President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. has collected more than $13 billion from the sale of Venezuelan crude oil since the overthrow of former President Nicolás Maduro.

The U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s oil exports after capturing Maduro in a military raid on Jan. 3. Trump was responding to a question about a Financial Times‘ report that estimated how much money his administration had collected from the sales.

“$13 billion from Venezuela? I think even more than that,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One as he traveled to Michigan to tour a General Motors’ facility. “We’ve paid for that war many times over.”

Trump said the money is used to run Venezuela. “We’re taking in a lot of money — billions and billions of dollars from Venezuela,” Trump said.

The U.S. has largely left the Venezuelan government in place after ousting Maduro. Washington has been closely cooperating with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro.

Democrats in Congress have pressed the administration to disclose how much money it has collected from the sales, how the funds are spent, and how the program is monitored.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Semafor in an April interview that the U.S. had sold around 150 million barrels of Venezuelan oil since January.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress in June that the oil sales are audited by KPMG. The money is held in a Citibank account, Rubio said.

“It’s an ongoing audit, so it’s not a once-a-year audit, it’s on every expenditure, every single disbursement is audited by KPMG,” Rubio told Congress.

The Trump administration initially deposited $500 million in sales to an account in Qatar that was controlled by the U.S. government, Wright said in February. The U.S. subsequently set up a Treasury account and stopped sending money to the Qatar account, he said.

State Department official Michael Kozak told Congress in April that around $3 billion had been disbursed from the Treasury account. Kozak said the money was used to pay the salaries of Venezuela’s government workers, buy supplies for the nation’s oil industry and other approved uses.

Rubio authorizes the disbursement of the funds under an executive order issued by Trump on Jan. 9. The president’s order states that the money is the property of the Venezuelan government held in a custodial capacity by the U.S.

The death toll from twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela rose to 2,595, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said Friday, an increase of 300 from the previous day, as rescue operations continued for more than a week after the country’s strongest tremors in over a century.

The government has not concluded its search and rescue efforts, Rodríguez said in her first press conference since taking power in January after the U.S. military operation that captured the country’s president Nicolás Maduro.

More than 12,000 people have been injured, Rodríguez said, without specifying how many remain missing. According to an unofficial and widely circulated online list, some 38,500 people were still unaccounted for, down from nearly 60,000 in the days immediately after the quakes.

A magnitude 7.2 quake was followed seconds later by a 7.5 mainshock last Wednesday, the strongest tremors to hit Venezuela since 1900. The quakes flattened buildings across Caracas and La Guaira — the coastal state that was hardest hit — and severely damaged Simón Bolívar International Airport, the main gateway to the capital.

Nearly all the officials from La Guaira were killed in the disaster, Rodríguez said.

Authorities say nearly 800 buildings collapsed, including 189 that were completely destroyed. A preliminary satellite analysis released by NASA and Oregon State University researchers, updated on Monday, estimated that about 58,870 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed.

The United Nations Development Programme projected direct physical damage at $6.7 billion, equivalent to about 6% of gross domestic product, while risk modeler Verisk estimated total economic losses of more than $10 billion.

The government said the quakes caused only minor delays at oil terminals, with exports appearing largely steady in the aftermath of the disaster. Authorities were also inspecting state-run PDVSA’s Catia La Mar fuel terminal, located in one of the hardest-hit areas, for damage.

The U.S. has mounted one of its largest disaster responses in years, deploying four search-and-rescue teams with more than 900 personnel in Venezuela and another roughly 800 in Caribbean hubs Puerto Rico and Curaçao, according to Reuters. The Trump administration has also pledged to mobilize $150 million in humanitarian aid.

The disaster has prompted support from countries across the world, under UN coordination, including Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Cuba and Switzerland.

The Venezuelan government rejected criticisms that it reacted too slowly to the destruction caused by the earthquakes. Rodriguez said during the press conference that her government issued an emergency decree…

President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to deploy U.S. resources to earthquake-stricken Venezuela after back-to-back tremors of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck near the country’s northern coast, flattening buildings in the capital Caracas and prompting a state of emergency.

“The U.S. stands ready, willing, and able to help,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday evening stateside. The president added that he had instructed all government agencies to prepare to “move quickly,” calling Venezuela’s people the “new and great friends.”

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said earlier in the day that the U.S. was in touch with Venezuelan authorities and has been mobilizing assistance for the South American nation.

The State Department has already mobilized a disaster assistance team and task force to deliver and coordinate critical assistance to Venezuelans, including search and rescue teams, medical supplies, and humanitarian resources, according to senior State Department official Jeremy Lewin.

