Utopia Talk / Politics / The rape of Venezuela

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Mon Apr 06 15:27:14 U.S. Moves to Secure Venezuela’s Gold as Influence Deepens After Intervention Since the United States intervention in Venezuela on January 3rd, which effectively brought an end to President Nicolás Maduro’s 13-year dictatorship, the Trump administration has had a heavy hand in Venezuelan politics. The U.S. has made it clear that any new political leader, who is currently interim President Delcy Rodriguez, must cooperate with Washington. The U.S. has also staked its claim to vast quantities of Venezuelan crude. However, oil is not the only resource that the U.S. has shown an interest in, as the Trump administration imports millions of dollars’ worth of gold from the South American country. President Trump has had a strong hold in Venezuela’s oil industry since January and has been encouraging U.S. oil and gas executives to invest in Venezuela’s energy sector. Venezuela is thought to hold the largest crude oil reserves in the world, but years of underinvestment in the country’s energy industry have caused output to dwindle. To increase output, Venezuela must attract high levels of foreign investment to its oil and gas industry to rebuild it from the ground up. President Trump has said that Venezuela’s oil resources were stolen from the U.S., in reference to the expropriation of assets from U.S. businesses in 2007, suggesting that the U.S. has the right to dominate the South American country’s oil business. However, international law guarantees that countries have permanent sovereignty over their own natural resources, which cannot be exploited by foreign powers without consent. Nevertheless, interim President Rodriguez has, so far, complied with Trump’s requests to hand over Venezuelan oil to the U.S. and open the country’s oil and mining sectors to foreign investment. In early March, reports broke that the United States planned to broker a multimillion-dollar gold deal with Venezuela. It was reported that the global commodities trader Trafigura planned to purchase between 650 and 1,000 kg of gold doré bars – a semi-refined bar with a gold content of around 98 percent – from Venezuela’s state-owned mining company, Minerven, to be refined in the United States. During his two-day visit to Venezuela in March, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum discussed the potential for the future of the country’s mining industry with President Rodriguez, alongside representatives from around 20 U.S. mineral companies. Burgum stressed that the Venezuelan government provided security guarantees to mining companies interested in investing in the mineral-rich south of the country, where guerrillas, criminal gangs, and other illegal groups continue to operate. The Trump administration authorised a limited licence for the export of Venezuelan gold in March, announcing the move on the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s website. The license allows Minerven to export, transport, and sell Venezuelan gold to the U.S. within specific parameters. However, it forbids the sale or exchange of Venezuelan gold to Cuba, North Korea, Iran, or Russia. On March 25th, the U.S. Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, said that the U.S. had recently brought back $100 million of gold from Venezuela. “There hadn’t been a shipment of precious metals between Venezuela and America in over 20 years,” Burgum stated during a CERAWeek conference in Houston. Burgum said that U.S. refiners would use the gold for commercial and consumer purposes. This marks the third extraction contract overseen by the Trump administration since the U.S. intervention in Venezuela in January, and a significant shift away from its previous policy of sanctions on the South American country’s energy and resources. Minerven and other state-owned industries previously faced strict U.S. sanctions on trade under both former President Hugo Chavez and Maduro. The move forms part of a broader effort to stabilise and reconstruct Venezuela’s economy under U.S. influence. The Trump administration has shown great interest in Venezuela’s natural resources, including its vast coal reserves that contain critical minerals, as well as its rare earth metals reserves, including coltan and thorium. Burgum said that Venezuelan mining presented a major opportunity and that it is “an industry that’s been in complete collapse in Venezuela, and they know that. It’s down to just artisanal miners controlled by gangs, [with] probably some of the worst environmental practices in the world.” Burgum added, “They (the government) want a clean environment, they want to have modern investment, they want to see growth in their country.” While the purchase of Venezuela's gold could provide a much-needed boost for the country’s economy after years of stagnation, there are significant concerns around Venezuela’s existing mining operations. In 2016, then-President Maduro signed a decree creating the Orinoco Mining Arc, a 112,000 km2 area rich in gold and other minerals. However, the region has since become a hub for crime, political and military corruption, and smuggling. In addition, mining activities in the Arc have been devastating to the environment, with activities expanding into the protected natural areas of the states of Bolívar and Amazonas. UN reports on the Orinoco Mining Arc have warned of serious human rights violations, including slavery and trafficking, and suggest that purchasing gold from the region can be equated to buying “blood gold”. It also said that license 51, granted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control to Minerven, “perpetuates ecocide and launders criminal wealth”. To develop legitimate mining operations in Venezuela will likely, therefore, be a gruelling task with several hurdles to overcome along the way. https://oi...eepens-After-Intervention.html

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