Live updates: Trump says he halted ‘second wave’ of Venezuela attacks and will meet with oil execs at White House

US President Donald Trump said Friday that he will focus on Venezuela’s oil and lowering prices for Americans during a meeting with Big Oil executives this afternoon.

“Today’s meeting will almost exclusively be a discussion on Venezuelan Oil, and our longterm relationship with Venezuela, its Security, and People. A very big factor in this involvement will be the reduction of Oil Prices for the American People,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The meeting is part of an ongoing effort to convince America’s largest energy companies to return to Venezuela. Executives are wary of investing tens of billions of dollars over a decade to restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, people familiar with the matter have told CNN.

Executives from oil giants Chevron, Exxon and Conoco are among the more than a dozen attendees expected at the meeting, which could also include representatives from oil trading firms and other parts of the energy sector, two people familiar with the matter said. The invite list at one point featured as many as 19 executives, though the people familiar cautioned that it remained in flux.

To return Venezuela’s production to pre-socialism levels, the oil industry would need to lay pipelines, set up drilling rigs, build port infrastructure and install reliable electricity, among other projects. That would cost more than $10 billion a year and take more than a decade to pay off, according to a consensus from industry experts, insiders and Wright.

However, with the massive oil reserves located in Venezuela, the administration is hoping investors will be lured by the prospective profit. As a start, executives are watching for the US to lift key sanctions that have suppressed Venezuela’s production, as well as provide some of the supplies necessary to move the nation’s heavier crude oil.