Venezuelan Gold & the "Maduro Discount"
Gold trades at record highs, but Maduro's regime in Venezuela struggles to capitalize on the windfall:
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Despite having its gold blacklisted by the Western gold markets, Maduro's regime stubbornly decided to independently mine Gold Reserve's expropriated Siembra Minera Mining Project, using narco-cartel capital to finance the project(https://static1.squarespace.com/static/678169d94a42245884c4f0f3/t/67c8bf5285fef21c65fa9d10/1741209426758/GR_Vz_2025.03.05_Arb+II_Final+Draft+RFA+(330pm+ET).pdf):
... with evidence of the activity(read: ecocide) and attendant investment taken via satellite photo:
If Maduro has to pay the Guyanese mafia to broker his doré, and on top of that, the Guyanese themselves receive a discount to spot for their gold doré because of KYC/AML limitations imposed by Western mints and refineries, then Maduro's junta, with gold at record prices, face catastrophic losses by not capitulating to Trump.
Thus, the higher gold goes, the greater pressure builds on Maduro to capitulate to Trump: not only does Maduro's gang lose money from the "Maduro discount" on all Venezuelan gold exports, but even more money is lost from unrealized capital gains on investment in Venezuelan gold mining: narco-capital goes only so far and does not bring the best talent or intellectual property needed for world-class gold deposit exploitation.
If Maduro waits much longer, he surely knows that his own people will "rotate" him out of power so they can directly market their gold doré to Western mints without the "Maduro discount", in addition to realizing even more wealth by developing the massive gold projects within Venezuela which require Western capital and expertise.