A Fox News graphic of Venezuela's oil exports

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Trump delivered on right-wing media’s desire for regime change in Venezuela over oil

Written by Zachary Pleat

Research contributions from Allison Fisher & Ilana Berger

Published

Many right-wing media figures mused about President Donald Trump ousting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and/or taking control of the country’s oil prior to the Trump administration’s January 3 strikes on Venezuela and capture of Maduro.

After the attack, Trump, who previously argued that the U.S. should have seized oil supplies from Iraq and reportedly discussed during his first term going to war with Venezuela to seize its oil, cited supposed theft from U.S. oil companies and promised that they in turn would have a major role in Venezuela’s oil industry. Yet reporting shows that some energy companies are hesitant about getting involved due to immense upfront investment costs to modernize Venezuelan production and uncertainty about the long-term stability of the country and region.

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  • Right-wing media mused about regime change in Venezuela, citing its oil

    • Real America’s Voice’s Mike Crispi: “Trump should 100% seize Venezuela and take the oil. Why not?” Crispi added: “It would be easy pickings, this is nothing like the Middle East. Nobody likes Maduro. It would drive up Republican numbers with the Latino vote. And it would lead to an economic boom for US citizens (energy prices). I see no downside.” [Twitter/X, 9/1/25]
    • Newsmax host Rob Schmitt: Venezuela has “a massive oil reserve” and overthrowing Maduro “has a huge upside.” Schmitt told Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “Undeniably, it would be a massive benefit to this country to have a capitalist-friendly Venezuela. And as we know, Maduro was crushed in that last election. He just didn't leave. He just stayed in power. And I think it's a lot different — if you're going to try and do a regime change and you've got a willing candidate right there, and the military goes along with it, I think it's a little different than trying to install democracy in the Middle East, where nobody really wants it. And you got Venezuela that has this massive oil reserve. They have gold, they have rare earths, and China's got their fingers all around them, and Russia too. And it's kind of like this evil element to our south. That doesn't have to be that way. I mean, it's not very ‘America First,’ but it has a huge upside, doesn't it?” [Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 10/29/25]
    • Fox & Friends Weekend: Overthrowing Venezuela’s government could get the U.S. access to Guyana’s oil reserves as well as Venezuela’s. Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy said: “How much does oil have to do with this? Because it's not just Venezuela. Right next to Venezuela is Guyana, which has had the largest oil discovery, I think, in our lifetime.” Her guest, Fox contributor Paul Mauro, replied: “Yeah. And you know what? The good news here is that Guyana is a comparative friendly. And Guyana has not only oil, they have enormous natural resources. … We'd like to buy from them, so that's the good news.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/15/25]
    • Newsmax host Lidia Curanaj: “We know that Venezuela has a lot of oil. And what better way to weaken Russia than by cutting off their oil?” Curanaj also said: “There is talk that there could be a regime change.” [Newsmax, The Count, 11/15/25]
    • Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) on Fox & Friends: Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient María Corina Machado is “ready, within 100 days after they are liberated, they know what they need to do. … They are more than willing to negotiate and to be working with the oil companies, the American oil companies.” After ousting Maduro, Trump said of Machado: “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 11/21/25; ABC News, 1/3/26]
    • Salazar on Kudlow: “For those Americans who do not understand why we need to go in” to Venezuela, “you’re in Fox Business. Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day, because there will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity. American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipe, the whole oil rigs, and everything that have to do with the Venezuelan petroleum companies, or everything that has to do with oil and the derivatives.” Fox Business host David Asman stated: “I would love to see a change in government” in Venezuela. [Fox Business, Kudlow, 11/24/25]
    • Fox contributor and former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway echoed Trump’s arguments about why he should take Venezuela’s oil, and Fox anchor Gillian Turner suggested he “just take Maduro out.” Conway said: “The second reason is the oil. Remember when President Trump said to Jeb Bush and others, well, the problem with Iran and Afghanistan is you guys didn’t take the oil. He wants the oil, and he wants the — he looks at these oilfields as having been stolen by Venezuela, kicked out the U.S. companies like Chevron, Shell, and the rest of them. And he’s saying you’re taking the profits from the ill-begotten oil and you’re trafficking human beings, and you’re kidnapping, and you’re flooding drugs and you’re murdering people. So this has to stop.” Fox anchor Gillian Turner added: “The other thing I would like to ask the president is why we don’t just take Maduro out, and then we don’t have to fight this whole war.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/22/25]
    • Heritage Foundation’s Victoria Coates told Fox viewers that Trump is going after the oil to “choke … off” Maduro. She said: Trump is “going after, as you reported, the oil revenue that is really the lifeblood for Maduro and his regime. That’s their ATM, their cash cow that’s keeping them in power, keeps their sort of repressive regime in place. … So by going after that oil stream, the president’s going to choke them off. … I think it’s basically a two-pronged approach that hopefully will have the desired result and get Maduro out of power.” [Fox News, Fox News Live, 1/1/26]

