US interior secretary is in Venezuela to discuss critical minerals

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Wednesday met in Venezuela with acting President Delcy Rodríguez in the latest sign of the Trump administration’s intent to exercise control over the South American country’s natural resources.

Burgum, who leads U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, and Rodríguez met with representatives of more than two dozen U.S. mining and minerals companies, many of which had previously operated in Venezuela. The two-day visit comes as the administration seeks to defend against China’s hold on critical minerals — some of which are abundant in Venezuela — and advances its phased plan to turn around the long-troubled country.

“When we are working together in can only mean two things, which is prosperity for the people of Venezuela and for the citizens of the United States, and it also brings peace and stability for the world,” Burgum told reporters standing next to Rodríguez, whom he praised for her efforts “to cut the red tape and allow capital investment to flow.”

The companies, he said, “represent billions of dollars in investment and thousands of dollars in high-paying jobs.”

Burgum became the latest U.S. official to travel to Caracas to meet with Rodríguez, who was sworn in following the capture by U.S. forces of then-President Nicolás Maduro two months ago. His trip follows a February visit by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, which was focused on the country's oil potential.

The Republican administration is making bold moves to shore up supplies of critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, missiles and other high-tech products after China choked off their flow in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year. While the two global powers reached a truce to pull back on the high import taxes and stepped-up rare earth restrictions, China’s limits remain tighter than they were before Trump took office.

In addition to oil, Venezuela is rich in gold, copper, coltan, bauxite, diamonds and other precious mined resources, while unsafe working conditions are common in the poorly regulated industry. The elements niobium and tantalum, both considered critical minerals and crucial for smartphones and the batteries of electric vehicles, are extracted from coltan. Bauxite is processed into aluminum, which the U.S. also lists as a critical mineral.

Rodríguez on Wednesday announced she will introduce a bill to overhaul the country’s mining law. The change, expected to attract foreign investments, will be “a win for the social well-being of our people.”

“May the Venezuelan people also see the good aspects of having good relations with the world and with the United States of America,” she told reporters.

Trump, who stunned Venezuelans in and outside their home country for his decision to work with Rodríguez, a Maduro loyalist, following his Jan. 3 ouster, praised the acting president for her cooperation with the U.S.

“Delcy Rodríguez, who is the President of Venezuela, is doing a great job, and working with U.S. Representatives very well,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social while Rodríguez and Burgum were meeting.

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed U.S. hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

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Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, right, and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum arrive for a meeting at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, right, and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum meet at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum smiles during a meeting with Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez, behind, and U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum meet Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

It remained unclear Wednesday whether ballots cast during extended polling place hours in Texas' primary will be counted in two counties that saw mass confusion over voting locations.

Such votes have been set aside in Dallas County after the Texas Supreme Court stepped in Tuesday night, staying a lower court's ruling. As of Wednesday afternoon, county election officials were still waiting for direction on whether the ballots should be included in vote totals.

The same issue affected Williamson County, north of Austin, which had hours extended at two polling places and has since had the last-minute ballots set aside.

But for Democrats in deeply blue Dallas County, the state's second most populous, they say their hopes are dwindling. Terri Burke, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said the Supreme Court’s action was expected because it’s hard to get poll hours extended under Texas law.

“In a lot of ways, nobody was surprised by the writ from the Supreme Court last night,” Burke said. She added it’s likely the late ballots won’t be counted.

It is unclear exactly how many ballots were cast during the extended hours. According to data on the Dallas County Elections Department’s website, 2,316 in-person “provisional” ballots were rejected or pending, a number that includes any ballots flagged for a variety of issues as well as those the high court ordered to be segregated. A total of nearly 280,000 people voted in the county's election, based on unofficial figures from the department.

Of greater concern, Burke said, was the chaos unleashed by the precinct-only voting system that Dallas County was forced to use because of a change by local Republicans, who refused to use a system that allowed voters to cast a ballot anywhere in the county, as they had done since 2019. Voters instead could cast ballots only at their assigned precinct. Under state law, Democrats had to use the same method.

Confused and frustrated, some voters were turned away from polling places on Tuesday and directed to other locations.

“There is a case to be made, and we can document it, there were people who were disenfranchised," Burke said.

She said she will attempt to push the legislature to repeal the 2006 law that requires both parties to hold a joint primary to prevent this sort of chaos: “If one party wants to wreck their primary, they should be able to do that but they should not be able to wreck someone else’s.”

In Dallas County, a judge ordered polls to remain open for two hours past the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time, citing “voter confusion so severe” that it caused the website of the county election office to crash. The judge was acting on a petition filed by the local Democratic Party in a heavily left-leaning county. The extension applied only to Democratic voting precincts.

There was initial concern that it could affect the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate because Dallas is the home base of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, but she later conceded to James Talarico, a state lawmaker.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who advanced to a runoff Tuesday against Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, challenged the lower court’s ruling. Shortly after, the state Supreme Court stayed both decisions in Dallas and Williamson counties. Its brief orders said ballots cast by voters in both counties who were not in line by the 7 p.m. scheduled close of polls should be separated.

Emily French, the policy director for Common Cause Texas, a voting advocacy group, said it is standard for ballots that are cast during extended poll hours to be set aside. In El Paso, for example, voting was extended for an hour on Tuesday after problems with voter check-in systems earlier in the day. French said she expects them to ultimately be tallied if no one is contesting the extension.

Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, said the organization is continuing "to monitor this situation and will be weighing all options to ensure every Texan is able to have their vote counted.”

Primary voters line up to cast ballots at a voting center in Dallas, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Primary voter Allie Davis carries her seven-week-old son Declan as a Dallas County Election Navigator checks her ID before entering a voting center in Dallas, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)