• White House says move aimed at advancing foreign policy.
• Order follows Trump’s meeting with top US oil executives.
• Fact sheet says US president preventing revenue seizure.
  

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order protecting US-held money derived from sales of Venezuelan oil, after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, the White House said.

In an order signed Friday, Trump — who has made clear that tapping Venezuela’s vast oil reserves was a key goal in the US ouster of Maduro — is acting “to advance US foreign policy objectives,” the White House said in a fact sheet accompanying the order.

The action follows a meeting Friday in Washington where Trump pressed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela, and was met with a cautious reception — with the chief executive of ExxonMobil describing the country as “uninvestable” without sweeping reforms.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited in 2007 after refusing demands by then-president Hugo Chavez to cede majority control to the state. They have been fighting to recoup billions of dollars they say Venezuela owes them.

Chevron is currently the only US firm licensed to operate in Venezuela.

Trump’s executive order signed Friday declares a national emergency “to safeguard Venezuelan oil revenue held in US Treasury accounts from attachment or judicial process,” the White House fact sheet said.

In effect, it places those revenues under special protection in order to prevent them from being seized by courts or creditors. The action is decreed to be necessary for US national security and foreign policy.

“President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the fact sheet said.

Sanctioned by Washington since 2019, Venezuela sits on about a fifth of the world’s oil reserves and was once a major crude supplier to the United States.

But it produced only around 1% of the world’s total crude output in 2024, according to OPEC, having been hampered by years of underinvestment, sanctions and embargoes.

Trump sees the country’s massive oil reserves as a windfall in his fight to further lower US domestic fuel prices.

The executive order comes one week after US forces seized authoritarian leader Maduro in a nighttime operation in the Venezuelan capital that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.

Fresh demonstrations were planned across the United States this weekend in the wake of the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer in Minneapolis, as local officials slammed federal agencies for excluding them from the investigation.

Protest organisers said they expected to hold more than a thousand weekend demonstrations following the killing of motorist Renee Good, 37, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Wednesday.

Officials in the midwestern state of Minnesota said their law enforcement agencies have been shut out of the investigation into the shooting.

A local prosecutor said on Friday that federal investigators had taken Good’s car and shell casings from the scene.

The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a “domestic terrorist,” insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense.

Cell phone footage apparently taken by the officer who fired the fatal shots shows him interacting with Good as he approaches and circles her car, and her saying, “I’m not mad at you”.

After he passes in front of the car, another agent can be heard ordering Good to exit the vehicle before she tries to drive off and shots ring out.

The agent filming the video can be heard saying “fucking bitch” at the end of the clip.

The White House insisted the video gave weight to the officer’s claim of self-defense — even though the clip does not show the moment the car moved away, or him opening fire.

“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law […] the fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a briefing on Friday.

“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, within its department of public safety, has consistently run such investigations.

“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.

On Thursday, US Vice President JD Vance said that the ICE officer, named in US media as Jonathan Ross, had “absolute immunity”— a claim disputed by local prosecutors.

Court filings seen by AFP showed that in June 2025, Ross was dragged 100 yards (91 meters) along a road by a car driven by a man who was the subject of immigration enforcement activity.

“When the FBI, when the federal agencies, say they won’t share evidence with the local authorities, the public can’t trust that it’s going to be a true, transparent investigation,” said local Patrick O’Shaughnessy, 43.

• Iranian military says it will protect public property.
• Rubio says US supports “the brave people of Iran”.
• Rights groups document 65 deaths, 2,500 arrests.
  

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Saturday that safeguarding security was a “red line” and the military vowed to protect public property, as the clerical establishment stepped up efforts to quell the most widespread protests in years.

The statements came after US President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders on Friday, and after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday declared: “The United States supports the brave people of Iran.”

Unrest continued overnight. State media said a municipal building was set on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, and blamed “rioters”. State TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan.

Protests have spread across much of Iran over the last two weeks, beginning in response to soaring inflation, but quickly turned political with protesters demanding an end to clerical rule.

Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting “the riots”. Rights groups have documented dozens of deaths of protesters.

‘Terrorist group seeks to undermine security’

Authorities continued to impose an internet blackout.

A witness in western Iran reached by phone said the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were deployed and opening fire in the area from which they were speaking, declining to be identified for their safety.

In a statement broadcast by state TV, the IRGC said terrorists were targeting military and law enforcement bases over the past two nights, killing several citizens and security personnel and saying property had been set on fire.

Safeguarding the achievements of the 1979 Islamic revolution and maintaining security was “a red line”, it added, saying the continuation of the situation was unacceptable.

The military, which operates separately to the IRGC but is also commanded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced it would “protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property”.