  • After the attacks, Trump claimed that Venezuela “stole” from US oil companies and that American energy companies will be involved in running Venezuela’s oil industry

    • President Donald Trump: “Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets, and American platforms, costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it.” Trump continued: “They took all of our property. It was our property. We built it. And, we never had a president that decided to do anything about it. Instead, they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations, and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country. ... Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies, so we didn't do anything about it. I would have done something about it.” Later in Trump’s press conference on deposing Maduro, he added: “You know, they stole our oil. We built that whole industry there. And they just took it over like we were nothing. And we had a president that decided not to do anything about it. So, we did something about it. We're late, but we did something about it.” [Factbase, 1/3/26]
    • During an interview on Fox, Trump said, “We’re going to be very strongly involved in” Venezuela’s oil industry. Trump added: “We have the greatest oil companies in the world — the biggest, the greatest — and we're going to be very much involved in it.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/3/26]
    • During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One, Trump repeatedly stated that U.S. oil companies will rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry. Trump said, “We're going to have to have big investments by the oil companies to bring back the infrastructure. … The oil companies are ready to go. They're going to go in, they're going to rebuild the infrastructure.” Trump added that the oil companies “want to go in so badly.” He also stated: “The oil companies are going to go in and rebuild their system. They're going to spend billions of dollars, and they're going to take the oil out of the ground, and we're taking back what they stole. Remember, they stole our property. It was the greatest theft in the history of America. Nobody has ever stolen our property like they have.” [Factbase, 1/4/26]
    • Trump's claim that Venezuela “stole” oil apparently refers to the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, which began in 1976 when the government first took control of oil resources in the country, including those operated by major U.S. oil companies. According to the BBC, “Around $1 billion in compensation was agreed for the US oil companies which lost their concessions in 1976.” However, experts argue that under Venezuelan law, the oil belongs to the state. Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver, told ABC “that under Venezuelan law, the state has always owned its underground oil reserves.” [BBC, 1/5/26; ABC, 1/5/26]

  • Reporting shows that US oil companies are leery of taking over Venezuela's oil industry

    • Politico: The U.S. oil industry is “leery” about investing in Venezuela's decaying oil infrastructure. According to Politico, “People in the industry said the administration’s message has left them still leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a country where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future.” One industry executive told Politico: “In preparation for regime change, there had been engagement. But it’s been sporadic and relatively flatly received by the industry,” this person said. ‘It feels very much a shoot-ready-aim exercise.” [Politico, 1/3/26]
    • Bloomberg reported that rebuilding Venezuela oil fields would cost $100 billion over 10 years. From the article: “Rebuilding it enough to lift Venezuela’s output back to its peak levels of the 1970s would require companies to invest about $10 billion per year over the next decade.” [Bloomberg, 1/4/26]
    • The New York Times noted that low oil prices mean less incentive for oil companies to invest in production. The Times reported: “The potential prize is huge — Venezuela boasts the largest oil reserves in the world — but so are the risks, and U.S. energy companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips have been burned in Venezuela before. Oil prices are also low, having fallen more than 20 percent in the past year, making it harder for companies to justify new spending.” [The New York Times, 1/5/26]
    • Canadian oil expert Alex Filstein: “At current oil prices, the massive capital required for meaningful production growth” in Venezuela “simply isn't justified.” “Venezuela's oil faces uniquely difficult geology, low ultimate recovery rates, and severe infrastructure deficits,” he wrote. “From my work alongside Venezuelans who actually operated projects there, many cited rampant corruption and logistical nightmares as reasons they left the country.” [Twitter/X, 1/4/26]
    • Michael Spyker, principal analyst at Canadian firm HTM Energy Partners, wrote that replacing Canadian crude oil with oil from Venezuela would result in a “nearly $1 trillion bill.” Spyker called the undertaking a “massive commitment … the upside is not as robust as many would want you to believe.” [Twitter/X, 1/4/26]
    • Ali Moshiri, former head of Chevron’s operations in Latin America and Africa, told The Wall Street Journal that because of “the price of oil,” companies will have to ask whether they will invest in Venezuela or in domestic oil. Moshiri said: “If you’re going to invest, do you put it in the Permian [Basin in the U.S.] or do you put it in Venezuela? That’s going to be a tough choice.” [The Wall Street Journal, 1/3/26]