The U.S. Geological Survey issued two consecutive red alerts through its PAGER system, and estimated a 41% probability that fatalities could exceed 10,000 and a 17% chance they could reach 100,000. The authority also projected that the devastating earthquake could dent Venezuela’s GDP by up to 7%.

Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez declared a state of emergency in a national address on Wednesday night, and later said 32 people were killed and 700 were injured, according to Reuters.

The quakes are among the strongest to strike the country in the past century. Venezuela lies in a seismically active zone where the Caribbean Plate meets the South American Plate.

The swift U.S. offer of assistance reflects a degree of diplomatic realignment between the Trump administration and the Venezuelan interim government, led by Rodriguez. Washington has exerted control over Venezuela’s oil exports after a January military intervention that seized the country’s then-president, Nicolas Maduro.

The U.S. has remained Venezuela’s largest oil buyer since January, with the estimated value of US-controlled exports surging to $3.7 billion in April from $600 million in January, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, estimating $8 billion in flows have moved through the arrangement with little transparency or oversight. India and Spain are the next largest recipients.

President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to seize Iran’s oil infrastructure including its main export terminal Kharg Island “in the not too distant future.”

Trump said in a Truth Social post that the U.S. military will attack Iran “VERY HARD” Thursday night after completing a round of airstrikes on Wednesday. The president threatened to take “total control” of Iran’s oil and gas markets as the U.S. did in Venezuela earlier this year.

Hours later, Trump cancelled the threatened airstrikes citing discussions with the Islamic Republic, sending oil prices lower.

Kharg Island is Iran’s main oil export terminal, accounting for about 90% of its crude shipments before the war. The U.S. Navy has already choked off most of Iran’s exports through a blockade against the country’s ports and vessels.

The U.S. launched strikes against military targets on Kharg Island earlier in the war, but has held back from deploying ground troops to seize Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure.

Shortly after making those threats, Trump told Fox News that he is not sure “America has the stomach” to take Kharg. The U.S. is continuing to hold talks with Iran, the president said.

“I think they’d like to see us come home, but we did it with Venezuela,” Trump told Fox in a live phone call. “Venezuela’s worked out great for everybody.”

The president said he would prefer not to bomb Iran’s power plants when asked by Fox. Trump made such threats earlier in the war.

The Trump administration has basically taken control of Venezuela‘s oil exports since the U.S. ousted former President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid in January. The revenues from Venezuela’s oil sales are deposited in a Treasury Department account. Venezuela’s oil shipments are sent to the U.S. Gulf Coast where the crude is refined.

Trump has escalated military pressure on Iran this week as he has grown frustrated with Tehran for not quickly agreeing to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and abandon its nuclear program. The latest round of escalation this week began when Trump held Iran responsible for shooting down a U.S. Apache helicopter in Hormuz.

“We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night,” Trump told Fox. “You know, the whole thing is crazy, but they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet.”

Iran so far has refused to meet Trump’s demands. Tehran has claimed control over the Strait of Hormuz, the key sea lane through which Middle East exporters shipped 20% of the world’s oil supplies before the war.

Federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud on Wednesday, alleging that he made $1.2 million off of bets using insider information on Polymarket.

Prosecutors claim that Michele Spagnuolo, a staff information security engineer at Google, used confidential information to place trades correctly betting that singer d4vd would be Google’s most searched person in 2025.

Spagnuolo has been charged with money laundering, commodities fraud and wire fraud. The complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, was unsealed on Wednesday.

ABC News first reported on the complaint. Spagnuolo was arrested Wednesday morning in New York, ABC reported.

“Spagnuolo had access to Google’s internal data systems, including a particular Google internal software tool that provided him access to confidential, nonpublic Year in Search data,” the prosecutors said in their complaint.

Some observers of the Polymarket platform flagged the user “AlphaRaccoon” back in December for suspicious trades on the most searched person contracts. The complaint Wednesday said that Spagnuolo was the person behind that account.

“Google officially and publicly announced its Year in Search 2025 results on or about December 4, 2025. Soon after it did so, Spagnuolo’s AlphaRaccoon account, profited approximately $1.2 million on his Google Year in Search 2025-related bets,” the complaint said.

Spagnuolo appeared before a federal magistrate judge Wednesday, He did not enter a plea and was released on a $2.25 million bond, ABC reported.

“We’re working with law enforcement on their investigation,” Google said in a statement. “The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies.”

“We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action,” the company added.

“Polymarket worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC, and is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States,” a Polymarket spokesperson said in a statement. “We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement.”

