WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (KUNA) -- President Donald J. Trump said the United States would be "very strongly involved" in the oil sector of Venezuela which has the world's biggest crude oil reserves.
"We have the greatest oil companies in the world - the biggest, the greatest --. And we're going to make sure it's run properly," he said in a press conference in the presence of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Saturday.
"We're going to we're going to be running it with a group, and we're going to make sure it's run properly. "We're going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars. It will be paid for by the oil companies directly. "They will be reimbursed for what they're doing, but it's going to be paid. And we're going to get the oil flowing the way it should be, as you know, is just a minor flow. --, and we're going to make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of. "We're going to make sure the people that were forced out of Venezuela by this thug are also taken care of," Trump said, referring to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
"Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground. Oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground, if we have to have, we had boots on the ground last night at a very high level. Referring to the US military attack on Caracas which led to Maduro's capture earlier today, he said, "We're not doing this in vain. This is -- a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly." "Could have gotten very badly. We could have lost a lot of people last night. We could have lost a lot of dignity. We could have lost a lot of equipment. The equipment is less important, but we could have lost a lot," he explained. "And we're going to make sure that this is proper. We're there now. We're ready to go again, if we have to. We're going to run the country, right? It's going to run very judiciously, very fairly. It's going to make a lot of money. "We're going to give money to the people. We're going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of. We're going to take care of everybody.
"We couldn't let them get away with it. You know, they stole our oil. We built that whole industry there, and they just took it over like we were nothing, and we had a president that decided not to do anything about it--," he went on. More than once in his press conference, Trump mentioned Venezuela's oil sector. "In terms of other countries that want oil, we're in the oil business," the president told reporters. "We're going to sell it to them. We're not going to say we're not going to give it to them. In other words, we'll be selling oil, probably in much larger doses, because they couldn't produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad. "So, we'll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries - many of whom are using it now - but I would say many more will come," he added. (pickup previous) rsr.gb