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President Donald Trump announced this Saturday the formal and legal recognition of the Venezuelan government led by interim president Delcy Rodríguez, and revealed a "historic gold agreement" that will allow American companies to exploit and trade Venezuelan minerals.
The announcement was made during the Regional Summit "Shield of the Americas", held at the Trump National Doral Miami on March 7, in front of leaders from a dozen Latin American countries allied with Washington.
"I am pleased to announce that this week we have formally recognized the Venezuelan government. We have recognized them legally. We have also just reached a historic gold agreement with Venezuela to allow our two countries to work together to facilitate the sale of Venezuelan gold and other minerals," Trump stated before the attendees at the summit.
The agreement was approved on Saturday by the Department of the Treasury through a new license that relaxes previously imposed sanctions against Minerven, the Venezuelan state mining company.
The deal includes the sale of between 650 and 1,000 kilograms of doré gold through the trading company Trafigura to U.S. refineries, with an estimated value of around 165 million dollars. The license expressly prohibits any transaction with Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, or Cuba.
Formal recognition comes two days after the U.S. and Venezuela reestablished diplomatic and consular relations, ending a rift that dates back to 2019, when then-President Nicolás Maduro expelled American diplomats during Trump's first term.
Normalization has occurred at an accelerated pace since January 3, 2026, when U.S. special forces executed "Operation Absolute Resolution" and captured Maduro in Fuerte Tiuna, Caracas, in an operation lasting between 18 to 25 minutes, with no American casualties.
Trump detailed the operation: "It was about 18 minutes of pure violence and we took him out. We didn’t lose anyone." The action left 24 Venezuelan officials and 32 Cubans dead.
After Maduro's capture, the Venezuelan Supreme Court appointed Delcy Rodríguez as acting president on January 5. Since then, her government has announced the release of more than 800 political prisoners and has opened the energy and mining sectors to American companies.
The U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum made a two-day visit (March 4 and 5) to Caracas to negotiate the terms of agreements regarding oil, minerals, and mining reforms with Rodríguez, paving the way for yesterday's announcements. Trump praised the acting president with an explicit condition: "She is doing a great job because she is working with us. If she weren't working with us, I wouldn't say she is doing a great job."
In the same speech, Trump pointed directly to Cuba as the next target of his hemispheric policy. "Cuba is at the end of the line. They have no money, they have no oil, they have a bad philosophy. They used to receive money from Venezuela. They received oil from Venezuela. But they no longer have money from Venezuela. They no longer have oil," he stated.
He warned that the Cuban regime is in its "final moments of life" and that it is already negotiating with him and with Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
The summit also served to launch the Coalition Against the Cartels of the Americas (AC3), signed by 18 countries, with the commitment to use lethal military force against drug trafficking in the hemisphere.
The Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth summarized the doctrine that guides this entire strategy: "President Trump has established the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the Donroe Doctrine, and the Department of War is implementing it as quickly as we can."
Trump also announced the release of frozen Venezuelan assets since 2019, including accounts from the Central Bank of Venezuela and PDVSA funds, as part of the normalization process with Caracas.
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