Donald Trump has suggested US taxpayers could reimburse energy companies for repairing Venezuelan infrastructure for extracting and shipping oil.

Trump acknowledged that “a lot of money” would need to be spent to increase oil production in Venezuela after US forces ousted its leader, Nicolás Maduro, but suggested his government could pay oil companies to do the work.

“A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue,” the president said.

The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, reportedly plans to meet representatives of Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil at the Goldman Sachs Energy, Clean Tech & Utilities Conference in Miami later this week.