Spagnuolo is also facing a civil case from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where he’s charged with insider trading. The complaint detailed that Spagnuolo correctly predicted the outcomes of a slew of other search markets, including contracts like “Will Zohran Mamdani rank in the Top 5 most searched” and “Will Squid Game be the #1 searched TV show.”

“Spagnuolo misappropriated the material Confidential Information by knowingly or recklessly using it to trade the 2025 Year in Search List Contracts in breach of his duties…

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Tuesday condemned U.S. sanctions on the country as “immoral, illegal, and criminal,” lashing out at prolonged economic pressure on the communist-run island as tensions escalate.

In a social media post on X, Díaz-Canel said the fuel-starved nation would “continue to denounce, in the firmest and most energetic way possible, the genocidal siege that seeks to strangle our people.”

Cuba’s president singled out President Donald Trump‘s executive order that threatens third parties from selling oil to Havana with tariffs, as well as U.S. measures that seek to penalize companies that may want to invest in the country or provide it with basic goods.

His comments come after a fresh wave of U.S. sanctions and amid mounting speculation that the U.S. could carry out military strikes against Cuba.

The U.S. government on Monday imposed sanctions on 11 Cuban officials and its main intelligence agency.

The move forms part of a broader pressure campaign that has included efforts to implement an oil blockade on the island since January, shortly after its ally and a key provider of oil, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was seized in an audacious military operation.

An Axios report on Sunday, citing classified intelligence, said Cuba had acquired more than 300 military drones from Russia and Iran and had recently began discussing plans to use them to attack U.S. targets.

These targets reportedly included the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels and potentially Key West, roughly 90 miles north of Cuba.

Cuba’s Díaz-Canel said in a separate social media post on Monday that U.S. threats of military aggression against Havana were well known, adding that if they were to materialize, “it would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences.”

A White House spokesperson was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC on Tuesday.

Trump has previously talked up the prospect of a “friendly takeover” of Havana and said the White House could turn its sights on Cuba after the Iran war. The U.S. president has also said he could do anything he wanted with the country, adding that he thinks he will have the “honor” of “taking Cuba.”

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, meanwhile, said that the country neither threatens nor desires war.

“Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the #US government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression,” Parrilla said via X on Monday.

“As we, I think, approach the day where we finally see a free and democratic Cuba, 90 miles from our shores, the process of bringing freedom and democratization to Cuba is going to take some twists and turns,” Jorge…

The Venezuelan government announced Wednesday that it has begun a “comprehensive and orderly process” for restructuring its enormous sovereign and state oil company debt.

In a statement, Venezuela’s economics and finance ministry said the intention was to “put the economy at the service of the Venezuelan people and free the country from the burden of accumulated debt.”

“Venezuela demonstrated solvency throughout the years, fully complying with all its international obligations. This capacity and willingness to meet our financial commitments was impeded from 2017 onward as a result of financial sanctions,” the government said.

“For too long, the country has been deprived of normal access to financing, and its economy lost the capacity to invest in health, electricity, water, education, infrastructure, productive recovery, and the well-being of its population.”

The restructuring process aims to guarantee substantial debt relief, officials said, which will be used to benefit the country and its population.

“Venezuela will fulfill its commitments sustainably and will do so under the conditions that the Venezuelan people deserve, building a solid path to recover well-being, justice, and social equality,” the statement said.

In 2017, during his first presidential term, Donald Trump slapped financial sanctions on Venezuela in a bid to restrict the Maduro regime’s access to capital.

In January, an extraordinary U.S. military operation saw American troops capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He was brought to the U.S., where he was indicted on narco-terrorism conspiracy and other charges alongside his wife Cilia Flores.

Both Maduro and Flores have denied any wrongdoing.

Foreign sanctions have severely impacted Venezuela’s economy over the past decade, with the country defaulting on its debts and public sector liabilities ballooning.

According to independent financial think thank OMFIF, Venezuela’s defaulted debts total at least $150 billion, or over 200% of its gross domestic product. The country stopped making payments on its public debts in 2017 as it entered hyperinflation.

But under interim…

The Army Special Forces soldier criminally charged in connection with making hugely profitable bets on Polymarket related to the U.S. military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was released Friday on an unsecured $250,000 bond after appearing in federal court in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke was ordered to appear Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, where he has been indicted on wire fraud and other charges related to allegedly using classified information about the planned operation to win nearly $410,000 from the bets and then trying to cover up the scheme.

Van Dyke, who has served in the Army since 2008, was arrested Thursday in North Carolina, where he is based at Fort Bragg.

Kalshi, Polymarket’s leading competitor in the prediction markets sector, confirmed on Friday that it had blocked Van Dyke from opening a Kalshi account. Reuters first reported that Kalshi had blocked Van Dyke’s attempt to create an account.

