Did Trump talk about Venezuela’s oil and call Maduro a dictator?

A video in which the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, He talks about Venezuela’s oil and calls Nicolás Maduro a “dictator”, despite the suggestion of netizens who released a recording shortly after the Republican’s electoral victory.

Numerous users on social networks such as Facebook or X share a video in which Trump is heard referring to Venezuela, and affirm that the politician has already adopted a position on this country.

«Donald Trump sets position: ‘We do not want Venezuela’s oil,…we are not going to make a dictator rich…’. CLEARER IMPOSSIBLE! (sic)”, states a profile on X that shares the video, which lasts more than a minute and shows the leader speaking from a lectern with the name of the state of North Carolina.

FACTS: It is not true that Trump’s statements about Venezuelan oil are recent, as pointed out by users who broadcast a recording a few days after his electoral victory in the United States. A reverse Google image search shows that the video is from a speech given on June 10, 2023 at a rally in North Carolina. Furthermore, the claim in the viral messages is inaccurate.

The recording dates back to 2023

First, Trump’s speech was recorded at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention, held on June 10, 2023.

His intervention was picked up by various local media such as Sky News, on whose YouTube channel you can find the full statements.

Through this material it is possible to confirm that Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half at that meeting.

However, It is from minute 27:35 when he begins to refer to Venezuela.

«What do you think that we are buying oil from Venezuela? When I left Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken everything. “We would have taken all that oil and it would have been right next door,” he is heard saying in English.

With these words, Trump criticized the Biden Administration for making certain oil transactions with the Caribbean country more flexible.

He also indirectly referred to the Government of that nation, stating: “Now we are buying oil from Venezuela, so we are making a dictator very rich.”

At that conference, Trump called Venezuelan oil “garbage, tar and dirty,” and said it is “the worst you can get.”

However, he never uttered the phrase that the viral messages spread in November 2024, presenting it as a position of his next Administration.

Maduro sent a message to Trump after his victory

Although it was during Trump’s term when Venezuela and the United States broke relations in 2019, Maduro congratulated Donald Trump on his recent electoral victory.

«In his first government, re-elected President Donald Trump, it did not go well for us. This is a new beginning for us to bet on win-win and things go well for the United States and things go well for Venezuela,” Maduro said during a program broadcast on YouTube, as already reported by EFE.

In turn, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it said that the Caribbean nation will always be willing to maintain “good relations with the American governments, framed in a spirit of dialogue, respect and common sense.”

In conclusion, it is false that a video that shows statements by Trump about Venezuelan oil and the president of that country is a statement after his electoral victory. His words correspond to a speech from June 2023.