President Donald Trump is turning to oil from Venezuela’s socialist-led government as stubbornly high gas prices threaten to weigh on Republicans just days before the midterm elections. Trump announced Tuesday that he will personally welcome the arrival of a tanker carrying 1 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in Texas, describing the shipment as a "gift" from Caracas that will be processed at U.S. refineries. "We took over Venezuela very successfully and they’ve sent me as a gift a boatload of a million barrels of oil, and I’m giving that to the United States of America," Trump told reporters before traveling to Texas.
"We’re going to accept a million barrels of oil, and I’m going to give it to you people to use it the way you want," he added. Trump later explicitly linked Venezuelan oil to his efforts to bring down fuel costs, saying the shipment would come at no cost to taxpayers and was the first of billions of barrels he expects the United States to receive from the country. In a post on Truth Social, he predicted gasoline and diesel prices would soon "come plummeting down." When reached for further comment, the White House referred Newsweek to Trump’s remarks to reporters.
Trump will appear in Corpus Christi and Lubbock as he seeks to boost Republican Ken Paxton in his competitive U.S. Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. The president said the Venezuelan oil delivery would be his "third stop." Alex Raufoglu, the Washington correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported on X that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is traveling with Trump in his capacity as national security adviser.
It remained unclear whether Rubio would participate in any campaign events. Newsweek reached out to the State Department by email Tuesday for comment. The trip creates a notable political juxtaposition for Trump and Rubio.
Trump has spent years railing against socialism and invoking Venezuela as a warning about left-wing economic policies. Rubio built much of his political career around opposition to Chavismo, the socialist political movement founded by Hugo Chávez, and argued against accommodation with the government in Caracas. Now, with Americans paying substantially more for gasoline than they were a year ago, Trump and Rubio are preparing to personally welcome Venezuelan oil onto U.S. soil.
The national average for regular gasoline stood at $4.27 a gallon Tuesday, according to AAA, down from $4.48 a month ago but sharply higher than the $3.05 average at the same point last year. But Luisa Palacios, an energy expert at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and former chair of Citgo, told Newsweek that the 1 million-barrel shipment itself is unlikely to make a noticeable difference at the pump. "Against the U.S. refining system, it’s negligible," Palacios said.
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