Trump found an unusual solution to his Venezuela problem

America needs Venezuelan oil — probably more than at any point since the oil crisis of the 1970s.

But President Donald Trump has struggled to convince American oil companies to make significant investments in Venezuela's oil operations after the United States captured Nicolás Maduro in January and arrested him on conspiracy charges . Publicly bullying oil executives failed. So too did several deals with Maduro's replacement, Delcy Rodríguez , to reform the country's oil industry that she had once led.

Removing Venezuela's leader in a complex military operation turned out to be the easy part.

But Friday's stunning announcement — that the United States entered a deal to take majority ownership in a joint oil venture with a Venezuelan energy company — could be a game-changer. In the long run, it could serve as a win for both the US oil industry and the Venezuelan economy.

It may finally offer skeptical US companies the assurance they've been looking for to invest safely in Venezuela.

Venezuela is crucial to America's energy security.

The United States has more than quadrupled its crude imports from Venezuela this year, reaching the highest amount of oil from the country (roughly 600,000 barrels per day) since the first Trump administration imposed sanctions in 2019. Venezuela is now the No. 2 source of imported oil to the US, behind only Canada, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The deal Trump announced Friday could significantly reinforce that relationship: The United States will take a 55% stake in a new joint venture with a private Venezuelan operator, according to a White House official. The 100-year oil field lease will create the world's second-largest oil company, measured by total reserves, behind Saudi Aramco.

Venezuela has 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and the newly formed company will control 65 billion of those barrels. That would more than double the 46 billion barrels in oil reserves that the United States already controls, according to the EIA .

Although the United States is a net exporter of oil and fuel — and the world's largest crude producer — it still imports significant amounts of oil. That's because US oil is the light, sweet variety, good for making gasoline but not the heavier fuels. Venezuelan oil, by contrast, is heavy, sour sludge, which can more easily be distilled into asphalt, industrial oils, diesel and jet fuel.

Many US refineries are tailor-made for Venezuelan oil. They were mostly built in the 1970s, when Venezuela was one of America's chief sources of crude. So an increase in Venezuelan oil imports would make America's refineries more efficient.