How did Venezuela "steal" our oil?

[zanana1]

Please talk to me like I'm in kindergarten. I don't get it.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The oil was originally located in Texas.

Venezuela used witchcraft to magically transport
and steal all the oil in Texas to their own country.

So justice is served when Trump kidnaps these criminals
and burns them at the stake.

[malaise]

5. So the king of contract violations

Is enforcing contracts in sovereign countries.
Imperialism is evil

[Irish_Dem]

7. No. Trump is outright stealing another country's oil.

And making up excuses to do so.

[malaise]

8. Correct is right

[zanana1]

2. Someone told me we had a contract with them and they broke it.

I don't know if we did or not but I like to know the facts before I start screaming.

[JT45242]

3. They 'stole' the oil when they nationalized it, stealing it back from the people who stole it from indigenous Venezuelan

It's only ok when rich white people steal it... that's progress.

If the people who have a legitimate claim to a resource take it... that's stealing.

[malaise]

9. Nailed it

Rec

[Irish_Dem]

10. Yes. The US stole the oil from Venezuela and they took it back.

[Emile]

4. Slant drilling, like Iraq did on the Iraq-Kuwait border. Lol

[Doodley]

6. They nationalized oil production and took control of the assets of American oil companies.

These companies are largely Trump supporters and donors. Trump seems to think that the oil they would have produced, going back almost 50 years, represents what has been "stolen." and should be repaid by allowing America to take from their oil reserves. You may remember that Trump previously said we should have taken Syrian and Iraqi oil.

[StoolPigeon]

11. Simple

It's all part of the Donald Trump "I want it, therefore it belongs to me" philosophy.

[Blues Heron]

12. Donnie bad man, Donnie lie, oil man icky, lie too, make many people go to heaven

[Greg_In_SF]

13. When Venezuela nationalized

its oil industry, that led to the expropriation of foreign oil companies' assets.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

14. By a secret pipeline from Houston to Caracas

That's why he renamed it Gulf of America.

Oh wait, I didn't say nuthin.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. Trump's Venezuela Blockade Is for "Our Oil." Experts Say It Isn't the US's to Take.

The US never owned this oil in Venezuela and has no legal claim to such oil

Trump's blockade against Venezuela is for "our oil." Experts say it isn't the US's to take. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

— (@papaesoco.bsky.social) 2025-12-18T07:54:20.501Z

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/12/trumps-blockade-venezuela-senate-oil/

Trump claimed during his Tuesday evening declaration that the Venezuelan officials had stolen the oil in question from the US, writing that Maduro’s government needs to “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

Like a number of other oil-producing nations, Venezuela, decades ago, nationalized its oil industry, which is operated by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA.

“Venezuela’s natural resources never belonged to the United States,” David Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an international energy advisory consultancy, told The Washington Post. “While there have been charges of expropriation, which have been arbitrated in an international tribunal, there is no basis for arguing that Venezuela’s oil was stolen from the United States.”

[Iggo]

16. It was never ours. It was the oil company's. It was between them and Venezuela. But it was never ours.

[Mossfern]

17. Got it.

By complaining about Venezuela stealing "our" oil, he means the oil companies and him - not the US.