The Treasury Department on Thursday unveiled proposed rules that would tighten American investment in the sensitive technologies of adversarial nations — and quietly dropped Venezuela from the list of countries facing restrictions, declaring that the government of Nicolas Maduro "no longer exists" following his capture by U.S. forces in January. The move marks Washington's latest acknowledgment that the regime which once defined the country's relationship with the United States has been swept away.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury building in Washington, D.C. (File photo)
The Proposed Rules
According to reports from Washington, Treasury published the proposed rules for screening outbound investment in China, Russia, and other countries designated as national security concerns. The public will have through December 7 to submit comments before the regulations are finalized.
The rules were mandated under the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act of 2025, known as the COINS Act, which Congress passed in December and which grew out of a bipartisan effort first begun under former President Joe Biden in 2023. They would require American companies and individuals to notify Treasury about certain investment plans abroad — and ban them outright in other cases where officials determine the deals could harm U.S. national security.
The framework represents a significant expansion of an investment-screening regime that initially targeted only China. Where the original program focused on keeping American dollars out of a narrow band of rival technologies, the new rules spread both the country list and the technology list far wider.
Why Venezuela Is Off the List
The most striking detail of Thursday's announcement was not what was added, but what was removed. When Congress wrote the COINS Act, it listed Venezuela as a country of concern — but only "under the regime of Nicolas Maduro." Treasury now says that qualifier no longer applies.
The department said it dropped Venezuela because Maduro's government "no longer exists," pointing to the former president's capture by U.S. forces in a January raid on his Caracas compound. The current government, led by Maduro's former deputy Delcy Rodriguez, did not meet the law's definition of the regime the restrictions were meant to target, Treasury said.
The carve-out is not absolute. The proposed rule could still apply to certain investments in Venezuelan entities, Treasury added, without elaborating on which ones. That caveat leaves the door open for Washington to keep scrutiny on parts of the Venezuelan economy even as the country as a whole exits the blacklist.
Maduro, captured in the January 3 military operation known as Operation Absolute Resolve, was flown to New York aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and arraigned in Manhattan, where he pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons charges. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, remain held in a Brooklyn detention center ahead of a trial set for June 2027, and prosecutors have since added conspiracy-to-commit-torture charges tied to the alleged abuse of Americans detained in Venezuela.
The COINS Act and Its Reach
The proposed rules flesh out one of the most ambitious American experiments in policing the flow of private capital abroad. The underlying program — the Outbound Investment Security Program, codified at 31 C.F.R. Part 850 — took effect on January 2, 2025, initially covering U.S. investments in entities in or connected to China, Hong Kong, and Macau engaged in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence.
The COINS Act widens that net considerably. Beyond adding countries of concern — Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela under Maduro — it adds biotechnology as a restricted sector and gives Treasury the authority to designate additional sectors over time. Legal analyses of the law note it also covers high-performance computing and supercomputing, as well as hypersonic systems, and would empower the president to sanction foreign persons in these sectors linked to the regimes in question.
Covered transactions sweep broadly: equity acquisitions, certain convertible-debt financings, joint ventures, greenfield and brownfield investments, and even limited-partner investments in non-U.S. funds. For companies, the message is that a deal is no longer just a deal when the destination is a listed country and the technology is on the list — it is a national security event.
And Treasury is already enforcing the rules. Earlier this month, on October 7, the department announced its first-ever civil penalty under the outbound investment program: a $200,000 fine against Amidi, LLC, for failing to report a $92,478 investment made by its Chinese subsidiary into Noematrix, a robotics and embodied-AI firm. The penalty — more than double the size of the deal itself — was widely read as a warning shot that Washington is tracing dollars through foreign subsidiaries, not just parent companies.
A Signal to Beijing
The timing of Thursday's proposal carries a message of its own. Just last month, President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a lavish state visit to Washington, and Trump has pursued a notably less restrictive posture toward Chinese technologies in his second term than many hawks in his own party expected.
Against that backdrop, analysts say the proposed rules "may signal a desire to keep some pressure on Beijing's tech ambitions," according to reporting on the announcement. The country list, even minus Venezuela, still puts China squarely at the center of the program — the original and still principal target of the outbound screening regime.
The balancing act extends to Moscow as well. Days earlier, Trump signed an executive order waiving key sanctions and tariffs on Russia under the so-called Graham Act, which he had signed last month at lawmakers' urging to pressure Moscow over its war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president wants up to 60 days to assess the economic impact before making a final decision, drawing sharp criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who warned the delay would embolden Vladimir Putin.
A silicon wafer with printed electronic circuits. The proposed rules would restrict U.S. investments in semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, supercomputing, and hypersonic systems in listed countries. (File photo)
What This Means
For American investors, the proposed rules convert a gray area into a compliance minefield — or, depending on one's view, close a dangerous loophole. The October fine against Amidi demonstrated that Treasury intends to police indirect investments through controlled foreign subsidiaries, meaning a venture capital firm cannot simply route money through a Hong Kong subsidiary and claim ignorance.
For Venezuela, the removal from the list is a milestone in the country's forced transformation since January. Washington is effectively declaring that the regime the restrictions were designed to starve is gone, even as it keeps one hand on the door by preserving the right to restrict individual Venezuelan entities. Whether that opening draws real American capital into a battered economy remains an open question — Venezuela's oil sector and infrastructure will need far more than a regulatory delisting to attract serious investment.
For the broader rivalry with China, the rules underscore a quiet bipartisan consensus that has survived the transition from Biden to Trump: American money should not fund the rival's military-technological ascent. Even as Trump courts Xi with state visits and softer tech rhetoric, the Treasury's regulatory machinery keeps grinding in the opposite direction.
Caracas, Venezuela. Treasury removed Venezuela from the proposed investment-restriction list, saying Nicolas Maduro's government "no longer exists" following his capture by U.S. forces in January. (File photo)
What Happens Next
The immediate next step is procedural: the public comment period runs through December 7, after which Treasury will finalize the rules. Industry groups, technology companies, and venture capital firms are expected to weigh in heavily, pressing for clearer definitions and narrower triggers that limit compliance costs.
Congress will be watching too. The COINS Act directs Treasury to establish a program to identify transactions that were not notified, meaning the department's enforcement arm — barely a month into issuing its first penalty — is likely to grow sharper.
And Venezuela's status could yet change again. The proposed rules give Treasury the authority to add countries and sectors back as circumstances evolve. If the government in Caracas takes a turn Washington dislikes, or if specific entities draw scrutiny, the delisting that Maduro's ouster made possible could prove reversible.
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