Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed concerns President Donald Trump‘s decision to rescind concessions President Joe Biden made to Venezuela in order to encourage free elections could increase oil prices at home.
“The agenda, for sure, is to drive prices down,” Wright told the Washington Examiner Wednesday at the White House. “America is, by far, the largest producer of oil and natural gas. If we can grow that production, small interruptions from other nations will not reduce in a net reduction in supply.”
Wright declined to speculate whether Trump would change his policy if Venezuela were to accept more Venezuelan illegal immigrants deported from the United States.
Wright, who was outside the West Wing after attending the first Cabinet meeting of Trump’s second administration, also told reporters that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has become synonymous with the Department of Government Efficiency, remained for the entirety of the sit-down.
“It’s like an auditor in a business company or a consultant that’s working across the whole government,” Wright said of DOGE. “Decisions are made at individual department levels, but to have that high caliber of resource to come in and provide information and ideas too, it’s simply tremendous.”
Before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s own trip to the White House on Friday, during which he is expected to sign a rare earth minerals deal in the hope that Trump will agree to some sort of security guarantee amid the Russia-Ukraine war, Wright indicated that the agreement created incentives for the U.S. to protect its anticipated new minerals investment.
“You only have resources when capital, and technology, and infrastructure come together to make them resources,” he said. “If … Ukraine [were] to have a partnership with the United States, that would certainly give me some security.”
Trump announced he was undoing the “ineffective and unmet” concessions Biden made for Nicolás Maduro‘s regime in Venezuela in 2022 as of March 1. Trump’s decision revokes a license that permits the Venezuelan government to export oil pumped by Chevron to the U.S. Chevron’s Venezuelan production averages about 220,000 barrels a day.
“We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime,” Trump wrote.
The president added, “Additionally, the regime has not been transporting the violent criminals that they sent into our Country (the Good Ole’ U.S.A.) back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to.”
Biden’s concessions, which came the fall after inflation peaked post-pandemic that summer, did not result in an undisputed presidential election in Venezuela last year, with observers reporting widespread instances of fraud.
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Trump had allowed Chevron’s license to automatically renew after special envoy Richard Grenell traveled to Venezuela last month to secure the release of six Americans.
Since the start of Trump’s second administration, more than 600 Venezuelans have been deported, but the president wants to repatriate thousands more, including 350,000 of whom had their Temporary Protection Status suspended last month.