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Trump Admin Planning to Use Private Mercenaries to Shield Oil Plunder Efforts in Venezuela
Erik Prince, the notorious founder of Blackwater, has reportedly been floated as a possible option as the Trump administration seeks help securing and exploiting Venezuela's oil operations.
Jan 15, 2026
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to hire private military contractors—including possibly the notorious mercenary Erik Prince—to provide security as the US works to plunder Venezuela's massive oil reserves.
CNN reported Thursday that "multiple private security companies are already jockeying to get involved in the US presence in Venezuela" as American oil giants push for physical security guarantees before they back President Donald Trump's push for $100 billion in investment in the country.
"Interest is high given the potential payday; during the Iraq War, the US spent some $138 billion on private security, logistics, and reconstruction contractors," the outlet noted. "One source suggested that Erik Prince, the former Blackwater founder and controversial Trump ally, could also be tapped for help. Prince’s Blackwater played an outsized role in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, providing security, logistics, and support for oil infrastructure. But the firm came under intense scrutiny following the 2007 deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians."
Prince is currently operating in the region, having partnered with Ecuador's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on organized crime that has been replete with human rights abuses.
News of the Trump administration's potential use of private mercenaries in Venezuela came after the US officially completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil. The sale, valued at $500 million, came days after Trump met with top oil executives at the White House to discuss efforts to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves following the illegal US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, said his company would need "durable investment protections" before making any commitments in Venezuela.
CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon has "put out a Request for Information to contractors about their ability to support possible US military operations in Venezuela."
"Contractors are also in touch with the State Department’s overseas building operations office to cite interest in providing security if and when the US embassy in Venezuela reopens," according to CNN.
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'Minneapolis Is the Test Case': Trump Threatens Insurrection Act to Put Down Protests
"The Insurrection Act was always the plan," warned one critic of the president.
Jan 15, 2026
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to put the US military on American streets, unless demonstrations against federal immigration operations in Minneapolis come to an end.
In a Truth Social post, Trump demanded that Minnesota elected officials "stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], who are only trying to do their job."
If this doesn't happen, the president said, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and "quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place" in the state.
"The Insurrection Act was always the plan, and Minneapolis is the test case," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. "They sent ICE in to terrorize and attack Black and brown communities to provoke a response that would justify deploying the military domestically in Blue cities. This has never been about immigration."
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now." —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made a similar warning last week, amid protests that erupted after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent.
“What we are seeing right now," said Omar, "not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate people enough where they are able to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.”
“There is,” she continued, “no other justifiable way to describe what is taking place in Minneapolis at this moment. There is no justifiable reason why this number of agents is here in our state.”
The Insurrection Act has not been used since 1992, when President George HW Bush invoked it at the request of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson to quell riots that had broken out in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted police officers who were caught on camera beating Rodney King.
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen in a statement Thursday morning.
“The violence in Minneapolis is being perpetrated by ICE. The solution is to end the ICE surge, not to further militarize the city, " added Gilbert. "Deploying military forces against the city and its citizens would be a doubling down on the threat Americans are facing from their own government. Trump should abandon this idea immediately and stop threatening to use the military against the American people.”
Mass protests have erupted throughout Minneapolis since ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot local resident Good, whom the Trump administration posthumously smeared as a "domestic terrorist."
Protests against ICE presence in the city intensified on Wednesday night after a federal agent shot a man in the leg during what the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called a "targeted traffic stop."
The Trump administration last week began surging thousands of ICE agents into Minneapolis, resulting in mass school closures and the disruption of daily life for the city's residents.
The editorial board of the Minnesota Star Tribune on Thursday described the city as being "under siege" by the federal government.
"Battalions of armed federal agents are moving through neighborhoods, transit hubs, malls and parking lots and staging near churches, mosques and schools," the editorial explains. "Strangers with guns have metastasized in spaces where daily life should be routine and safe. It feels like a military occupation."
The editors then declared that "what we are witnessing is the storming of the state by the federal government," insisting that "the occupation of Minnesota by ICE cannot stand."
A local Minneapolis resident who was out protesting against the ICE presence on Wednesday night told Status Coup News that he felt like the entire city was under assault.
🚨"This is nuts! What the f*ck is going on, this is insane! ICE is just trying to scare people; they tell you it's only immigrants—it's f*cking anybody!" -furious Minneapolis resident tells our @ZDRoberts after ICE shot a man in the leg tonight. LIVE NOW ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/7edvCRpDNk
— Status Coup News (@StatusCoup) January 15, 2026
"This is nuts!" he said. "What the fuck is going on, dude, this is insane... You know what really pisses me off is the fact that they detain people, cuff them, and then still beat the shit out of them! They tell you it's immigrants, it's only immigrants? It's fucking anybody! I have friends who got detained and all they were doing was driving home from work!"
