President Donald Trump is trying to turn the world's largest proven crude reserves into a geopolitical and financial windfall, promising that "a lot of money is going to be made" as United States companies move into Venezuela's battered oil patch.

The Trump administration has no plans to directly provide security to oil producers in Venezuela, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Thursday, dismissing the notion US troops will be used to address companies’ concerns about safety in the troubled nation.

The Trump administration has no plans to provide oil companies potentially heading back into Venezuela with security guarantees, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said.

President Trump tapped a foreign policy adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the United States’s top diplomat in Venezuela as the administration looks to control the country’s oil