The government has not provided figures or timelines for the resources it says are being unblocked.
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the transitional government has begun to unblock the country’s sovereign resources frozen abroad, with the funds to be allocated to investments in health care, public services and the energy industry.
Rodríguez made the remarks during an official event at the University Hospital of Caracas, where she led the inauguration of the Nephrology Service and a day of care for kidney patients, broadcast by state-run Venezolana de Televisión.
“We are unblocking resources from Venezuela that belong to the Venezuelan people,” Rodríguez said during her speech. “That will allow us to invest significant resources in hospital equipment, equipment that we are acquiring in the United States and in other countries — equipment for the electricity sector and for the gas industry in Venezuela.”
She said the process is taking place amid diplomatic channels with Washington, and that “We have proposed that our differences and our divergences be resolved through diplomatic dialogue — through political conversation between authorities of one country and another.
Rodríguez said that “channels of communication based on respect and courtesy” have been established with U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with whom, she said, a bilateral work agenda is being built.
She said the unblocked resources will be channeled through two sovereign funds previously announced by the government — one aimed at addressing social needs such as workers’ income, health, education, food and social protection, and a second to focus on the recovery of public services and infrastructure, including electricity, water and roads.
Rodríguez also said that once the resources enter those funds, the government will enable a public digital platform so citizens can consult ongoing projects and reported revenues.
“There will be an application where any citizen will be able to log in and see the projects that are being carried out and the revenues being reported there,” she said.
In 2022, then-President Nicolás Maduro said that an estimated $30 billion remained immobilized abroad as a result of international sanctions and legal disputes.
The figure included gold reserves, bank deposits, state-owned company assets and claims linked to arbitration proceedings across different countries and legal systems.
Venezuela has remained under U.S. sanctions, including an oil embargo, since 2019 following Nicolás Maduro’s re-election in 2018, a voting result Washington did not recognize. The measures have also been accompanied by financial restrictions adopted by U.S. allied countries.
On Jan. 5, the Swiss Federal Council ordered the immediate freezing of any assets held in that country by Maduro and people associated with him, following his capture and transfer to the United States. The preventive measure seeks to prevent any potential outflow of funds while possible judicial proceedings are evaluated.
So far, U.S. authorities have not publicly disclosed what specific amounts may have been released, and the Venezuelan government has also not specified figures or timelines for the resources Rodríguez said are being unblocked.
