Trump on the blockade around Venezuela:

"We're not going to let anybody go through that who shouldn't be going through. You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil... and we want it back."

What Trump Means When He Says Venezuela “Took Our Oil”

When Trump says Venezuela “took our oil” or “took our energy rights,” he is referring to specific historical actions.

Under Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry. And U.S. energy companies were:
• Forced out of majority ownership
• Had contracts voided or rewritten under pressure
• Lost control of oil fields and infrastructure
• Major American firms such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips lost assets worth billions of dollars.

From Trump’s perspective:
• These were U.S. commercial and strategic interests seized without fair compensation.
• Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, making this a major geopolitical loss for the U.S.
• Control of Venezuelan oil later shifted toward Russia, China, and Iran.

What “we want it back” means is not physically taking oil, but restoring U.S. leverage through:

• Re-entry rights for U.S. companies
• Compensation or debt recovery
• Control over future energy contracts
• Sanctions and shipping access used as leverage

Trump is framing Venezuela’s oil sector as a strategic U.S. loss caused by expropriation, and signaling that any future engagement will be based on concrete concessions and restitution, not goodwill or aid.

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