1. Short title This Act may be cited as the United States Legal Gold and Mining Partnership Act . 2. Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) The illicit mining, trafficking, and commercialization of gold in the Western Hemisphere— (A) negatively affects the region’s economic and social dynamics; (B) strengthens transnational criminal organizations and other international illicit actors; and (C) has a deleterious impact on the environment, indigenous peoples, and food security. (2) A lack of economic opportunities and the weak rule of law promote illicit activities, such as illicit gold mining, which increases the vulnerability of individuals in mining areas, including indigenous communities, who have been subjected to trafficking in persons, other human rights abuses, and population displacement in relation to mining activity, particularly in the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. (3) Illicit gold mining in Latin America often involves and benefits transnational criminal organizations, drug trafficking organizations, terrorist groups, and other illegal armed groups that extort miners and enter into illicit partnerships with them in order to gain revenue from the illicit activity. (4) Illicit gold supply chains are international in nature and frequently involve— (A) the smuggling of gold and supplies, such as mercury; (B) trade-based money laundering; and (C) other cross-border flows of illicit assets. (5) In Latin America, mineral traders and exporters, local processors, and shell companies linked to transnational criminal networks and illegally armed groups all play a key role in the trafficking, laundering, and commercialization of illicit gold from the region. (6) According to a report on illegally mined Gold in Latin America by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime— (A) more than 70 percent of the gold mined in several Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, is mined through illicit means