{"id":386957,"date":"2026-01-04T07:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386957\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T07:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:56:17","slug":"trump-seeks-to-make-venezuela-great-again-revive-economy-as-affordability-crisis-lingers-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386957\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump seeks to make Venezuela great again revive economy as affordability crisis lingers in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has committed the U.S. to rebuilding Venezuela\u2019s oil industry<\/a>, the key driver in the country\u2019s faltering economy, after the capture and arrest of dictator Nicolas Maduro by American forces.<\/p>\n

During a press briefing on Saturday, Trump said \u201cwe\u2019re going to run\u201d Venezuela<\/a> to allow for a transition to new leadership, and didn\u2019t shy away from putting troops there.<\/p>\n

He claimed that Maduro\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is \u201cessentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again\u201d and will take orders from the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have this done right,\u201d he vowed. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to just do this with Maduro then leave like everybody else\u2014leave and say, you know, let it go to hell. If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back. We\u2019ll run it properly. We\u2019ll run it professionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela has the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves, but production has waned and the economy has collapsed amid American sanctions and Maduro\u2019s mismanagement.<\/p>\n

Trump suggested the U.S. would use Venezuela\u2019s oil wealth to pay for the mission and compensate American companies that operated there previously but whose assets were nationalized by the socialist regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be paid for by the oil companies directly, and they will be reimbursed for what they\u2019re doing. But it\u2019s going to be paid, and we\u2019re going to get the oil flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Energy analysts have estimated it will take several years, perhaps close to a decade, to truly rebuild the Venezuelan oil sector and dramatically boost exports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump appeared to acknowledge that updating the country\u2019s oil industry will be no simple matter, saying the infrastructure is \u201crotted\u201d and that extraction is dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be replacing it, and we\u2019re going to take a lot of money out so that we can take care of the country,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

While he touted the returns U.S. oil companies stand to gain, Trump added that the Venezuelan people will be the biggest beneficiaries of Maduro\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n

But Trump campaigned on an \u201cAmerica first\u201d platform and promised to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts. While he has tried to bring an end to Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine, Trump received blowback from his MAGA base after the U.S. joined Israel\u2019s war on Iran last summer by bombing key nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

At the same time, voters delivered stunning defeats to Republicans in the off-year elections, saying Trump hasn\u2019t done enough to improve the cost of living. <\/p>\n

That prompted the Trump administration to roll back tariffs on certain grocery staples as well as suggest sending out tariff \u201cdividend\u201d checks and lower housing costs via 50-year mortgages. And on New Year\u2019s Eve, he delayed tariff hikes on certain furniture for a year<\/a> after signaling levies on some Italian pastas would be much lower than planned.<\/p>\n

In explaining the U.S. military action in Venezuela, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, \u201cThis is America first.\u201d <\/p>\n

When asked how running a country in South America is \u201cAmerica first,\u201d Trump replied, \u201cIt is because we want to surround ourselves with good neighbors. We want to surround ourselves with stability, and we want to surround ourselves with energy. We have tremendous energy in that country. It\u2019s very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world, and we want to make sure we can protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s critics were quick to point out the disconnect between his campaign rhetoric and the latest military moves.<\/p>\n

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a once-staunch Trump ally who has since broken with the president, said on X<\/a> that \u201cAmericans are consistently facing increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare\u201d while tax dollars are spent on \u201cforeigners both home and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days ahead of her exit from Congress, she said Americans are fed up with fighting wars and providing support for foreign wars but that establishment Republicans and Democrats \u201ckept the Washington military machine funded and going.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end,\u201d she added. \u201cBoy were we wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump for attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization or a credible plan for a post-Maduro future.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo distract from skyrocketing costs Americans face and the historic cover up of the Epstein files, Donald Trump is attempting to the throw Americans into more international chaos and uncertainty,\u201d he added in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump has committed the U.S. to rebuilding Venezuela\u2019s oil industry, the key driver in the country\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,3310,18232,188199],"class_list":{"0":"post-386957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-oil","11":"tag-venezuela","12":"tag-venezuela-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}