The United States says 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 was raised once again, in a ceremonial step marking the resumption of diplomatic activities in Venezuela.
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“On the morning of March 14, 2019, the American flag was lowered for the last time at the United States Embassy in Caracas. This morning, March 14, 2026, at the same time, my team and I raised the American flag, exactly seven years after it was lowered,” chargé d’affaires Laura Dogu wrote in the post.
“A new era has begun for relations between the United States and Venezuela. Onward with Venezuela.”
The United States restored diplomatic relations earlier this month, and Dogu, the embassy’s top diplomat, added that the United States 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 United States.
The renewed diplomatic ties come after the United States launched a deadly military operation on January 3 on Venezuelan soil, culminating in the kidnapping of former President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
Since Maduro’s ouster, the socialist leader’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, took over as interim president, with Trump’s approval.
But the Trump administration has pressured Rodríguez’s government to grant multiple concessions, including access to the country’s vast reserves of oil and other natural resources.
In response, Rodríguez has advocated for laws to open the country’s nationalized oil and mining sectors to foreign investment.
His country has also transferred approximately 80 million barrels of oil into American hands, which have then been sold by the Trump administration.
Trump and his allies have framed these developments as the beginning of a new era of civility with Venezuela, after years of tension between Caracas and Washington.
But critics point to comments Trump has made threatening Rodriguez as evidence of possible coercion.
“If he doesn’t do the right thing, he will pay a very high price, probably higher than Maduro’s,” Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine, published on January 4.
In the run-up to Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump and advisers such as 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 such as ExxonMobil.
“The sweat, ingenuity and work of Americans created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller wrote last December on social media. “Their tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
Legal experts, however, say such statements represent an elimination 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.”
“Basically, we’re going to run it,” Trump said of Venezuela in his Jan. 3 speech.
The United States has continued to exert substantial control over Venezuela’s oil sales, even blocking its fuel trade with Cuba.
Meanwhile, proceeds from U.S.-led oil sales are deposited into a U.S.-controlled bank account, which will be split between the two countries.
Rodriguez urged Trump on Friday to ease remaining U.S. sanctions on Venezuela to open the door to better economic conditions in the country.
