Related videos:
The Trump administration eased some sanctions on Venezuela this Saturday to allow U.S. companies to negotiate, sign contracts, and invest in the mining sector of the South American country, including gold.
The new license, issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury, authorizes activities such as mining operations, the processing and refining of minerals, and the establishment of joint ventures in Venezuelan territory, EFE reported.
The measure adds to a series of licenses that the Department of the Treasury has issued in recent weeks to facilitate the involvement of American companies in Venezuela's oil and gold sectors.
The authorization includes an explicit restriction: it prohibits conducting transactions with individuals or entities linked to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.
The process of economic opening accelerated following the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd in Caracas, carried out by U.S. forces. Since then, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has moved closer to Washington, and in early March, both countries formally restored diplomatic relations, which had been severed since 2019.
According to Trump, the United States exercises a kind of oversight over Rodríguez's government, which has complied with Washington's demands to open the oil and gold sectors to American companies.
On the past Tuesday, the Trump administration had already eased additional sanctions to facilitate the upcoming reopening of the Venezuelan embassy in the United States, where the Venezuelan diplomatic delegation led by Félix Plasencia arrived on March 24.
On March 13, the Treasury issued a general license that lifted restrictions in the Venezuelan gold sector, allowing U.S. companies to purchase gold from Minerven, the state mining company. The following day, the first shipment of Venezuelan gold in over twenty years arrived in the United States, valued at 100 million dollars, as confirmed by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last Wednesday during the CERAWeek forum in Houston.
"More than 20 years had passed without any shipments of precious metals between Venezuela and the United States," said the official.
Filed under: