The United States and Venezuela on Thursday agreed to restore diplomatic ties between both countries after seven years, both countries announced.
The U.S. State Department said in a statement:
The United States and Venezuela’s interim authorities have agreed to re-establish diplomatic and consular relations. This step will facilitate our joint efforts to promote stability, support economic recovery, and advance political reconciliation in Venezuela.
Our engagement is focused on helping the Venezuelan people move forward through a phased process that creates the conditions for a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government.
The United States remains committed to supporting the Venezuelan people and working with partners across the region to advance stability and prosperity.
The Venezuelan regime, for its part, confirmed its intention to restore diplomatic and consular ties with the United States through an official statement published by Foreign Minister Yván Gil on social media.
“The Bolivarian Government reaffirms its willingness to move forward in a new stage of constructive dialogue, based on mutual respect, the sovereign equality of States, and cooperation between our peoples,” the statement read in part.
“Venezuela expresses its confidence that this process will contribute to strengthening understanding and opening opportunities for a positive and mutually beneficial relationship. These relations should result in the social and economic well-being of the Venezuelan people,” the statement continued.
The Venezuelan socialists concluded their statement by recounting words espoused by the nation’s founding father Simón Bolívar in 1819 — who, at the time, expressed his intention to establish “relations of friendship and good understanding” with the government of the United States of America.
The announcement comes hours roughly two months after the United States carried out a law enforcement operation in Caracas to arrest socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The pair are presently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, awaiting trial on multiple drug trafficking charges.
Since then, the Venezuelan socialist regime, now led by “acting President” Delcy Rodriguez, has collaborated with the United States and has started to mend Venezuela’s historically friendly ties with America after more than two decades of continued hostilities under Maduro and late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez.
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The announcement also notably coincided with the 13th anniversary of Chávez’s death, who passed away from an undisclosed type of cancer on March 5, 2013. Chávez had appointed Nicolás Maduro as his successor on December 8, 2012, a date that the nation’s socialists mark as the “Day of Loyalty and Love for Chávez.”
The Trump administration reportedly notified Congress in late January that it had taken initial steps towards reopening the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, which remained shut down for seven years after Maduro had Venezuela cut off all diplomatic ties with the U.S. in early 2019. In response, the U.S. established a Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU) at its Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia. The VAU’s chargé d’affaires, Ambassador Laura Dogu, arrived to Caracas in January and met with Delcy Rodríguez shortly afterwards.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum met with Rodríguez in Caracas this week, securing American access to Venezuela’s mineral resources in line with President Trump’s plans to secure U.S. energy dominance throughout the Western Hemisphere.
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