The Trump administration has collected more than $13 billion in revenues from Venezuelan oil sales since taking control of the country’s oil exports in January 2026, according to Financial Times calculations, but the destination and use of those funds remain largely undisclosed to Congress and the public.
The revenue accumulation began after a U.S. military operation on January 3, 2026, captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Within days, the Trump administration began selling Venezuelan oil and routing proceeds through accounts it established to manage the funds, starting with a $500 million deposit in a U.S.-controlled account in Qatar in January.
Oil exports under U.S. control have accelerated sharply. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, exports increased from roughly $600 million in January to approximately $3.7 billion in April alone, based on tanker-tracking data and market discounts applied to Venezuelan crude. The largest recipients of Venezuelan oil since the takeover have been the United States (43 percent), India (26 percent), and Spain (8 percent).
On January 9, 2026, President Trump issued Executive Order 14373, titled “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People,” establishing a special financial mechanism to hold Venezuelan oil proceeds in U.S. Treasury accounts. The order was designed to shield those revenues from legal claims by Venezuela’s creditors, who hold an estimated $60 billion to $80 billion in disputed debt claims against the country.
Despite the scale of the revenue collection, the Trump administration has disclosed minimal details about how the funds are being managed or spent. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress in January that $300 million had flowed through the Qatar account and been disbursed to Venezuela, while another $200 million was “still sitting” in the account. However, neither the administration nor Congress has released a comprehensive public accounting of the full $13 billion in collected revenue.
The lack of transparency has drawn scrutiny from Congress. Democratic lawmakers requested an audit from the Government Accountability Office examining the system the Trump administration established to control Venezuela’s oil exports. In April, a State Department witness told Congress that the department had authorized approximately $3 billion in disbursements to Venezuela, but could not confirm how much money remained in U.S. Treasury accounts or provide details on how the funds were spent.
The situation parallels—but differs significantly from—Iraq’s post-2004 sovereign debt restructuring following the removal of Saddam Hussein. According to Brookings Institution experts who convened to discuss Venezuela’s oil revenue management in February 2026, Iraq’s precedent established a more orderly consolidation of oil revenues with international oversight mechanisms, whereas Venezuela’s arrangement relies on U.S. Treasury accounts without that international layer. Experts cautioned that the current approach risks allowing arbitration claimants and U.S. government claims to be paid first while other creditors, including bondholders and bilateral creditors, remain unpaid.
The administration has also not released written agreements it entered into with commodity trading companies, buyers, banks, and other entities involved in selling and managing Venezuelan oil. In mid-April, the State Department indicated that accounting firm KPMG would conduct quarterly audits of Venezuelan oil revenue spending, including a retrospective audit “from the beginning,” but did not specify when those reports would be available.
Sources
- Financial Times — reported the Trump administration collected more than $13 billion in revenues from Venezuelan oil sales in 2026 based on FT calculations
- Council on Foreign Relations — provided tanker-tracking data showing oil exports increased from $600 million in January to $3.7 billion in April, and detailed the lack of public disclosure about fund management
- CNBC — confirmed the Trump administration deposited the initial $500 million of Venezuela oil sales in a U.S.-controlled account in Qatar
- Brookings Institution — convened experts to discuss Venezuela’s oil revenue management and compared it to Iraq’s post-2004 restructuring approach
- White House — published Executive Order 14373 on January 9, 2026, establishing the mechanism for safeguarding Venezuelan oil revenue
- New Republic — reported that only about $300 million has been publicly recorded as disbursed from the collected revenues
