Frustrated by Iran, Trump at last seizes enriched uranium – but from Venezuela

Donald Trump has succeeded in removing a country’s stash of highly enriched uranium – although that country is not Iran . On Friday, the US Department of Energy announced that “thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership” 13.5 kilograms (about 30 pounds) of uranium had been removed from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela . The department called the joint operation, involving the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela , “a win for America, Venezuela, and the world”. “The safe removal of all enriched uranium from Venezuela sends another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela,” Brandon Williams, the administrator of the department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, said . The International Atomic Energy Agency said the uranium had been “safely and securely transported by land and sea from South to North America” after “a complex and sensitive operation”. It was taken to a Department of Energy complex in South Carolina having been removed from a site 15km from Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. The Department of Energy claimed the operation sent “another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela”. After Trump’s controversial decision to order the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, on 3 January the White House has rebooted relations with its longtime adversaries in Caracas. …