WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has announced what he is calling “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY”, an agreement that would give the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, and, per the president’s own account, do so “at no cost to the American taxpayer.”

The deal, described on social media with the kind of typographic capitalization usually reserved for national emergencies, would give America a 55% effective interest in the output of a newly formed private company created to manage the reserves. It is, by the president’s telling, the single most important energy event since the discovery of the wheel, and possibly the wheel itself.

“We secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela,” the president wrote, “at no cost to the American Taxpayer.” The phrase has been included, as has been well documented, because the American taxpayer will, in fact, be asked to pay for it.

"That's not a seizure. That's a partnership. We didn't take the oil. We partnered with the oil."

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, described the arrangement as having “endless” benefits, saying the deal calls for the development of 17 strategic oil fields, an investment of more than $100 billion, and an estimated $209 billion in annual taxes to Venezuela. The United States, for its part, has said the oil will first go toward filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a vast underground vault the country has maintained for decades specifically for the day the oil runs out, which is, apparently, today.

That last detail has not gone unnoticed. Americans, who are currently paying an average of $4.08 per gallon for regular gasoline, up from $3.20 a year ago, will in other words be buying more oil, but that oil will not, at first, be going to them. It will be going to the vault. The president has said this will lower gas prices. The vault has said nothing.

THE DEAL, AT A GLANCE

  • 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, a number so large it is, in oil units, essentially the entire concept of “a lot”
  • 55% U.S. interest in a new private company whose name has not yet been chosen
  • $100 billion in investment, $209 billion in estimated annual taxes to Venezuela, $19 going to Venezuela for every barrel produced and sold to the United States
  • 17 strategic oil fields, a number the White House is treating as a badge of honor
  • Zero cost to the American taxpayer, a phrase that has become, in the energy space, a genre

The deal has drawn praise from within the administration and what one Venezuelan official, writing on social media, called the “neo-colonial” reality of the moment. “They are handing over 65 billion barrels of our reserves to the United States,” the official wrote, which the White House has described, in a statement, as “a very accurate description of the partnership.”

At press time, the president had scheduled a follow-up announcement, in all caps, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had, for the first time in its history, begun to look, to outside observers, less like a reserve and more like a destination.