“Interim president” of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez, who has run the country since the American arrest of deposed dictator Nicolás Maduro in January, referred to President Donald Trump as a “friend” and “partner” during an event next to Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolás Maduro Guerra.
Rodríguez used the words in the context of President Trump similarly referring to socialist Venezuela as a “new friend” of America’s following Maduro’s capture. Trump has repeatedly referred positively to Rodríguez, a hardline socialist who was among Maduro’s closest confidantes, as someone Washington could work with. He has also implied that Rodríguez is not actually in charge of the country, but carrying out orders from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom polling shows is the most popular politician in Venezuela.
“American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels per day and we just received from our new friend and partner Venezuela more than 80 million barrels of oil,” Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The $80 million figure had not previously been reported and eclipsed Trump’s initial estimate that Venezuela would ship between $30 and $50 million to America.
The oil, Trump has previously explained, would be in exchange for American oil companies being allowed to operate in the country and offer expertise to rehabilitate the Venezuelan oil industry. Believed to be home to the world’s largest known oil reserves, Venezuela has struggled in the past two decades to produce and refine its oil as a result of impoverishing socialist policies that forced its top engineers into exile or prison. While Maduro attempted to reverse the downfall by inviting Iranian engineers to fix his largest oil complex, that collaboration had not yielded any meaningful results in increases in oil production by the time of Maduro’s arrest.
Delcy Rodríguez, alongside the younger Maduro, referenced the State of the Union address at an event for socialist youth on Thursday.
“I celebrate and salute that concept to be had of Venezuela because Venezuela has never been an enemy nation of the United States,” Rodríguez said, responding to Trump calling the country a “new friend.” “Venezuela has never been a country that threatens the United States or any other country in the world.”
“I expect — and that is the sentiment of the Venezuelans — that as friends that we are, that the United States and all the countries of the world end the blockade and sanctions on Venezuela,” she continued, referring to sanctions imposed in response to Maduro’s and the regime’s links to narco-terrorism.
“President Trump, as friend, as partner… we are opening a new agenda of cooperation with the United States, end the sanctions and end the blockade against our nation because that blockade is also against the Venezuelan youth,” she claimed.
Referring to Maduro’s arrest, and that of his wife Cilia Flores, Rodríguez stated that the year began “very badly” and described the isolated law enforcement operation as a “military aggression by a nuclear power.” She nonetheless hailed the current situation as “extraordinary” for American-Venezuelan relations.
Cooperation with the United States will reportedly depend on Rodríguez significantly amending Venezuela’s atrocious human rights record, in addition to cutting ties to American enemies such as Cuba, China, and Russia. As of late February, reports indicate that Rodríguez is indeed leading a massive exodus of Cuban regime agents from the country, who had for decades effectively controlled the regime. The Cuban Communist Party was so dominant under Maduro that it confirmed following his arrest that 32 of its soldiers were killed trying to defend Maduro from the Americans; no Venezuelan military deaths were officially reported, though some socialist personalities claimed that many did, in fact, perish. According to a report by the Reuters news agency last week, both Cuban security operatives and “civilian” workers such as the nation’s slave doctors are slowly being expelled from the country, allegedly under Rodríguez’s orders.
On the human rights front, Rodríguez and her brother, chief lawmaker Jorge Rodríguez, have agreed to free the hundreds of political prisoners tortured and languishing in Venezuelan custody. Maduro regularly used violence to kill and otherwise silence anti-socialist voices in the country since he took power in 2013. As of Friday, the Venezuelan regime claims to have freed over 3,000 people.
In a gesture giving credence to Rodríguez’s assurances that she will free political prisoners, President Trump highlighted the suffering of anti-socialist people in the country during his State of the Union. He welcomed as a surprise guest to the event Enrique Márquez, a politician who attempted to run against Maduro for president in the 2024 sham “election.” He was imprisoned shortly after the “election” and falsely accused of staging a “coup.” Trump reunited Márquez with his niece, Alejandra González, at the State of the Union.
On Monday, Rodríguez and her underlings officially announced plans to turn the Helicoide, the nation’s largest and most notorious torture complex, into a cultural center, ending decades of human rights atrocities at the Caracas site.
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