Trump’s Oil Deal with Venezuela, Nepal’s Flood Catastrophe, and a New Space Telescope

On Friday, with gas prices at a record high for that time of year and no end in sight to the war in Iran, President Trump announced a landmark oil agreement with Venezuela—a country the U.S. military raided just eight months earlier to oust its leader, Nicolás Maduro. The deal promises the U.S. access to 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves, a number that dwarfs the roughly 40 billion barrels the U.S. holds in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But as ABC’s Stephen Portnoy explained, the immediate impact on American gas prices is essentially zero.

The Venezuela Oil Deal: Big Numbers, Long Timeline

The agreement, announced via social media, would give the U.S. government majority control over that 65 billion barrels of oil—a scale that energy analysts say could fundamentally reshape the global oil market in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. would essentially go into business with a private oil company in Venezuela, with the government taking a controlling stake. President Trump has already floated using some of the oil to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which he has tapped repeatedly during the Iran conflict.