Trump floats idea to ‘stay and keep the oil’ in Iran, noting Venezuela deal

President Trump on Sunday floated the idea that the U.S. could “stay and keep the oil” in Iran, comparing the notion to the U.S.’s major oil deal with Venezuela.

Trump told reporters while in Doonbeg, Ireland, that the conflict with Iran will “end after the midterm” elections and that the Iranian regime “wants to make a deal so badly, and is calling constantly.”

“We’ll ultimately get out unless we decide to stay and keep the oil, like Venezuela,” he later added.

The president previously made similar comments about the conflict ending after the midterms , telling this to reporters at Joint Base Andrews while en route to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday. Days earlier on Truth Social, Trump said that oil prices driven up by the Iran war “ will drop precipitously ” after the conflict ends.

The Trump administration struck a deal with Venezuela for the U.S. to purchase 20 percent of the oil from North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company that is Venezuela’s second-largest private oil producer, at the cost of production.

This oil can then go to fill the U.S.’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which both the Trump and Biden administrations have pulled from in recent years to tackle the rising fuel prices that soared following the start of the Iran war and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This 25-year bilateral project envisages the development of 17 strategic oilfields with a production ​target of more than 1.5 million barrels per day,” Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez said on state TV outlet VTV in August. “That ⁠figure relates solely to the bilateral agreement between Venezuela and the United States.”

Trump has sought to control Iran’s oil supply months into the conflict. He told the Financial Times in March that taking the oil was his “favorite thing,” but said that “some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people.”

Victoria Coates, vice president of the Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy with the conservative Heritage Foundation, told The Hill at the time that even though the U.S. does not need Iranian oil, it would open the door to businesses entering the country and “rebuilding the industry,” comparing it to Venezuela.

Iran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz greatly bumped up gas prices. The average price of gas in the U.S. hit $4.31 on Sunday, over $1.10 higher than last year’s average, according to data from AAA .