Venezuelan lawmakers started Monday debating a mining regulation bill put forward by acting President Delcy Rodríguez, seeking to reshape how the country’s mineral industry operates and to persuade foreign investors that new rules can reduce the risk of future expropriations. The session opened in Caracas as lawmakers moved to consider the legislation following Rodríguez’s announcement last week during the visit of U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
Rodríguez’s proposal would regulate mineral rights and set up conditions intended to make Venezuela more attractive to investors who, many of whom have said, lost assets in earlier decades. The effort is also described as echoing oil-industry reforms approved earlier this year, which Rodríguez signed into law and that drew back from an earlier state-led approach, including changes that opened the door to privatization.
A central part of the mining bill is its dispute framework. The proposal includes independent arbitration provisions intended to help address concerns that future conflicts would be handled fairly, a mechanism that the bill text says investors see as important safeguards. The bill would also establish categories for mining at different scales—small, medium and large—and would include rules aimed at reducing conflicts of interest by barring the president, vice president, ministers, governors and other officials from holding mining titles.
The push comes amid shifting U.S.-Venezuela relations after new pressure associated with the Trump administration began in January, a period the article describes as following U.S. action that deposed then-President Nicolás Maduro. Burgum’s trip, which Reuters described as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to counter China’s grip on critical minerals, placed the mining debate squarely in an international supply-chain context, the article said, as the United States looks to secure access to minerals used in phones, batteries and other technologies.
Félix Freites, a lawmaker, said before the debate opened that the “restoration of relations between Venezuela and the United States has led the world’s leading mining corporations to evaluate the possibility of investing significant capital to reactivate sectors capable of guaranteeing the supply of critical minerals essential for the development of the technology industry, the generation of new energy sources, and the manufacture of electric vehicles.” Freites also said he would work to ensure the bill leads to job opportunities for Venezuelans.
At the same time, the legislation would be enacted into a sector long shaped by weak regulation and illegal activity, including mining conducted by guerrilla groups, gangs and other armed actors, according to the reporting. The article said mineral-rich areas have been controlled for years by armed groups that mine with consent of local authorities and military personnel, and it described mining operations that it characterized as often involving brutal conditions.
Since 2016, Maduro’s government created a mining development zone spanning central parts of the country, the article said, partly to supplement revenue from the oil industry as oil production declined amid mismanagement, corruption and later U.S. sanctions. Since then, the article said, mining for gold, diamonds, copper and other minerals has expanded, with officials and military members taking cuts from illegal mining in exchange for allowing operations and access to fuel and equipment.
Rodríguez told reporters that the bill would be “a win for the social well-being” of Venezuelans and added, “May the Venezuelan people also see the good aspects of having good relations with the world and with the United States of America.” The article also noted that the U.S. last week issued a sanctions license authorizing certain dealings with Minerven, Venezuela’s state-owned gold mining company, as part of the broader changes around investment and critical minerals.
As lawmakers weigh the bill, the debate is likely to reflect the tension between attracting capital and regulating a sector long tied to criminal networks and informal extraction, with the bill’s arbitration and title restrictions positioned as tools to try to change how business would operate if foreign investment expands. The outcome will determine how quickly Venezuela can translate its mineral wealth—including copper, gold and resources linked to electronics and electric-vehicle batteries—into a more formal industry governed by law, rather than by armed control and illicit arrangements.