The US wants to control Venezuela’s mineral resources. And Claudia Sheinbaum suffered an unexpected defeat in Mexico.
Ignacio Portes & Jorge C. Carrasco
ECONOMY
US mining plans in Venezuela risk clashes with guerrillas
Having secured control of Venezuela’s oil industry, US President Donald Trump has been boasting about increased sales, which doubled in the first full month since Nicolás Maduro’s ousting. According to Trump, both countries will benefit from the new state of affairs through a revenue-sharing agreement, and US investment will expand in the near future.
With oil under his sway, Trump is now showing increased interest in Venezuela’s mineral wealth. Deposits in the country include gold, coltan, diamonds and other strategic metals, but could entail more difficult logistics, as investors would need to navigate the complex realities of the country’s Amazonian jungles in the south.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited Caracas earlier this month to urge US firms to seize what he called a “once-in-a-generation opening,” after US military forces changed the balance of power in the region by prompting the rise of interim President Delcy Rodríguez.
Having secured control of Venezuela’s oil industry, US President Donald Trump has been boasting about increased sales, which doubled in the first full month since Nicolás Maduro’s ousting. According to Trump, both countries will benefit from the new state of affairs through a revenue-sharing agreement, and US investment will expand in the near future.
Burgum’s Venezuelan mission was accompanied by more than two dozen executives from the resources sector, including representatives from Peabody, Glencore and others. “Venezuela is a rich, rich country filled with both oil and gas resources but also rich in critical minerals,” Burgum said, pitching US investment as a stabilizing force.
👉 Why it matters. Mining in Venezuela poses significantly different challenges compared to revamping its oil industry. Venezuela’s mineral wealth lies deep in its Amazonian southern region, where jungles are governed by armed groups, many of them seasoned by decades of conflict in Colombia. They operate by imposing their own rules, levying “taxes” on illegal miners and handing out heavy punishments to locals who disobey their commands.
Many of Venezuela’s richest deposits lie in areas with no roads, no communications, and no formal state presence. The sector is stringed together by informal networks of military chiefs and organized crime groups, which use proxies and business fronts to “launder” the minerals and sell them with little oversight. Much of the coltan and tungsten mined in the region ends up in China, for instance.
Experts argue that US involvement in the sector would risk confronting criminal organizations on their own terrain. And Washington’s plan to license North American mining investors could trigger a direct armed clash with actors who have no intention of ceding territory or revenue.
Western mining companies have a troubled past in Venezuela. In 2011, then-President Hugo Chávez nationalized the gold sector, triggering billion-dollar arbitration cases that the country lost. Later, Maduro opened concessions to small firms tied to military allies, which reportedly sparked corruption, turf wars and environmental damage across protected reserves.
With Washington breathing down her neck, President Rodríguez has promised to introduce new mining regulations to level the playing field for US companies, a move Washington claims could bring billions of dollars in investment. Rodríguez is carrying out a tough balancing act: reassuring Trump while holding the remaining Chavista elites together to avoid a new round of US military action.
The coming months and years will test what seems to be Trump’s main hypothesis in Venezuela: that an agreement with those at the pinnacle of power in Caracas can be enough to regain dominance over the country’s strategic areas, including some of its most remote quarters.
MEXICO
Sheinbaum’s supermajority fails to pass electoral reform
The supermajority secured by Mexico’s ruling coalition during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s 2024 election seemed to foreshadow complete domination over the country’s political system. Reality, however, has been less straightforward.
Buoyed by the popular six-year rule of Andrés Manuel “AMLO” López Obrador between 2018 and 2024, his left-wing Morena party tried to consolidate its power by pushing for an electoral reform that required changing the Mexican constitution, meaning that it would need approval from two-thirds of Congress.
The reform significantly reduced the number of congressional seats allocated through proportional representation, known in Mexico as “plurinominales.” This harmed small parties that rarely win a district but can often elect some lawmakers despite being in the minority. Other items included reducing public financing for party structures, a key source of income for smaller political movements.
In the end, the proposal only managed to muster 259 votes out of a possible 500 in Mexico’s lower house, far from the two-thirds threshold. The Green and Workers’ parties, which back Morena in almost every bill, switched allegiances to side with the opposition, fearing that the reform proposal would lead to their disappearance.
👉 Why it matters. Having secured control over Mexico’s Supreme Court, electoral court, judicial discipline tribunal and other key institutions, Morena’s electoral reform could have been another step on the path to de facto one-party rule, a throwback to the 20th century, when the PRI party controlled most of Mexican politics.
After the vote, leaders from the Green and Workers’ party said they were still “100% behind Sheinbaum,” but that endorsing the creation of a hegemonic party would go against their history.
Critics of the administration said the defeat sparked a furious altercation between AMLO and Sheinbaum, with AMLO protesting that his successor did not threaten minority parties with exposing compromising information they had against them as a way to change their votes.
AMLO continues to hold most of the cards within Morena, as a majority of its lawmakers and party authorities were handpicked by him. Passing the reform would have given him a stronger hold on the country.
As a plan B that seemed more like an attempt to save face, Sheinbaum announced a much narrower reform that would cut budgets for departmental assemblies and local councils, which both coalition parties publicly supported — much to the government’s relief, as continued tensions could put its supermajority at risk going forward.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Last Friday, we asked which Panamanian leader rose to prominence by fighting for the nationalization of the Panama Canal during the Cold War. Only 24% picked the right answer, Omar Torrijos, who was the country’s military dictator from a 1968 coup d’état until his death in an airplane crash in 1981.
Most of you (51%) thought the right answer was Manuel Noriega, who became Panama’s de facto leader by 1983.
QUICK CATCH-UP
🚔 As we flagged in a previous issue, the list of most-wanted US criminals was likely a good proxy for upcoming anti-drug trafficking operations in Latin America. One of them, Uruguay’s Sebastián Marset, was captured in Bolivia last week and quickly flown to the US, where he will face charges for drug trafficking and money laundering. Marset reportedly led a drug trafficking network spanning multiple countries in the Southern Cone.
🛡️ In one of his first public appearances since taking office last week, Chilean President José Antonio Kast travelled to country’s northern border to inaugurate his Border Shield Plan that looks to halt illegal immigration and smuggling across Peru and Bolivia. Kast promised to dig trenches, build walls and increase vigilance with drones, radars and improved intelligence.
👫 Colombian candidates announced their running mates for the May 31 presidential election. Iván Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact went with indigenous leader Aida Quilcué, who became a political activist after her husband was killed by soldiers. On the other side of the spectrum, Paloma Valencia confirmed centrist Juan Daniel Oviedo, in a bid to moderate her ticket, backed by divisive right-winger Álvaro Uribe.
👎 An electoral court in Ecuador handed a nine-month suspension to the left-wing Citizen Revolution party, led by exiled former President Rafael Correa. The decision was based on illegal campaign financing allegations, but raises further questions about Latin America’s growing trend of banning opposition leaders from running for office.
💣 Colombian President Gustavo Petro denounced late last night that a bomb had been dropped into Colombian territory from an airplane in Ecuador, suggesting that it came from the country’s military. Petro and his counterpart Daniel Noboa have been at odds over border controls, with Noboa imposing tariffs on Colombian imports as a “security levy” due to what he says are lax checks against drug trafficking.