The United States embassy in Venezuela raised the country’s flag this Saturday (14) for the first time in seven years, after Washington and Caracas agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations, severed in 2019. The American flag flew again at the top of the flagpole inside the diplomatic headquarters’ facilities, located in a neighborhood of Caracas.
The United States charge of affairs in the country, Laura Dogu, recalled that the flag had been raised by the last time at the embassy on March 14, 2019. According to Dogu, the gesture marks the beginning of “a new era for relations” between the two countries.
“On the morning of March 14, 2026, at the same time, my team and I raised the United States flag again, exactly seven years after it was removed,” announced the diplomat, who arrived in Caracas at the end of January with the mission of reopening representation in the country.
A few days later, the government of interim president Delcy Rodríguez appointed former foreign minister Félix Plasencia as Venezuelan diplomatic representative in the United States.
In February, the United States Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, was in Caracas and signed a long-term energy partnership with Rodríguez. The cooperation agenda continued in March, with the visit of Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum.
Also in February, the head of the United States Southern Command, Francis Donovan, visited Venezuela and met with Venezuelan government officials to discuss cooperation in areas such as migration and combating drug trafficking.
Diplomatic ties between the two countries had been broken since the beginning of 2019, when, during Donald Trump’s first term, Washington recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president. In response, then-president Nicolás Maduro severed relations with the United States. Maduro was captured by American forces in January this year, in Caracas, during an operation led by the Trump administration.
