Trump fact-check: Do the US and Venezuela have 60% of the world’s oil?

Donald Trump’s claim that a deal between the United States and Venezuela would result in the two nations controlling over 60% of the world's oil lacks factual support under any standard industry metric. Bill Farren-Price of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies notes that combined, these countries account for only 14-15% of global production and approximately 23% of proven reserves. While Venezuela holds the world's largest reported reserves at 300 billion barrels, extraction is economically unviable unless market prices exceed $100 per barrel due to high production costs compared to low-cost leaders like Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the 60% figure remains mathematically unreachable even when including oil-adjacent products like natural gas liquids. As global oil demand approaches a plateau, such claims of resource dominance reflect an outdated geopolitical perspective rather than current market realities.