Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez has signed a reform bill that would pave the way for further privatization of the South American country’s nationalized oil sector, meeting a key demand from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rodriguez held a signing ceremony Thursday with a group of state oil workers. She hailed the reform as a positive step for the Venezuelan economy.

“We’re talking about the future. We’re talking about the country that we’re going to give our children,” Rodriguez said.

The ceremony took place just hours after the National Assembly, dominated by members of Rodriguez’s United Socialist Party, passed the reform bill.

Jorge Rodriguez, the interim president’s brother, said: “After suffering, only good things come.”

Since the U.S. military kidnapped former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores on January 3, the Trump administration has been trying to pressure President Rodriguez to open the country’s oil industry to outside investment.

Trump even warned that if Rodriguez didn’t comply with his demands, she could “pay a very big price, probably even bigger than Maduro.”

Thursday’s legislation would give private companies control over the sale and production of Venezuelan oil.

It also calls for legal disputes to be resolved outside Venezuelan courts, a change long sought by foreign companies who say the country’s judicial system is dominated by the ruling Socialist Party.

The bill also caps royalties collected by the government at 30%.

At the same time that Rodriguez signed the reform law, the Trump administration also announced that it would ease some sanctions that have restricted Venezuelan oil sales.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it would allow the country’s government and state-owned oil company PDVSA to engage in limited transactions “necessary for U.S. entities to refine, export, re-export, sell, resell, supply, store, market, purchase, deliver, or transport Venezuelan-produced oil, including the refining of such oil.”

Previously, Venezuela’s entire oil industry was subject to sweeping U.S. sanctions imposed in 2019 during Trump’s first presidential term.

A series of changes on Thursday are aimed at making Venezuela’s oil market more attractive to outside oil companies, many of which remain wary of investing in the country.

Venezuela has experienced waves of political repression and economic instability under Maduro, whose government remains largely intact, although Maduro himself is currently in a New York prison awaiting trial.

His kidnapping left dozens dead and critics accused the United States of violating Venezuela’s sovereignty.

Venezuela nationalized its oil sector in the 1970s, and in 2007 Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, urged the government to tighten controls and seize foreign-held assets.

After Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump administration officials said the United States would decide to whom to sell Venezuelan oil and under what conditions and deposit the proceeds into U.S.-controlled bank accounts.

Concerns about the legality of such measures or Venezuela’s sovereignty have been brushed aside by Trump and his allies, who have previously claimed that Venezuelan oil should “belong” to the United States.