WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump invited executives of large oil companies to the White House on Jan. 9 to discuss investment opportunities that will restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure following the ousting of regime leader Nicolás Maduro. Trump said that oil companies will invest at least $100 billion in Venezuela to boost its oil production.

“We’re going to discuss how these great American companies can help rapidly rebuild Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry and bring millions of barrels of oil production to benefit the United States, the people of Venezuela, and the entire world,” Trump said as he welcomed the executives.

“When you add Venezuela and the United States together, we have 55 percent of the oil in the world,” Trump said.

The president said that major oil companies will be spending at least $100 billion to “rebuild the capacity and the infrastructure necessary” in Venezuela.

Trump stated that his administration will decide “very soon” which oil companies will be permitted to operate in Venezuela.

He said that companies will have security guarantees and that they will be dealing with the United States directly, not Venezuela.

“We’re empowered to make that deal,” Trump said.

The companies will likely have American employees in the country, Trump said, but most of the jobs will go to Venezuelan workers.

“They have a lot of great workers, have a very high unemployment rate, and they have workers that are very familiar with taking oil out of the ground,” he said.

Companies that attended the meeting in the East Room included Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Continental, Halliburton, HKN, Valero, Marathon, Shell, Trafigura, Vitol Americas, Repsol, Eni, Aspect Holdings, Tallgrass, Raisa Energy, and Hilcorp.

At the event, Mark Nelson, vice chairman of Chevron, said his company has been operating in Venezuela for more than 100 years continuously.

ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods stated that his company has not operated in Venezuela for nearly 20 years but expressed readiness to deploy a team there, provided appropriate security guarantees are in place.

“There are a number of legal and commercial frameworks that would have to be established,” Woods said.

ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said his company had written off $12 billion in assets following the nationalization of its Venezuela holdings under former President Hugo Chávez.

He praised Trump’s approach, saying that using “energy commerce instead of conflict” was a bold idea that could make a significant change in Venezuela.

Before the meeting, Trump stated on Truth Social that an increase in Venezuelan oil production would help reduce oil prices for the American people.

“Additionally, and perhaps most importantly of all, will be the stoppage of Drugs and Criminals coming into the United States of America,” Trump wrote.

The administration is relying on large U.S. oil companies to rebuild the country’s crumbling oil infrastructure.

In a recent interview, Trump told The New York Times that he plans to rebuild Venezuela “in a very profitable way.”

“We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil,” he said.

He said that this would help lower global oil prices while returning the money to Venezuelans, “which they desperately need.”

The Trump administration expects large U.S. companies to extract oil from the country’s rich reserves and to control the global distribution of that oil for the foreseeable future.

The Energy Department outlined its strategy on Jan. 7, stating that all proceeds from oil sales will be controlled by the U.S. government and distributed for the benefit of the Venezuelan and American people. The administration is now selectively removing sanctions on Venezuelan oil to allow its export and sale in global markets.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Minnesota on Jan. 8, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that big oil companies, which move slowly and have corporate boards, are not interested in Venezuela. Instead, small companies are more interested in going to Venezuela. Bessent said that independent oil companies, individuals, and wildcatters—companies that drill oil wells—are calling the administration nonstop because “they want to get to Venezuela yesterday.”

In his Truth Social post, Trump highlighted strong interest from big oil companies.

“The largest Oil Companies in the World are coming to the White House at 2:30 P.M. Everybody wants to be there,” Trump wrote.

“It’s too bad that the Ballroom hasn’t completed because, if it were, it would be PACKED. We apologize to those Oil Companies that we cannot take today.”

After being captured in Caracas by the U.S. military, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were transferred to New York City on Jan. 3 and are currently being held in jail. At their first court appearance on Jan. 5, both pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include drug trafficking and collaborating with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro told the court that he is still the president of his country and that he was kidnapped.

On that same day, the National Assembly of Venezuela swore in Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, as acting president.

During the meeting, Trump justified the military operation in Venezuela.

“China and Russia would have been there if we didn’t do this,” he said.

He also cited the deal announced on Jan. 8, stating that Venezuela will send 30 million barrels of oil, valued at approximately $4 billion, to the United States.

“Venezuela has also agreed that the United States will immediately begin refining and selling up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil,” Trump said, “which will continue indefinitely.”