Observations On Perception

From American Authorization to Venezuelan Sovereignty

On September 6, 2026, I published Constitutional Authority and Venezuela: A Public Record of Correspondence, an examination of United States governmental actions concerning Venezuelan petroleum, sovereign revenues, reconstruction, and political transition:

“Constitutional Authority and Venezuela:

That inquiry began with a question of authority rather than policy:  who possesses the lawful authority to make decisions concerning resources and sovereign powers belonging to Venezuela?

The question required examination of two constitutional orders.  Article 5 of the Venezuelan Constitution provides that sovereignty resides intransferably in the Venezuelan people and that the organs of the State emanate from popular sovereignty and are subject to it.  Article 12 places hydrocarbon and mineral deposits within the public domain of the Republic and declares them inalienable and imprescriptible.  On the American side, the inquiry asked what constitutional and statutory authority permits the United States Government to acquire governmental, economic, custodial, or proprietary rights concerning another nation’s sovereign resources and revenues.

The documentary record available in early September made petroleum the principal material subject of that inquiry.  The White House had announced 100-year concessions covering 17 Venezuelan oil fields and attributed substantial economic and governance rights to the United States Government.  Executive Order 14373 separately placed specified Venezuelan oil revenues in United States custody while recognizing those revenues as sovereign property of Venezuela.

Article 12, however, is not confined to petroleum.  It expressly encompasses mineral deposits.

The public record now shows that months before the petroleum arrangements announced at the end of August, officials of the United States Government were already participating in the reopening of Venezuela’s mineral sector to American commerce and investment.  Gold therefore presents the same constitutional referent through a different sequence of governmental and commercial acts.

On March 4, 2026, United States Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and National Security Council official David Copley led a delegation to Venezuela that included representatives of mining interests.  Gold Reserve, a mining company participating in the delegation, subsequently stated that the meetings concerned conditions for renewed foreign investment and mining operations in Venezuela.

Two days later, on March 6, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury issued General License 51, authorizing specified transactions involving Venezuelan-origin gold.

OFAC administers United States economic sanctions.  A general license permits categories of transactions that American sanctions would otherwise prohibit.  It does not, by performing that function, create a Venezuelan mining right or determine who possesses authority under Venezuelan law to extract a mineral belonging to the Republic.

A commercial transaction was also taking shape.  Venezuela’s State mining company, Minerven, entered an arrangement with the commodities trader Trafigura involving approximately 650 to 1,000 kilograms of Venezuelan gold doré intended for processing and distribution for sale in the United States.

Gold doré is a partially refined product produced from mined material.  It ordinarily requires further refining before reaching the purity associated with commercial bullion.  The transaction concerned gold that had already passed from extraction into commerce.

On March 27, Treasury issued three instruments governing different stages of American participation in Venezuela’s mineral sector.

General License 51A authorized specified transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the exportation, sale, storage, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan-origin minerals, including gold.  It expressly excluded exploration, development, mining, extraction, processing, refining, or production of minerals in Venezuela and the formation of Venezuelan entities for those purposes.  The license also required participants to report documentation demonstrating supply-chain due-diligence plans for determining the chain of custody of the minerals.

General License 54 separately authorized the provision from the United States or by United States persons of goods, technology, software, and services for mineral exploration, development, mining, extraction, processing, refining, or production in Venezuela.  It also authorized specified maintenance and support for mineral operations, while excluding the formation of new joint ventures or other entities in Venezuela to undertake those activities.

General License 55 separately authorized negotiations and entry into contingent contracts for new investment in Venezuela’s mineral sector, including gold.  Performance of those contracts was required to remain expressly contingent upon separate authorization from OFAC.

Treasury distinguished commerce in Venezuelan-origin minerals, the provision of operational goods and services, and prospective investment.  General License 51A did not itself authorize extraction in Venezuela, and General License 55 did not itself authorize performance of the investments negotiated under it.

On April 7, Senator Ron Wyden formally sought information from Trafigura concerning the Minerven transaction.  His inquiry asked about the origin of the gold, the diligence undertaken to establish its provenance, the role of United States officials in the transaction, and risks arising from illicit mining and criminal activity within Venezuela’s gold sector.

The inquiry did not establish that the Trafigura gold had been illegally mined.  It placed the origin of gold entering the United States and the governmental role in facilitating its commerce within the formal congressional record.

For the Trafigura transaction, the relevant chain begins before the gold reaches Minerven.

From what mine or mines was the material extracted?  Who conducted the extraction?  Under what mining title or governmental authority?  Through what intermediaries did the gold pass before reaching the State enterprise?  What records permit that chain to be reconstructed?

