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Former US President Donald Trump gave a speech in which he boasted that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and exploit its large oil reserves.

“When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door”, Trump said.

“But now we’re buying oil from Venezuela. So we’re making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it”, he added.

Trump made these remarks on June 10, at a speech for a convention organized by the North Carolina Republican Party.

The US government initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela in 2019. The Trump administration appointed a little-known right-wing opposition politician, Juan Guaidó, as the supposed “interim president” of the South American nation, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.

Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves – although its crude is very heavy, and in order to be used it must be mixed with lighter crude or diluents, which the country is often incapable of importing due to illegal, unilateral US sanctions.

As president, Trump made it clear that Washington seeks to control the natural resources of foreign countries.

In a January 2020 interview on Fox News, Trump boasted that he was militarily occupying Syria’s crude-rich regions in order to “take the oil”:

DONALD TRUMP: And then they say he left troops in Syria. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil.

The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil.

…

Maybe we should take it. But we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil.

So they say he left troops in Syria. No, I got rid of all of them, other than we’re protecting the oil. We have the oil.

Here's irrefutable video evidence of Trump "fighting the deep state"