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Posted on 09/29/2026 3:05:47 PM PDT by delta7
In early March, as President Trump basked in the success of a military intervention in Venezuela, he joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the West Wing for a private celebration. A businessman also attended, and brought along a pile of gold.
The president looked approvingly at the 10 Venezuelan gold bars stacked in the Roosevelt Room, across from the Oval Office, White House officials recalled. Aides took photos and joked about keeping the gold.
Mr. Trump himself had once blacklisted Venezuelan gold, declaring that it destroyed the environment, poisoned people and financed gangsters and corrupt military officials. But after Mr. Trump toppled the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, his view changed.
On the same day that the bars arrived at the White House, the Trump administration issued a new policy allowing traders to import Venezuelan gold from one of the world's most violent and corrupt mining regions. The first supplies would come from a state-owned mining company that remained a designated U.S. national security threat.
"Usually, you have to be in the Olympics to bring back the gold," Mr. Burgum later said at an energy conference, regaling listeners with the tale of how he had opened Venezuela's gold pipeline.
The gold trading deal exemplified how Mr. Trump used the capture of Mr. Maduro to gain control of Venezuela's resources. First, he took charge of Venezuela's oil exports. Next, his administration turned to Venezuela's mineral wealth.
That included one of the world's largest untapped gold reserves at a time when the prices were near record highs and buyers were hungry for it.
The Trump administration and its business allies said that gold sales would benefit the U.S. economy; help develop Venezuela's mining region; and deprive criminals and corrupt officials of income.
But a New York Times investigation, from the mines of southern Venezuela to the White House to the trading houses of Europe, found that Mr. Trump aligned America with an industry that is still plagued by the very criminality that he said he was fighting by arresting Mr. Maduro.
Planes carried gold out of Venezuela before companies had even visited the mines. Some of that gold, The Times found, is linked to miners who pay gang protection money. That allows criminals to profit from the administration's signature deal.
And American financiers are investing in a mine tied to gangsters as part of a deal brokered by the Trump administration.
Venezuelan gold had once benefited American adversaries like Iran. Mr. Trump sought to redirect it to the United States to be refined.
But partly as a consequence of the administration's hasty approach, all that gold -- hundreds of millions of dollars' worth -- sits untouched in warehouses, according to three people with knowledge of the shipments. Refiners would need to guarantee, under international rules, that the gold has not funded gangs, environmental destruction or corruption. ...
... For the remainder of the report:
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As long as there are no immediate plans to sell it, it does not matter that refiners refuse it right now.
There was talk about that on here, a while back. A lot of US stored gold reserves are in the form of bars melted from US Gold coins, when FDR made owning most gold by private citizens illegal. Those bars are 90% pure like the coins were. Not 24 karat and nearly 100% pure. I guess world markets deal mainly in pure gold and ours would require refining to meet it or be discounted accordingly. I would like to know the results of an oipen, honest inventory of all our gold. Even though there are no plans (that I know of) to start trading it, are there?
Why is China supposedly buying so much for their reserves? Thoughts?
If nobody wants to touch this gold, I will be glad to take a few free bars off their hands. I have a heavy-duty 3/4 ton pickup. Just let me know where to pick up some gold bars. I am not that picky about where my free gold bars come from. I will love the free gold and not hate the sinner who mined it.
It is also the word for a Russian pastry.
Where’s your Big Buddy these days, Flossie? 😉
Reviewing the “ twins” posts, they had never posted any content, only responded to posts with their “ opinions”....we need article posters here to keep FR alive, not opinion posters.
I’ll melt it.
Never heard of them and I’m pretty well connected.
You are, I won’t say it...funny will have to suffice...see who Gata’s article is linked to...no promotion, just facts by a major MSM news outlet.
Where is your buddy Tx Gator?
You are, I won’t say it...funny will have to suffice...see who Gata’s article is linked to...no promotion, just facts by a major MSM news outlet.
Where is your buddy Tx Gator?
You are, I won’t say it...funny will have to suffice...see who Gata’s article is linked to...no promotion, just facts by a major MSM news outlet.
Where is your buddy Tx Gator?
Gata (Armenian: գաթա) is an Armenian sweet bread. There are many variations of gata in Armenia. Specific towns or regions have their own versions. Gata is made in a variety of shapes, sizes and may be decorated or left unadorned. In the past, gata was baked in a tonir, but it is now baked in an oven. The bread is traditionally eaten at the feast of Candlemas, but is eaten during other festivities too or simply eaten with a cup of tea or coffee.
One popular variety of it is koritz (khoriz), which has a filling that consists of flour, butter and sugar. Gata can also include other fillings alongside khoritz, including nuts, (most commonly walnuts, while peanuts can also be used), dried fruits, lemons, or mulberries.[5][6] Some variations include placing a coin inside the dough before the gata is baked, and it is said that whoever receives the piece with the coin is to be blessed with good fortune. Gata from the villages of Garni and Geghard are decorated (before baking), round, and generally about a foot in diameter. Around the southern edge of Lake Sevan, in the town of Tsovinar, gata is denser and sweeter, and baked without koritz in a triangular shape without decoration.
Thanks for the education! I didn’t all that stuff before! 🙂
Never heard of them and I’m pretty well connected.
Never heard of them and I’m pretty well connected.
Refiners would need to guarantee, under international rules, that the gold has not funded gangs, environmental destruction or corruption.
= = =
Is there any one molecule of gold in the world that has not done any of these things sometime in its past?
That is gato.
Your twin TxGator the disruptor is gone, you are filling in for him. I find you are the same, you never post articles only offer up your “ opinion”.
How about posting news articles? ...your opinions are degrading FR. FR needs articles, traffic, not opinions.
I have been registered since 2001, yes 2001. How long have you been registered.
The Chinese have been playing currency markets for decades in a fashion very similar to the Japanese during the late 70s into the 80s, using their people's propensity to save as a way of depressing their currency to dump their products to buy market share. It may be that once that game gets old, they're forced to reinforce the currency. Buying gold would do that while getting other "BRICS" countries to buy in as a way of snagging some of the dollar's reserve currency status. For us, reserve currency status has been a way of printing dollars that don't come home to inflate the domestic money supply. BRICS is thus intended to cause a "run away" from the dollar.
IOW, it's financial warfare.
There can only be one explanation for why that inquiry keeps getting squashed.
(note one bar left so it can be said there's still gold there)
Gold is a very touchy industry. I’m sure there are good reasons.
For instance the hold may have been melted down from public gold holdings (rings and jewelry) and to mix it with other gold will corrupt values.
This is something one should learn when talking about Trump’s “guilded gold” in the ballroom construction. The word “guilded” is an important distinction in the gold world, and for a US government building that gold is now on the record books in a special way. The guilded gold is now part of our national holdings.
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