The United States says that it has reopened its embassy in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas after a seven-year hiatus, as President Donald Trump deepens ties with the South American country’s new government.
The US embassy said in a social media post on Saturday that the flag over the embassy has been raised once again, in a ceremonial step that signals the resumption of diplomatic activities in Venezuela.
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“The morning of March 14, 2019, the American flag was lowered for the final time at US Embassy Caracas. This morning, on March 14, 2026, at the same time, my team and I raised the American flag—exactly seven years after it was lowered,” Charge d’Affaires Laura Dogu wrote in the post.
“A new era for US-Venezuela relations has begun. Onward with Venezuela.”
The US restored diplomatic ties earlier this month, and Dogu, the embassy’s most senior diplomat, added that the US was committed to “staying with Venezuela”.
The Trump administration has held up Venezuela as a model for regime change in other countries, including Iran, that have been in conflict with the US.
The renewed diplomatic ties come after the US launched a deadly military operation on January 3 on Venezuelan soil, culminating in the abduction of former President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
Since Maduro’s removal, the socialist leader’s former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has taken over as interim president, with Trump’s approval.
But the Trump administration has pressed Rodriguez’s government for multiple concessions, including access to the country’s vast oil reserves and other natural resources.
In response, Rodriguez has championed laws to open the country’s nationalised oil and mining sectors to foreign investment.
Her country has also transferred approximately 80 million barrels of oil into US hands, which have then been sold by the Trump administration.
Trump and his allies have framed such developments as the beginning of a new era of comity with Venezuela, after years of tension between Caracas and Washington.
But critics point to comments Trump has made threatening Rodriguez as evidence of potential coercion.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine, published on January 4.
In the lead-up to Maduro’s abduction, Trump and advisers like Stephen Miller had argued that Venezuelan oil was, in fact, US property, given the history of US oil exploration in the region and the 2007 push to expropriate property from US companies like ExxonMobil.
“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller wrote last December on social media. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
Legal experts, however, say such statements represent an erasure of Venezuelan sovereignty. International law guarantees each country “permanent sovereignty” over its own natural resources.
But the Trump administration has openly talked about controlling Venezuela’s resources “indefinitely“.
“We’re going to run it, essentially,” Trump said of Venezuela in his speech on January 3.
The US has continued to exert substantial control over Venezuela’s oil sales, even blocking its fuel trade with Cuba.
Proceeds from US-led oil sales, meanwhile, are deposited in a US-controlled bank account, to be divided up between the two countries.
Rodriguez urged Trump on Friday to ease remaining US sanctions on Venezuela in order to open the door for improved economic conditions in the country.
