with the South American nation to take control of 65 billion barrels of the country's oil reserves. Under the arrangement, Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez granted a private company — a joint venture between the U.S. government and a private operator — 100-year "concessions" for oil fields containing 63 billion barrels of proven reserves. Sixty-five billion barrels account for roughly 21 percent of Venezuela's total proven reserves of roughly 303 billion barrels as of 2023.

Trump was unsparing in his framing of the timeline. "One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves which, because of Sleepy Joe Biden, has been virtually emptied," he said. He added that "The 'topping out' process will begin very shortly, and is a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States. Thank you! President DONALD J. TRUMP." The reserve holds the nation's emergency stockpile of oil. Officials note its levels are currently at a 40-year low, with the Department of Energy announcing in August that levels fell by 6.1 million barrels, to 298.7 million barrels.

Supporters of the president argue the numbers speak for themselves on who is responsible for the depletion. During Biden's term, the amount in the SPR fell from 638 million-plus barrels in January 2021 to less than 395 million barrels in January 2025, per the EIA. Trump's own administration has also drawn down the reserve, though largely in response to the wartime crisis he inherited: Trump in March ordered the release of 172 million barrels from the reserve to combat skyrocketing energy prices in the wake of the U.S. war with Iran, which effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for oil tankers — a conflict BreakFirst covered extensively, including strikes near the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. strikes on Iran's Larak Island. That crisis has left ordinary Americans paying the price at the pump: the national average price for gasoline was $4.08 this week, up from about $3.21 a year ago, according to the auto owners club AAA.

The Venezuela deal itself follows a dramatic turn in U.S.-Venezuela relations. Trump posted Friday about the deal with Venezuela, which came nine months after the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. On the Venezuelan side, officials have welcomed the arrangement as an economic lifeline, with Delcy Rodríguez praising the agreement, saying it could raise oil production and support Venezuela's economic recovery.

Not everyone is convinced the plan will move as smoothly as Trump suggests. Some financial outlets have cautioned that the barrels in question exist largely on paper for now, noting there is a wide distance between owning reserves underground in Venezuela and actually shipping crude into American storage caverns in Louisiana and Texas. The Strategic National Reserve, the emergency U.S. stockpile of oil, is held in underground tanks in Louisiana and Texas. Analysts have also pointed out that a "65-billion-barrel 'gift' sounds like an easy win, but mismatched infrastructure and extra-heavy crude could turn this historic deal into a multi-year slog." The administration has not yet detailed timing, volume, or the exact mechanism for moving the oil, and the White House is expected to face questions on logistics and legal authority in the days ahead as the plan takes shape.

Why it matters: If the Venezuela deal delivers even a fraction of its promised scale, it would mark one of the most consequential American energy realignments in decades — turning a longtime socialist adversary's oil wealth into leverage for U.S. energy independence and giving Trump a tangible answer to years of Democratic drawdowns that left America's emergency cushion dangerously thin.