‘They See Great Opportunity’: Interior Secretary Burgum Shows How US-Venezuela Partnership Is Already Paying Dividends

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said Sunday that, since the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. has benefitted from its new partnership with Venezuela.

Oil prices climbed since President Donald Trump announced the United States military and Israel Defense Forces launched military strikes against Iran early Feb. 28. WTI Futures Crude Oil closed Friday at $90.90, up over $20 from the market’s Feb. 27 close, the day before the strikes, according to Investing.com. Burgum said Venezuela was “rich, rich. rich” in crucial minerals in addition to oil. (RELATED: ‘A Disruption On The Way To A Much Better Place’: Energy Secretary Dismisses ‘Fiction’ About Fuel Shortages, Prices)

“Because Venezuela is part of this equation now and you were just there … all this oil, you said three percent from the Middle East winds up getting cut off,” “The Sunday Briefing” co-host Peter Doocy asked Burgum. “Is there enough in Venezuela to keep everything in the U.S. gassed up?”

“Yes, absolutely. I mean, between the U.S. and our U.S. industry, which is the most innovative and most effective in the world, I mean we’re the number one oil producer in the world, we’re the number one LNG [liquified natural gas] producer,” Burgum responded. “When Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, all of the European Union was effectively dependent on Russian natural gas. Now two-thirds of that is supplied by the U.S. I mean, the U.S. is coming to the rescue of the Free World because of President Trump’s energy-dominant policies, an American-First approach to getting things done here in America where we do it better, cleaner, safer, smarter than anywhere else in the world.”

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Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said during a Jan. 9 appearance on “Fox and Friends” multiple American energy companies are seeking to help rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry without seeking assistance from the government.

“You just got back from Caracas, a big part of the plan post-Maduro was to get oil and other precious metals from Venezuela to the U.S. quickly. How is that going?” Doocy asked.

Burgum responded, “Well, it started on Friday. In addition to the oil and gas flowing, we signed the first licenses for critical minerals to start flowing and precious minerals on Friday. There was $100 million of gold that came from Venezuela to the United States. That’s for both industrial purposes as well as other commercial uses.”

“Venezuela has got $500 billion of resources of gold, but they’ve also got other critical minerals. Bauxite for aluminum, which we need for defense and for construction. … They’ve got coal resources that can be used to help generate power to begin to help us win the AI [artificial intelligence] arms race with China,” Burgun continued. “So they’re rich, rich, rich in minerals and, just like they passed an amazing hydrocarbon law back in January, in three weeks their legislature did that in response to the U.S. That’s creating opportunities for investment for human capital and financial capital in their country [they] haven’t seen, and now on Monday — tomorrow — they’re introducing a similar kind of change in regime of the laws for all of the critical minerals in mining.” (RELATED: Trump Says US ‘Going To Run’ Venezuela After Nabbing Maduro)

Venezuela reportedly has over 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to estimates from both OPEC and the Energy Information Administration.

“When we were down there this week with both oil and gas executives from the U.S. and the top mining executives, these folks are excited about getting back to Venezuela. They were often there before in the past,” Burgum said. “They see great opportunity and, I tell you, the people of Venezuela, they are going to be putting up a statue of President Trump as a great liberator because he has opened up their economy again after more than two decades. The enthusiasm is high on the ground level in Venezuela for what their future can be.”

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