Trump Says U.S. Could Stay in Iran and ‘Keep the Oil’ Under Venezuela-Style Model
By Shahnoor Saqib | SCN NEWS
DUBLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that the United States could remain involved in Iran and seek to retain access to its oil resources rather than fully withdraw after the war, explicitly comparing such an option with Washington's recent oil arrangement in Venezuela and introducing a potentially consequential economic dimension into the debate over how the conflict might end.
Speaking during a visit to Ireland, Trump said he ultimately expected the United States to leave Iran but raised an alternative in which Washington could stay and “keep the oil like Venezuela.” He argued that revenue generated through the Venezuela arrangement had already more than compensated the United States for the costs associated with its military campaign there. Trump also repeated his expectation that the Iran war could end this year, potentially after November's U.S. midterm elections, and predicted gasoline prices would fall sharply once the conflict ended.
The remarks do not amount to an announced U.S. policy for taking control of Iranian petroleum resources, and Trump provided no operational, legal or diplomatic framework for how such an arrangement could work. They are nevertheless significant because they connect two major strands of his administration's foreign policy: military intervention and the pursuit of long-term American leverage over strategically important energy supplies.
Trump has raised the possibility before. In March, when asked whether he was considering taking control of Iranian oil, he described it as “an option” and immediately pointed to the administration's experience in Venezuela. Sunday's comments go further by placing the Venezuela analogy directly within his description of the circumstances under which the United States might remain engaged in Iran.
The Venezuela precedent Trump cited is unusual. The administration announced in August an agreement involving North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, under which the company received long-term concessions covering Venezuelan oil fields with roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. According to the White House, the U.S. government's Office of Strategic Capital received a 35% equity interest in NABEP's parent, while the State Department obtained rights to purchase a portion of production at cost and first-refusal rights over additional output. The administration presents the arrangement as a mechanism for strengthening U.S. energy security and helping rebuild Venezuela's petroleum industry.
Applying anything resembling that structure to Iran would be vastly more complicated. Iran is a major sovereign energy producer whose petroleum resources sit at the center of its economy and national strategy, while the conflict has already transformed the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding Gulf waterways into critical fronts in the global energy confrontation. Any attempt to establish lasting foreign control over Iranian production would raise major questions involving Iranian sovereignty, international law, ownership, security and the terms of an eventual settlement.
Those questions are becoming more consequential because the war is again disrupting global energy flows. Oil climbed above $100 a barrel last week, while U.S. diesel prices reached another record above $6.20 a gallon Sunday. Drone strikes have damaged Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, a crucial alternative route to Hormuz, while another vessel was struck in the strait. Saudi buyers and traders told Reuters that prolonged disruption to the pipeline could eventually jeopardize supplies equivalent to as much as 4% of global consumption.
The energy dimension therefore extends well beyond Iranian production itself. Control of supply routes through the Gulf, the ability of Saudi Arabia and other producers to bypass Hormuz, and the future terms under which Iranian crude returns fully to international markets could influence prices and strategic relationships long after active fighting ends.
Trump's comments also create a distinction between Washington's publicly stated objectives in the conflict and the potential post-war economic arrangement he is now discussing. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has continued to describe preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and protecting U.S. interests and commercial navigation as central administration priorities. Rubio has separately cited the Venezuela oil arrangement as a long-term hedge designed to strengthen American energy security and reduce strategic exposure to China, Russia and Iran.
No evidence presented Sunday establishes that Washington has decided to pursue Venezuelan-style control of Iranian oil. Trump's statement should therefore be treated as a presidential proposal or possibility rather than an adopted plan. Whether Tehran would ever accept such terms is another matter; Trump said Iran was repeatedly seeking negotiations, while Iranian officials have previously rejected similar U.S. assertions about their diplomatic posture.
What makes the remarks strategically important is the precedent Trump himself chose. Venezuela has turned energy access into an explicit component of the administration's broader security strategy. The White House says its agreement gives the United States economic ownership, governance influence and guaranteed access to Venezuelan production, while independent energy and legal specialists have questioned aspects of the arrangement and called for greater contractual transparency.
If Washington were eventually to pursue even a limited version of that model in Iran, the implications would extend across global energy politics. Iran's oil resources, its position beside the Strait of Hormuz and its relationships with China and other major Asian customers mean that decisions over post-war petroleum production could affect not only Tehran and Washington but the strategic balance connecting the Gulf, Asia and global commodity markets.
For now, however, there is a crucial line between rhetoric and policy. Trump has floated the possibility of staying in Iran for its oil; the administration has not announced an Iran oil agreement or established that such control will occur. Sunday's statement instead provides the clearest indication yet that Trump sees the Venezuela arrangement as a model that could potentially be considered beyond the Western Hemisphere — adding control over energy resources to an already complicated debate about what an eventual end to the Iran war could look like.