The permit follows a push by U.S. President Donald Trump to open Venezuela’s resources sector to international investment.
Published: March 6, 2026
The U.S. government has approved limited permits for Venezuelan gold exports after a high-level meeting aimed at expanding Venezuelan gold mining.
A notice announcing the permit was posted on the U.S. Treasury website last Friday.
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The bill allows Venezuela’s state-owned mining company, Minerven, and its subsidiaries to export, transport, and sell Venezuelan gold to the United States, within the limits required by U.S. law.
However, under the permit, Venezuelan gold is not permitted to be exchanged with Cuba, North Korea, Iran or Russia.
The license also requires payments to sanctioned individuals to flow through Treasury accounts known as the Foreign Government Deposit Fund, the same system used to store proceeds from Venezuelan oil sales.
Minerven and other state-owned industries have been subject to U.S. sanctions for years as punishment for a push to nationalize Venezuela’s resources under former President Hugo Chavez.
But the United States has been pushing for inroads into Venezuela’s oil and mining sectors since launching an operation on January 3 to kidnap and imprison then-President Nicolas Maduro.
The January 3 military operation has been condemned as a violation of international law, and critics claim U.S. President Donald Trump has since sought to exploit Venezuela’s natural resources for his own benefit.
Trump and his allies claim Venezuela’s oil resources were stolen from the United States, citing the 2007 seizure of assets from American companies.
However, international law ensures that states have permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, which cannot be exploited by foreign powers without their consent.
So far, the government of Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has accepted President Trump’s request to transfer oil to the United States and open Venezuela’s oil and mining sectors to foreign investment.
This week, Rodriguez agreed to send the mining reform bill to Congress following a two-day visit from Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
And in late January, Rodriguez signed into law separate reforms that would allow greater foreign private investment in Venezuela’s oil sector and lower taxes on the industry.
Venezuela’s economy has suffered from tightening U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement, forcing millions of the South American country’s citizens to flee its borders over the past decade.
Supporters of the reform say outside investment could help revive Venezuela’s slumping economy and finance upgrades to its aging mining infrastructure.
On Friday, Venezuela’s central bank released inflation statistics for the first time since November 2024, showing that inflation had soared to 475% in 2025, when the United States banned Venezuelan oil exports.
Venezuela’s gold production in 2025 will reach nearly 9.5 tons, according to the government, and the country has the world’s largest oil reserves.