Venezuela’s gold-producing regions have been associated with extensive illicit mining, armed groups, environmental destruction, smuggling, and unlawful commerce.  Those conditions make the provenance of the particular gold consequential, but they do not establish that the gold itself originated in illegal extraction.

Treasury’s own regulatory framework also addressed provenance through General License 51A’s chain-of-custody reporting requirement.

On September 2, Treasury continued the three-part regulatory structure through General Licenses 51D, 54C, and 55A.  General License 51D addressed specified transactions involving Venezuelan-origin coal or minerals, including gold.  General License 54C addressed specified supplies and services for coal or mineral operations in Venezuela.  General License 55A permitted negotiation and entry into specified contingent investment contracts while requiring performance to remain contingent upon separate authorization from OFAC.

On September 16, Heeney Capital announced that it had signed what it described as a mining concession with the Republic of Venezuela and the Corporación Venezolana de Minería to develop and operate a gold project in the El Callao Mining District.  Reuters reported that the arrangement concerns the Chocó mine, extends for thirty years, grants rights to export the gold extracted from the mine, involves Mercuria as Heeney’s partner, and contemplates initial investment of up to $1 billion.

The Trafigura transaction concerned gold that had already been extracted and entered commerce.  The Heeney-CVM mining agreement reaches instead toward the deposit from which future gold would be extracted.

If the mineral deposit belongs to the Republic, constitutes property in the public domain, and is constitutionally inalienable and imprescriptible, the relevant inquiry precedes the commercial disposition of extracted gold.  It concerns the governmental competence by which rights to develop, operate, extract from, and commercially exploit the deposit may be conferred.

The public announcement does not establish that extraction under the agreement has commenced.  General License 55A likewise does not, by itself, establish American authorization for performance of every activity contemplated by the agreement.

The public record does not presently supply the complete operative Heeney-CVM mining agreement, the complete Venezuelan legal analysis supporting its execution, or a complete documentary chain establishing which American authorizations apply to each contemplated act of performance.

The gold arrangements operate across two legal systems whose functions are different.

United States law determines whether American persons may undertake transactions otherwise prohibited by American sanctions, what conditions apply to those transactions, and what additional American governmental authorization may be required.

Venezuelan law determines the governmental competence by which rights over Venezuelan mineral deposits may be granted.

A Venezuelan agreement cannot enlarge the constitutional or statutory powers of the United States Government.  An American Treasury license cannot enlarge the constitutional competence of Venezuelan officials.

The same separation applies to recognition.  The President of the United States possesses constitutional authority concerning recognition of foreign governments.  American recognition can determine whom the United States treats as the government of Venezuela for purposes within that recognition authority.  It does not determine, merely through the act of recognition, the powers that Venezuela’s Constitution confers upon the officials recognized.

The Heeney-CVM mining agreement presents a question that cannot end with the identity of its governmental counterparties.  The authority of the Venezuelan Government and the Corporación Venezolana de Minería to confer the rights described in the agreement must therefore arise within the Venezuelan legal order.

The petroleum and gold records concern different exercises of governmental and commercial power over resources governed by the same constitutional provision.

In petroleum, the United States Government publicly claims economic and governance rights associated with long-term Venezuelan concessions.  In gold, the documented American role proceeds through sanctions authorization, governmental facilitation, private commerce, and a long-term mining agreement concerning development and operation of a Venezuelan mineral deposit.

The legal instruments differ.  The participants differ.  The governmental interests differ.

The constitutional referent does not.

Article 12 encompasses both hydrocarbon and mineral deposits as property within the public domain of the Republic.  Article 5 places sovereignty in the Venezuelan people.  The constitutional question therefore arises before petroleum becomes oil available for purchase and before a mineral deposit becomes gold available for export.  It concerns the authority by which rights over the resource are created.

For gold, the documentary inquiry proceeds along two separate lines.  Provenance concerns the origin and legal chain of material already extracted.  Sovereign competence concerns the constitutional and statutory authority governing the power of Venezuelan officials to confer mining, operational, extraction, and export rights over mineral deposits belonging to the Republic.

American law may determine whether an American person may purchase Venezuelan gold, provide specified services to a mineral operation, negotiate an investment, or undertake other activities otherwise restricted by American sanctions.  Those determinations do not establish the provenance of the mineral and do not determine the sovereign competence by which rights over a Venezuelan mineral deposit are created.

American permission can open an American market.  It cannot create Venezuelan sovereignty.

The question is therefore not simply who possesses the gold.

It is who possessed the lawful authority to take it from the ground.