Washington is reportedly sitting on $30 billion in assets in the South American nation
The United States has unfrozen some of Venezuela’s seized assets, Acting President Delcy Rodriguez announced. Rodriguez said the money would be spent on hospital equipment and energy infrastructure.
Rodriguez said on national television on Tuesday that she had spoken with US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “respect and courtesy,” and that the unblocked funds will be used to purchase hospital equipment from the US “and other countries.”
“We will unlock Venezuelan resources that belong to the Venezuelan people… and this will allow us to invest heavily in hospital equipment,” she said. Rodriguez added that Venezuela will also buy “Equipment for the electricity industry and equipment for the gas industry” with funds.
Rodriguez did not say how much property would be released. In 2022, President Nicolás Maduro claimed that around $30 billion worth of Venezuelan assets had been frozen abroad. These include oil seized by the US and around $2 billion worth of gold frozen in the UK.
Maduro was kidnapped by US forces earlier this month and charged with narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking and firearms offences. Rodriguez condemned Maduro’s kidnapping but tried to appease Washington — specifically by allowing American companies to run the South American nation’s oil industry.
Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalized in 1976, with further restrictions imposed on U.S. suppliers in 2007 by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Trump has repeatedly claimed that these actions amounted to Venezuela. “stealing” oil infrastructure built by American companies.
Trump warned that if Rodriguez “He’s not doing what’s right, he’s going to pay a very high price, probably bigger than Maduro.” The US president spoke to Rodriguez by phone last week and announced plans to invite her to the White House.
Rodriguez insisted on Sunday that she had had enough “Washington’s Orders,” and that the Venezuelans themselves would do it “resolve our differences and our inner conflicts.” Trump responded to Rodriguez’s question on Tuesday: “I didn’t hear that at all. We have a very good relationship.”
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