• 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.

• Parties unite against US takeover rhetoric.
• Trump’s threats spark concern across Europe.
• Independence debate intensifies amid geopolitical pressure.

Greenland’s political parties said they did not want to be under Washington as US President Donald Trump again suggested using force to seize the mineral-rich Danish autonomous territory, raising concern worldwide.

The statement late Friday came after Trump repeated that Washington was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not”.

European capitals have been scrambling to come up with a coordinated response after the White House said this week that Trump wanted to buy Greenland and refused to rule out military action.

“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danish, we want to be Greenlanders,” the leaders of five parties in Greenland’s parliament said in a joint statement.

“The future of Greenland must be decided by Greenlanders.”

“No other country can meddle in this. We must decide our country’s future ourselves — without pressure to make a hasty decision, without procrastination, and without interference from other countries,” they underscored.

Julius Nielsen, a 48-year-old fisherman in the capital Nuuk, told AFP: “American? No! We were a colony for so many years. We´re not ready to be a colony again, to be colonised”.

A Danish colony until 1953, Greenland gained home rule 26 years later and is contemplating eventually loosening its ties with Denmark.

Many Greenlanders remain cautious about making this a reality.

“I really like the idea of us being independent, but I think we should wait. Not for now. Not today,” Pitsi Mari, who works in telecoms, told AFP.

“I feel like the United States’ interference disrupts all relationships and trust” between Denmark and Greenland, said Inaluk Pedersen, a 21-year-old shop assistant.

The coalition currently in power is not in favour of a hasty independence. The only opposition party, Naleraq, which won 24.5% of the vote in the 2025 legislative elections, wants to cut ties as quickly as possible but it is also a signatory of the joint declaration.

“It’s time for us to start preparing for the independence we have fought for over so many years,” said MP Juno Berthelsen in a Facebook post.

According to a poll published on Saturday by Danish agency Ritzau, more than 38% of Danes think the United States will launch an invasion of Greenland under the Trump administration.

Vast natural resources

Denmark and other European allies have voiced shock at Trump’s threats on Greenland, a strategic island between North America and the Arctic where the United States has had a military base since World War II.

Trump says controlling the island is crucial for US national security given the rising military activity of Russia and China in the Arctic.

“We’re not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland. That’s what they’re going to do if we don’t. So we’re going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way,” the US president said Friday.

Both Russia and China have increased military activity in the region in recent years, but neither has laid any claim to the vast icy island.

Greenland has also attracted international attention in recent years for its vast natural resources, including rare earth minerals and estimates that it could possess huge oil and gas reserves.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an invasion of Greenland would end “everything”, meaning the transatlantic NATO defence pact and the post-World War II security structure.

Flurry of diplomacy

“I’m a fan of Denmark, too, I have to tell you. And you know, they’ve been very nice to me,” Trump said.

“But you know, the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn´t mean that they own the land.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due to meet next week with Denmark´s foreign minister and representatives from Greenland.

A flurry of diplomacy is under way as Europeans try to head off a crisis while at the same time avoiding the wrath of Trump, who is nearing the end of his first year back in power.

Trump had offered to buy Greenland in 2019 during his first presidential term but was rebuffed.

The head of NATO´s forces in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich, said Friday the military alliance was far from being in “a crisis”, following Trump´s threats to bring Greenland under US control.

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.