Trump hails 'historic' deal for US to control 65bn barrels of Venezuela's oil

BREAKING: Trump hails 'historic' deal for the US to control 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's oil, with the interim president saying it will help revive the country's economy.

Sixty five billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, and Washington says it now controls them.

Trump announced the deal overnight, calling it historic and promising it would more than double American reserves and lower gas prices. Here he is making the case. Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez says it'll revive her country's economy, and Marco Rubio calls it a hundred billion dollars in private investment and a huge win for both peoples.

Now the fine detail, or rather the lack of it. The US government keeps 55 percent of a joint venture with an unnamed private operator, and energy analysts say there's no precedent for Washington leasing another country's oil fields. It may not even be legal under Venezuela's own constitution.

And remember what those fields actually look like. These are Venezuela's oil towns today, decades of decay that a press release doesn't fix. The world's largest oil reserves, and a deal nobody has read.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.