Trump is promising gigantic investments from American oil companies in Venezuela, which has the world's fourth-largest untapped oil reserves but a severely underdeveloped and aging energy infrastructure.
Everything can be completed in less than 18 months, according to the president.
"Huge sums of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they can be replaced by us (the state) or through revenue," Trump told NBC.
Analysts are expecting a price tag as high as $90 billion over a ten-year period, Bloomberg reports. Trump himself declined to mention an amount, but said that the oil companies will make a lot of money in return.
Despite the president's enthusiasm, oil companies have, according to NBC, appeared more skeptical about entering Venezuela on short notice - where US sanctions, political instability and a history of state asset seizures are deterrents.
