“Drill, baby, drill!”

That was President Donald Trump’s solution for lowering prices for millions of Americans when he was campaigning in 2024 for the top job. At the time, he wanted to expedite drilling permits that took an average 258 days to complete during the Biden administration, hold permit sales more frequently and increase drilling off the U.S. coast. More recently, Trump wants to apply that mantra to Venezuela and bring that crude to the U.S.

But the U.S. already leads the world in oil production, pumping more than it uses. Why do we need Venezuelan crude?

“U.S. refiners that populate the Gulf of America specialize in heavy crude,” said Dean Lyulkin, founder of The Dean’s List investment newsletter. However, U.S. oil producers mostly pump light crude.

Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and Iran are among the countries with significant heavy crude reserves, the kind U.S. refineries are built to process.

Heavy and light refer to the oil’s weight. Light crude is thinner and easier to refine, or break down, into usable products like gas or jet fuel.

Heavy crude also is “sour,” meaning it has a higher sulfur content that makes it less environmentally friendly. Light crude has less sulfur and is called “sweet.”

Nearly 70% of U.S. refining capacity runs most efficiently with heavier crude, which is why 90% of U.S. oil imports are heavy sour crude, according to the trade association American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM).

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, mostly extra-heavy crude, in its Orinoco Belt. It’s estimated the country holds about 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, more than Saudi Arabia’s estimated 267 billion barrels. If the U.S. can guarantee a large slice of the Venezuelan supply, the U.S. could cut its dependency on other countries for heavy crude, ensuring energy security, and export more finished products like gas and diesel, experts said.

“Our refineries on the Gulf Coast are the best in the world in terms of refining this heavy crude and there’s been a shortage of heavy crude around the world so I think there will be tremendous demand and interest from private industry if given the space to do it,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on January 4 on ABC’s “This Week.”

Building refineries is extremely expensive, potentially costing billions of dollars, Lyulkin said.

It’s “a risky investment that would take decades to permit, construct and eventually pay off,” AFPM said in a blog post.

It’s also a political hotbed, fraught with opposition, particularly amid rising concerns over climate change and the transition to greener energy, industry experts said.

Basav Sen, climate justice project director at Institute for Policy Studies, said in November deregulating the permitting of energy infrastructure in the U.S. was "a terrible idea." More drilling would be "disastrous," increasing greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollution.

In its Net Zero by 2050 report, the International Energy Agency also pushed to end oil spending. "There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply," it said.

Potentially, yes. Or it could at least put a lid on prices, for now, Lyulkin said.

“From an inflationary standpoint, (the talk of Venezuelan oil) is positive,” he said. “It puts a cap on prices because of the threat of extra capacity potentially coming.”

But the reality of sustainable lower prices may have to wait a long time. Exxon CEO Darren Woods told Trump during a White House meeting on Jan. 9 with other oil executives that Venezuela would need to change its laws before it could be an attractive investment opportunity.

"If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it's uninvestable," he said.

Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@usatoday.com and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US tops world oil production but still wants Venezuela's. Is it greed?