The United States will process and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil under a new arrangement with Venezuela following the ouster of former President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump said.
He said this at a meeting of top US administration officials with executives from some of the world's largest oil companies, Reuters reports.
The US president said that Venezuela appears to be an ally, and that oil companies that want to invest in the country will have security guarantees, the British agency reports.
Trump said opposition and pro-democracy activist Maria Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who will visit Washington on Tuesday or Wednesday, could be involved in some aspect of Venezuela's governance.
When asked by reporters whether he would meet with Acting President Delcy Rodriguez or other Venezuelan leaders, the US president said he would like to meet with representatives of that country soon.
"I'm going to meet with various representatives from Venezuela, probably quite soon. We haven't arranged that yet," he said. "But the relationship we have with the people who are currently running Venezuela is very good. We also have a young lady who won the Nobel Peace Prize. She will be coming to pay her respects to our country, to me, actually," Trump said, according to CNN.
The US president said the administration would decide which oil companies would be allowed to invest in Venezuela.
Oil production in that country has fallen below one million barrels per day.
A Chevron representative said at the meeting that the company is committed to continuing its investment in Venezuelan oil.
Exxon CEO Darren Woods said the challenge in Venezuela is developing oil resources.
ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said that US banks, including the Export-Import Bank, may need to be involved in financing oil investments in Venezuela, Reuters reports.
"We will not have Russia or China as neighbors"
Trump has again threatened to take over Greenland, saying the US will do it "easy or hard," regardless of Denmark's position.
Asked how much money he would offer the people of Greenland to join the United States, Trump said he was not talking about money yet, but that he "could talk about it."
"Right now, we're going to do something about Greenland, whether they like it or not. If we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we won't have Russia or China as neighbors," Trump told reporters.
He added that he would prefer to reach an agreement.
"I would like to solve this by agreement, the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we'll do it the hard way," Trump threatened.
Following the recent US military intervention in Venezuela, Trump reiterated his ambition to annex Greenland, presenting control over the autonomous Danish territory as essential to US national security.
Putin's arrest "will not be necessary"
Trump said he did not think arresting Russian President Vladimir Putin "would be necessary."
The journalist referred to Volodymyr Zelensky's comment, according to which, as he said, it seems that the Ukrainian president wants Trump to arrest Putin in the same way as was done with Maduro.
His comment came after reporters asked him at a meeting with the heads of oil giants whether he would ever consider applying the same measures against Russia that he took in Venezuela against Maduro.
"I've always had a great relationship with him. I'm very disappointed. I've ended eight wars. I thought this one would be somewhere in the middle or maybe one of the easier ones," Trump said.
"Tank seized that sailed from Venezuela without authorization"
Trump previously said that US and Venezuelan authorities had seized an oil tanker that had left Venezuela without their authorization.
"This tanker is now on its way back to Venezuela, and the oil will be sold through a major energy deal, which we created specifically for these kinds of sales," he wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.
US officials said earlier that the US had seized the tanker Olina in the Caribbean, the fifth ship to be targeted in recent weeks, as Washington steps up efforts to restrict Venezuelan oil exports.
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