US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum met with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez in Caracas as part of a push by US President Donald Trump to boost oil and mineral production in the South American country.
On Wednesday, the meeting culminated with the announcement that Rodriguez would present a proposal to reform Venezuela’s mining laws to the country’s legislature in the coming days.
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Burgum was also optimistic that economic relations between the USA and Venezuela would continue to intensify.
“The possibilities for cooperation and synergy between our two great countries, Venezuela and the United States, are limitless,” he said.
He added that he was accompanied on his two-day trip by representatives of nearly a dozen companies seeking access to Venezuela’s oil and minerals.
“They really want to get started and cut through the red tape so that those capital investments can flow,” Burgum said.
Claim on Venezuelan resources
The growing economic ties between Venezuela and the United States are a result of a military operation on January 3 to kidnap and detain former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
The military operation was criticized as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. United Nations experts, for example, described the incident as a “serious, flagrant and deliberate violation of the most fundamental principles of international law.”
But in the months since the military attack, the Trump administration has sought to give private companies greater access to Venezuela’s natural resources, some of which have been nationalized.
Trump himself has claimed that the U.S. has a right to Venezuelan oil because of early oil exploration in the country. He called the nationalization push in Venezuela “the greatest theft in American history.”
In addition to having some of the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela also has significant deposits of gold, copper, diamonds, coltan and other minerals.
Burgum acknowledged the abundance of resources in his remarks Wednesday.
“Venezuela is a rich, rich country full of oil and gas reserves, but also rich in important minerals,” he added.
Collaboration or exploitation?
However, critics doubt that the US is exploiting Venezuela for its own economic gain.
For example, international law has established that each country has permanent sovereignty over its “natural wealth and resources.” According to the law, violations of this principle constitute a violation of the right to self-determination.
Advocates have also pointed out that the Rodriguez administration has faced threats from Trump to act on his wishes.
In an interview with The Atlantic magazine in January, for example, Trump warned that if Rodriguez “doesn’t do the right thing, she’s going to pay a very high price, probably higher than Maduro.”
At the end of January, Rodriguez signed a law to expand private investment in Venezuela’s state-controlled oil industry, fulfilling one of Trump’s main demands.
Her administration has also transferred at least 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil to the Trump administration for sale, with Trump himself controlling the distribution of the proceeds.
Trump has been a vocal supporter of fossil fuel use and called climate change a “hoax” and a “fraud.”
He also praised Rodriguez for her cooperation and called her government a model for other governments, including Iran’s.
On a social media post On Wednesday, Trump reiterated his satisfaction with Rodriguez’s job performance so far.
“Delcy Rodriguez, the President of Venezuela, is doing a great job and working very well with US representatives,” Trump wrote.
“The oil is starting to flow and the professionalism and commitment of both countries is very nice to see.”
Meanwhile, the US diplomatic mission in Venezuela marked Burgum’s two-day visit was a “decisive and historic step” in a “three-phase plan” that would benefit both countries.
It said the US and Venezuela would “commit to a legitimate mining sector and secure supply chains for critical minerals.”
Due to the poor economic situation in Venezuela, an informal mining sector has developed that lacks oversight and regulations. This can make working conditions treacherous. Just last October, heavy rains caused a gold mine to collapse. 14 people killed.
