‘To the victor belong the spoils’: Trump said the U.S. seized Venezuela’s oil by ‘the old-fashioned way.’ Then he repeated the claim at the UN

President Donald Trump spoke Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly and discussed oil from Venezuela. He hailed a deal reached last month after American forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in January.

According to MS NOW, Trump said, “When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60% of the oil in the world.” He added, “So, it’s perhaps the biggest deal.” He then said, “‘To the victor belong the spoils,’ you’ve all heard that.”

Netizens were quick to correct him, however. Acyn Torabi, a Los Angeles-based progressive social media influencer and the Senior Digital Editor for MeidasTouch, shared a clip of Trump’s address on X, and it quickly received a community note. Users cited data from OPEC and several other sources to point out that the U.S. and Venezuela together control 22% of the global oil supply, almost one-third of the share Trump had claimed. 

Trump first used similar oil remarks at a Las Vegas event last month

Trump had made similar remarks at a recent event in Las Vegas. Last month, he said, “We’re taking a lot of oil from Venezuela, and we’re getting along great with them. Billions and billions of barrels of oil is coming out of Venezuela. … It’s the old-fashioned way, right? It’s the old-fashioned way. To the victor belong the spoils, right?” 

He argued that the United States could claim another country’s natural resources on the basis of military action rather than a diplomatic agreement. This claim follows a pattern of Trump asserting U.S. seizure of Venezuelan oil assets, such as when he claimed the U.S. seized over $13 billion in Venezuelan oil revenue and threatened to do the same to Iran. It’s the old-fashioned way. To the victor belong the spoils, right?”

The comments came amid months of criticism that the White House has treated Venezuela more like a U.S. colony than an independent nation. Despite the backlash, Trump doubled down on the rhetoric Tuesday while addressing the United Nations General Assembly. The Financial Times reported that the Trump administration has so far failed to disclose how much money the United States has collected and where it is.

The agreement gives the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves. The White House said the deal “secures our energy dominance for the next century – all at zero cost to the United States.”