In a Friday evening announcement, President Trump declared that the United States had secured majority control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves — a claim he called the largest oil deal in world history. Negotiated, he said, by Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth alongside Venezuelan interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, the agreement was presented as costless to taxpayers and transformative for American energy security. Humanity has long measured power in the language of resources, and if verified, such a transaction would reshape the geopolitical and economic landscape of the Western Hemi