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ICE 'Not Welcome,' Maine Officials Say as Reports Point to State as Trump's Next Target
"Maine will not be intimidated, and we will not betray the values that make us who we are," said Gov. Janet Mills.
Jan 15, 2026
Maine Gov. Janet Mills was among the leaders in the state who addressed reports late Wednesday that the Trump administration plans to send federal agents including those with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cities such as Portland and Lewiston, and said unequivocally that the violence masked officers have unleashed on Minneapolis in recent days would not be welcome by residents and officials.
Mills said ICE had refused to confirm the reports that its agents would be in the state and what the basis for the operations would be, but MS Now reported Wednesday that the administration is considering sending federal officers to Maine.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump mentioned Maine's Somali community in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club; Somali people in Minnesota have been a top target of ICE's activities there.
Maine's Democratic governor said her administration was "taking proactive steps to prepare."
My statement on speculation that the Federal government may conduct Federal law enforcement operations in Maine in the coming days pic.twitter.com/aNriEQv7aI
— Governor Janet Mills (@GovJanetMills) January 14, 2026
"If any operations take place, our goal as always will be to protect the safety and the rights of the people of Maine," said Mills. "Maine knows what good law enforcement looks like because our law enforcement are held to high professional standards... and they are accountable to the law. And I'll tell you this, they don't wear a mask to shield their identities and they don't arrest people in order to fill a quota."
"To the federal government I say this: If your plan is to come here to be provocative and to undermine the civil rights of Maine residents, do not be confused. Those tactics are not welcome here," she said.
Mills said state police had been directed to work closely with local law enforcement in cities including Lewiston and Portland, where the police departments do not cooperate with ICE.
Reports of the potential deployment—which Portland Mayor Mark Dion denounced as a "paramilitary approach"—come days after a bill, LD 1971, became law and prohibited all state and local law enforcement from engaging in federal immigration enforcement activities.
“This new law will ensure Maine towns and cities are not complicit in or liable for federal abuses of power, and will improve public safety by building trust between local law enforcement and the communities they are supposed to serve," said ACLU of Maine policy director Michael Kebede on Tuesday.
The bill passed into law without the signature of Mills, a Democrat who is running in the US Senate primary in hopes of unseating Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). The governor has been trailing Graham Platner, a progressive who has called for the "dismantling" of ICE, in recent polls.
“One of the reasons I want to go to the Senate is that when we have power again, I want to haul all of these people and the ones that made them do it in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take their masks off,” Platner said in October.
Dion and Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, also a Democrat, urged residents and businesses to know their rights in case they are approached by federal immigration agents.
Dion emphasized in a statement Wednesday that "there is no evidence of unchecked criminal activity in our community requiring a disproportionate presence of federal agents."
"In that view, Portland rejects the need for the deployment of ICE agents into our neighborhoods," said the mayor, a Democrat.
President Donald Trump's recent escalation of federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis has led to an ICE agent's killing of 37-year-old Renee Good, who had been observing the agents as people across Chicago, Charlotte, and other cities have over the past several months. A federal agent also shot and wounded a man during a traffic stop there on Wednesday.
Trump has largely been targeting the Somali population in Minnesota amid a social services fraud scandal in the state in which some Somali people have been charged and convicted. He has called for all Somali immigrants to leave the US. On Tuesday, Trump said that “Somali scams” had happened “in Maine, too.”
Maine has a significant Somali community including many people who have become US citizens; the population is largely centered in Lewiston and Portland.
MS Now reported that according to people familiar with the administration's plan, immigration operations in Maine were "being designed to arrest and detain Somali refugees for reviews that could last around 30 days."
The Maine Monitor reported that immigration authorities visited Lewiston last month and visited Gateway Community Services, a healthcare provider for immigrants that the state suspended payments to after it alleged more than $1 million in interpreter fraud.
Mills said Wednesday that she fully supported the right of Maine residents to protest a federal immigration enforcement operation and urged them to do so peacefully and "to meet any hostility with reserve and resolve."
"I know there are more unanswered than answered questions right now," she said. "We will continue seeking out answers and continue to communicate our information and plans with you in the coming days. But know this: Maine will not be intimidated, and we will not betray the values that make us who we are."
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