The interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, announced this Wednesday that she sent a letter to the British king, Carlos III, requesting the release of the gold belonging to Venezuela, deposited in the Bank of England, in order to allocate it for the reconstruction of the country following the devastating double earthquake on June 24.
They are about 31 tons of ingots valued at approximately 1.9 billion dollars.
“I have decided to send a letter to the King of England to release the gold that is held in the Bank of England. That gold belongs to our people. It is intended to address the consequences of the earthquake on June 24”, declared Rodríguez in a broadcast on the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
“Venezuela has the resources to recover and to rise again,” Rodríguez insisted, in a statement that summarizes the interim government's commitment to unlocking its assets abroad before relying solely on international aid.
The gold blocked since 2019
Venezuelan reserves in London have been frozen since 2019, when the British government -along with the United States and dozens of countries- recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president and refused to hand control of those assets over to Nicolás Maduro's government.
In July 2020, a judge of the High Court of London ruled that only the board of the Central Bank of Venezuela appointed by Guaidó could give instructions regarding the metal, and the litigation has gone through multiple judicial instances without a definitive resolution.
Delcy Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency following the capture of Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3, 2026, in the so-called "Operation Absolute Resolution," and her government was formally recognized by the Trump administration in March of this year.
Actions before the IMF and international appeal
Alongside the letter to the British monarch, Rodríguez reported having had a call with the Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva.
“I had a call with the director of the International Monetary Fund, to whom I thank for her attention and understanding, to release blocked resources from Venezuela that are in the Monetary Fund”, she stated.
Venezuela holds 3.568 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR) at the IMF, equivalent to about 5.1 billion dollars, which are blocked due to the organization's non-recognition of Maduro's government.
The chancellor Yván Gil also intervened this Wednesday in a virtual meeting with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
"We want to call on all countries that still have funds belonging to Venezuela blocked to initiate a plan for the release of these funds so that we can use them for recovery."
International pressure to ease sanctions
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, present in Venezuela, pointed out -according to EFE- that sanctions should be relaxed to avoid obstructing aid and recovery plans.
Fletcher warned that the earthquakes will create a "very difficult economic situation," which will subtract "several points from the Venezuelan GDP."
The UN issued an urgent appeal to raise $296 million to address the needs of 1.3 million people over the next six months.
A group of 113 economists and academics—including Jeffrey Sachs, Isabella Weber, and James K. Galbraith—signed a letter urging the United States and the IMF to lift the sanctions to facilitate reconstruction.
Washington, for its part, has already allocated more than 386 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the country.
Housing Reconstruction Plan
Rodríguez also announced an "aggressive and rapid" plan for the construction of earthquake-resistant housing and cities, involving both national and foreign companies, and promised to present a detailed execution timeline soon.
The plan, backed by the UN, includes the import of prefabricated homes for the affected as an immediate response to the housing issues created by the earthquakes.
A catastrophe that demands urgent resources
The double earthquake on June 24, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, is considered the deadliest in Venezuela in over a century.
The official number of deceased has risen to 3,811 deaths as of July 9, while more than 17,000 people have lost their homes.
The La Guaira region, located in the north of the country and adjacent to Caracas, was the most devastated: 190 buildings completely collapsed, and another 856 suffered severe damage.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated a 42% probability that the actual number of victims could range from 10,000 to 100,000 deceased, far exceeding the official figures.
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