Venezuela’s mining sector is attracting interest from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, but the country’s mineral potential and mine operations remain difficult to assess. A reserve is an estimate of minerals that can be extracted economically, while a resource covers estimated deposits regardless of their commercial viability. In 2018, Venezuela’s government published a minerals catalog for potential investors that estimated roughly 3 billion metric tons of coal reserves, 407,885 metric tons of nickel reserves, 644 metric tons of gold resources, 14.68 billion metric tons of iron ore resources and 321.5 million metric tons of bauxite resources. The report acknowledged that much of the iron ore estimate was speculative. The data also used reserves and resources interchangeably, making it unclear whether Caracas understood the full scale of its mining potential. The mining sector was designated as an alternative to oil production under a five-year plan announced in 2019 by then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Delcy Rodriguez, who is acting president. A 2021 government map, based on data compiled in 2009, listed reserves of antimony, copper, nickel, coltan, molybdenum, magnesium, silver, zinc, titanium, tungsten and uranium without giving volumes. Venezuela does not appear to have sizeable rare-earth reserves. Rare earths are a group of 17 minor metals used in magnets that convert power into motion and are a subset of critical minerals. The operational status of mines connected to Maduro’s plan is unclear. Maduro’s National Council for Productive Economy said late last year that national production of gold, coal and iron ore rose during the first three quarters of 2025, but it provided no figures. Venezuela nationalized its gold sector in 2011 and the government controls CVG, an iron and steel producer. Reuters reported last year that coal production had restarted and that Venezuela aimed to export more than 10 million metric tons in 2025, although it is unclear whether that target was met. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in 2019 that Venezuela produced 100,000 metric tons of coal from 731 million metric tons of reserves. Its latest available Venezuelan bauxite data, from 2021, showed production of 250,000 metric tons, down from 550,000 metric tons in 2017. Iron ore output was 1.41 million metric tons on an iron-content basis, while gold production was 480 kilograms. Alumina output was estimated at 80,000 metric tons in 2021, down from 240,000 metric tons four years earlier, and aluminum production at 20,000 metric tons, down from 144,000 metric tons in 2017.