Trump Says U.S. Has Collected $13 Billion-Plus From Venezuelan Oil Since Maduro's Capture, Suggests Iran Is Next

The number, straight from Trump

President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, July 27, that the U.S. has collected more than $13 billion from Venezuelan oil sales since American forces captured Nicolás Maduro in the January 3 raid. Asked about a Financial Times estimate putting the figure at roughly $13 billion, Trump didn't dispute it. He topped it.

"$13 billion from Venezuela? I think even more than that," Trump said, according to CNBC. "We've paid for that war many times over."

He was en route to Michigan to tour a General Motors facility when he made the comments. The exchange also produced a new threat: Trump said Iran should expect the same treatment. "That'll happen with Iran also," he told reporters, a line picked up by TRT World and Truthout.

Where the audit trail stands, six months in

Since Maduro's capture, Washington has effectively run Venezuela's oil exports while keeping the existing government structure in place, cooperating closely with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro's vice president. That arrangement hasn't changed since our last coverage of the Venezuela situation.

What has changed is the dollar figure attached to it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Semafor back in April that the U.S. had sold around 150 million barrels of Venezuelan crude since January. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress in June that KPMG conducts an ongoing audit of every disbursement, with the money held in a Citibank account.

State Department official Michael Kozak told Congress in April that roughly $3 billion had already been paid out from a Treasury account, covering salaries for Venezuelan government workers, oil industry supplies and other approved expenses. Wright said in February that the administration initially parked $500 million in a U.S.-controlled account in Qatar before setting up the Treasury account and redirecting all future deposits there.

Trump's executive order from January 9 frames the money as Venezuelan government property that the U.S. holds "in a custodial capacity." Rubio is the official authorized to approve how it's spent.

The gap between $13 billion collected and $3 billion accounted for

Do the math and there's a gap. If the U.S. has taken in $13 billion-plus and only about $3 billion had been disbursed as of April, that leaves billions unaccounted for in public testimony. Neither Trump nor any administration official named in these reports has explained the difference.

This is the concern Democrats in Congress have been raising. They've pressed the administration to disclose exactly how much has been collected, how it's being spent, and who's actually monitoring the process beyond the KPMG audit Rubio described. An "ongoing" audit of disbursements is not the same as public disclosure of a ledger, and right now there isn't one.

Truthout's coverage goes further, citing the Financial Times' finding that there are "very few indications" the money is boosting Venezuela's economy, which is still reeling from earthquakes last month that killed people families are still recovering by hand. That claim is worth weighing against Trump's own comment that the funds are going toward "running the country." Both things can be true at once: money is flowing into a Treasury-controlled account and being spent on salaries and oil-industry supplies, while the broader Venezuelan economy sees little of it.

Truthout also frames the January operation as a "likely illegal coup," a characterization not shared by CNBC or TRT World's more neutral "capture" framing. That's an assertion, not an established legal finding, and no court or international body has ruled on the legality of the raid in these reports.

The Iran angle, and Congress's role

Trump was explicit that he wants the same model applied to Iran, where the U.S. and Israel remain in a state of active tension following their war on Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure. Asked whether Iranian assets under U.S. control could go toward paying shipping companies damaged in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said no, that Iranian money would instead go toward what he called damage the U.S. suffered, not third-party compensation.

On Venezuela's money, Trump acknowledged a legal constraint: he can't simply redirect the funds to the Pentagon. "Congress has to approve it," he said, adding that lawmakers "don't like approving money for the military." Any move to funnel oil revenue into military spending would require an act of Congress, giving lawmakers leverage the administration doesn't currently have.

The open question is whether Congress uses that leverage to demand the full accounting it's been asking for since at least April, before any conversation about redirecting funds to the military even starts. So far, no hearing date or legislative vehicle for that accounting has been reported.