Pentagon's Venezuela Oil Heist Unravels Amid Legal Loopholes

Donald Trump's long-coveted deal to seize Venezuelan oil has been touted as 'the biggest oil deal in world history', but a Guardian investigation reveals it's almost certainly doomed to collapse due to legal and logistical issues.

The US president first mentioned the idea of taking Iranian oil in 1987, saying that American shipping attacks during the Iran-Iraq war required an extreme response. 'Why couldn't we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea?' he asked ABC's Barbara Walters at the time.

Fast-forward to this year, when Trump finally got his chance to enact his plan, at gunpoint. US forces stormed Venezuela in January, seized President Nicolás Maduro, and replaced him with a compliant successor, Delcy Rodríguez.

Trump told The Atlantic that if Rodríguez didn't do what was right, she'd 'pay a very big price', possibly bigger than the one Maduro faced. However, experts say virtually everything Trump and his cabinet have said about the deal is false or misleading.