President Donald Trump's suggestion to bring into Syria an American oil company to deal properly with the oil fields there that U.S. soldiers will be deployed to protect is a step toward piracy, Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey warned, Newsweek reported on Monday.
McCaffrey stressed on Twitter that "the oil belongs to Syria" and asked increduously, "what are we becoming, pirates?"
Trump has even emphasized that oil is one of the advantages the US will get out of his decision to redeploy and withdraw American troops from Syria.
Jeff Colgan, a political science professor at Brown University, explained to Time that “The president is very keen to pull, or at least have the appearance of, pulling back military troops from the Middle East. But at the same time that exposes him to the criticism that this could … lay the grounds for ISIS to reconstitute itself. And the oil fields would be a key part of that, so understandably he’s focused on preventing that possibility.”
But legal experts have said Trump's plans for the oil would violate several longstanding tenets of international law, according to Law &Crime.
One such expert, Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Guardian that “In international law, you can’t take civilian goods or seize them. That would amount to a war crime.”
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.