This morning, on March 14, 2026, at the same time, my team and I raised the American flag—exactly seven years after it was lowered,” Charge d’Affaires Laura Dogu wrote in the post. The renewed diplomatic ties come after the US launched a deadly military operation on January 3 on Venezuelan soil, culminating in the abduction of former President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Her country has also transferred approximately 80 million barrels of oil into US hands, which have then been sold by the Trump administration. “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine, published on January 4. In the lead-up to Maduro’s abduction, Trump and advisers like Stephen Miller had argued that Venezuelan oil was, in fact, US property, given the history of US oil exploration in the region and the 2007 push to expropriate property from US companies like ExxonMobil. “We’re going to run it, essentially,” Trump said of Venezuela in his speech on January 3.