Elisabeth Diana, a spokeswoman for Kalshi, said she could not give details of when the 38-year-old Van Dyke tried to open an account or why he was prevented from doing so.

But a civil lawsuit filed against Van Dyke on Thursday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleges that on Dec. 24, he “submitted an application to open an account at a CFTC-licensed and regulated designated contract market, not affiliated with Polymarket, which allows U.S.-based users to trade event contracts.”

Kalshi is such a licensed market.

“At the time, the DCM offered event contracts related to Venezuela, including event contracts related to the removal of Maduro,” the CFTC lawsuit says.

“Van Dyke was unable to open his account at the DCM, despite contacting the DCM’s customer support chat on or around December 26, 27, and 28, 2025.”

Van Dyke allegedly opened his Polymarket account on Dec. 27, nearly three weeks after he became involved in planning and executing the Jan. 3 raid in Caracas that ended with U.S. Special Forces capturing Maduro and his wife and putting them on a Navy ship to be sent to the U.S., prosecutors said. The couple face federal drug charges in the same court where Van Dyke was recently indicted, prosecutors said.

In the week leading up to the raid, Van Dyke used his Polymarket account to make a series of wagers on contracts on questions of whether U.S. forces would be in Venezuela by Jan. 31, whether Maduro would be out of office by that date and on related questions, the indictment alleges.

He allegedly wagered about $33,000 in more than a dozen bets, according to the indictment, which is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Hello, this is Anniek Bao writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

If it feels like a lot to keep track of — that’s because it is.

Trump extended the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire by three weeks, buying diplomats more breathing room, while turning up the heat on Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.

Investors, by now somewhat seasoned in the art of looking past the headlines, held their nerve. But the uncertain prospect of a permanent end to the war will keep that enthusiasm in check.

The good news? It’s almost the weekend, though it’s worth remembering that the Iran war was launched on a Saturday about two months ago.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend their ceasefire by three weeks, following a meeting in the White House with top officials.

“The Meeting went very well!” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the extension of the temporary truce. “The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” Trump wrote, referring to the Iran-backed militia group.

The warring powers, meanwhile, upped the ante with both Iran and the U.S. seizing ships and Trump ordering the U.S. Navy “to shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

Amid all the mixed messaging, U.S. stocks pulled back as investors grew wary over the tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, coupled with a murky outlook for a peace deal. Stock futures were little changed, while Asia-Pacific markets opened mixed.

Brent oil futures rose about 3% to close at $105.07 per barrel on Thursday. West Texas Intermediate futures also advanced around 3% to close at $95.85. They were about 1% higher Friday.

The nearly two-month-old conflict has triggered warning calls for “the biggest energy security threat in history,” Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, or IEA, told CNBC on Thursday.

“As of today, we’ve lost 13 million barrels per day of oil … and there are major disruptions in vital commodities,” Birol told Steve Sedgwick virtually at CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore.

Also speaking at the event was former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said the “economic coercion” from the U.S. has prompted Canadian companies to make deals with China, while flagging his frustration that international financial institutions were no longer fit for purpose.

On the business front: Meta plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, about 8,000 employees, as it continues ramping up AI investments. Nike announced a new round of layoffs, affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the organization, mostly concentrated in its technology department.

Following…

A U.S. Army soldier was arrested on a federal indictment accusing him of using classified information to make bets that won him $400,000 on the Polymarket prediction market related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, “participated in the planning and execution of the” operation to capture Maduro, the DOJ said.

The arrest comes as Polymarket and Kalshi have increased in popularity and as concerns have grown about people with inside information making wagers on those prediction market platforms.

Van Dyke, 38, is expected to be presented on Thursday evening to a magistrate judge in federal court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

The Fayetteville, North Carolina, resident is charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act; one count of wire fraud; and one count of unlawful monetary transaction. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted of the top criminal count, wire fraud, and up to 10 years in each of the remaining counts.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets, separately charged Van Dyke in a civil complaint for allegedly using classified nonpublic information to make the wagers related to the Maduro capture mission.

Both the criminal and civil cases against Van Dyke were filed in New York City, in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

President Donald Trump, when asked about Van Dyke’s arrest and other cases of suspected insider trading on prediction markets, said, “You know the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino.”

“And you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things,” Trump said. “I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is … I’m not happy with any of that stuff.”

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is “both an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket, and a paid adviser to Kalshi, the two biggest prediction markets,” The New York Times noted in a report in January.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a statement on Van Dyke’s arrest, said, “Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain.”

“Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply,” Blanche said.

CNBC has requested comment about the…