Trump says 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil are 'floating very nicely' to Houston

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Over a month after capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump said that 50 million barrels of oil from the Latin American nation are currently en route to Houston, Texas. The remarks from Trump reflect the US’s ambition to capitalise on the large Venezuelan oil reserves.

“You’ve heard about Venezuela, and we’re helping them very much with their oil. They got a lot of oil…We took 50 million barrels of oil. It’s right now floating very nicely and (in) extremely large ships to Houston,” the American leader said on Thursday at an event in the state of Georgia.

He went on to laud Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodriguez. “The president’s doing an excellent job, getting along great,” Trump said. It is pertinent to note that Rodriguez was second-in-command and the country’s vice president when Nicolas was in power.

Trump’s Venezuela oil trade sparks corruption concerns

Weeks after the US captured Maduro, the Trump administration has been selling the country’s oil stash, netting millions of dollars and prompting concerns from lawmakers and industry insiders about corruption. The concerns were also spelt out on January 28 when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the US Senate committee about the Trump administration’s ongoing involvement in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has accused Maduro of heading a vast narco-trafficking network as it zeroed in on Venezuela this past fall with a massive deployment of military assets and deadly strikes on boats off the country’s coast. Currently, the South American leader and his wife are jailed pending a federal trial in the United States on related charges.

Trump has maintained that his administration will control Venezuela’s oil reserves — the largest in the world. Since then, Trump has unveiled a sweeping $2 billion deal to sell oil from Venezuela’s reserves, which are controlled by a state-run company and have been off-limits for years to all American companies but Chevron. Overall, the Trump administration holds complete control over Venezuelan oil.