On Friday night, President Trump took to Truth Social with a surprising announcement.
He said that the U.S.
And Venezuela had just agreed to, quote, the biggest oil deal in world history.
Breaking news tonight, President Trump boasting of a huge oil deal on social media.
In fact, no one really knew that this was happening.
We were all really, really surprised when this came out.
Our colleague Vera Bergengruen covers national security.
So we've been hearing rumblings that there was some kind of major oil deal about to be announced.
We thought it was going to be oil companies or something new on that front.
But what it basically ended up being was a very, very unusual deal announced by President Trump that the U.S.
Government itself was going to be taking a stake in the oil business in Venezuela.
Venezuela is giving a private company the rights to develop these enormous oil fields.
And the U.S.
Government itself, through the Pentagon, is taking a stake in that company.
So they basically are themselves becoming an investor in Venezuelan oil.
And that's highly unusual.
Yes, this has never really been tried before.
And again, the mechanism through which it's being done through the Pentagon also is something
that people were very, very surprised by.
The oil deal comes at a sensitive time for the Trump administration.