What Was Said and When
On December 16, 2025, President Donald Trump said the United States should “get the oil back” from Venezuela while criticizing U.S. policy toward the Maduro government. Trump framed Venezuelan oil as something taken from the United States and suggested that U.S. pressure had been relaxed without securing the return of American assets, stating, “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it. They illegally took it.”
The following day, December 17, 2025, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller sharpened that argument, saying U.S. companies built the country’s oil industry, and Venezuela later nationalized and expropriated those assets. Miller described those actions as “theft of American wealth and property.”
What “Oil Rights” They Are Referring To
The claims advanced by Trump and Miller trace back not to Venezuela’s original oil nationalization in the 1970s, but to a later round of state actions in the mid-2000s. Venezuela first nationalized its oil industry in 1976, ending the concession system and creating the state-owned oil company PDVSA, while still allowing foreign firms to participate later through joint ventures.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Venezuela expanded foreign participation in heavy crude projects, particularly in the Orinoco Belt, through operating agreements and joint ventures with companies including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Beginning in 2006, the Chávez government reversed that opening by requiring oil projects to be restructured so that PDVSA held a majority ownership stake. Several foreign companies rejected the new terms, and Venezuela subsequently seized or took control of specific projects in 2007.
Those 2006-2007 measures triggered investor-state arbitration claims by U.S. energy companies, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, seeking compensation for expropriated investments rather than ownership of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
International law draws a clear distinction between compensation claims and sovereign ownership. Under the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, oil reserves remain the property of the state, even when that state owes compensation for expropriation.
Where the Military Dimension Comes In
Physically “getting” Venezuelan oil would require coercive action against shipping or infrastructure, not sanctions alone. On December 10, 2025, Trump publicly confirmed the United States seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, describing the seizure as part of a pressure campaign.
Administration rhetoric has also referenced blocking oil shipments. Under widely cited restatements of the law of naval warfare, a naval blockade is a belligerent act associated with armed conflict and carries defined legal requirements for declaration, enforcement, and neutrality.
Outside an armed conflict or U.N.-authorized operation, the use of military force against another state’s shipping or infrastructure implicates the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state.
What U.S. Law Would Require
If U.S. armed forces were used in sustained operations to interdict shipping or control energy infrastructure, the War Powers Resolution would apply. That statute requires the executive branch to report such actions to Congress and provides mechanisms for congressional involvement in decisions about continued hostilities.
How Sanctions Actually Work
Current U.S. policy toward Venezuelan oil has primarily operated through economic tools administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, not through military force. Treasury’s sanctions program blocks dealings with designated Venezuelan actors and restricts transactions involving Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA unless a specific authorization applies.
The best example is Chevron. Treasury’s General License 41 framework authorized only limited, defined activity related to Chevron’s joint ventures and was structured to prevent PDVSA from receiving profits from Chevron’s oil sales. Treasury stated the authorization was limited to Chevron’s joint ventures and did not open broader activity with PDVSA.
Even when Treasury updated the Chevron authorization, the text of the license itself underscored that it did not create a broader claim over Venezuelan resources. For example, the General License 41B text expressly states that nothing in the license authorizes any expansion of Chevron’s joint ventures into new fields, which is the opposite of an ownership or “rights” claim to reserves.
Why the Rhetoric Matters for the Military
Treating oil as something the United States can “take back” shifts the issue from economic pressure to questions of force, maritime control, and occupation-level operations. For military planners, controlling oil infrastructure is not a sanctions issue but a mission set that historically requires sustained presence, force protection, and clear rules of engagement, all of which carry significant legal and escalation risks.
That framing also resonates deeply with many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. military involvement was widely perceived by the public as tied to oil interests, regardless of official justifications. Public opinion research during and after the Iraq War found large portions of Americans believed the war was fought at least in part to control oil resources, a belief that has shaped how many veterans interpret rhetoric linking military force and energy assets.
For that audience, language suggesting the United States can reclaim foreign oil risks reinforcing the idea that military force is being used to secure economic resources, a perception that has long complicated civil-military trust and post-service reflection on past conflicts.
