Washington drops sanctions on Rodriguez
The United States has lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, a move that follows the US seizure and imprisonment of her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro. Because foreign policy is apparently never simple enough on its own, the Treasury Department quietly updated its website on Wednesday to show that Rodriguez had been taken off the Specially Designated Nationals List.
The decision was widely read as another sign that Rodriguez and US President Donald Trump are edging closer politically, even as Washington has sought to shape Venezuela’s future since Maduro was removed from power.
Rodriguez responded by welcoming the change and urging the US to go further in scrapping sanctions on Venezuelan people and institutions.
“President Trump’s decision is a significant step in the right direction to normalize and strengthen relations between our countries,” she wrote.
“We trust that this progress and determination will ultimately lead to the lifting of the additional active sanctions on our country.”
Why Rodriguez had been sanctioned
Rodriguez had been under sanctions from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, since 2018, during Trump’s first term. The penalties froze any assets she may have held in the United States and barred US-based individuals and companies from doing business with her.
At the time, the US accused Rodriguez and other senior government figures of being “involved in the destruction of democracy in Venezuela” and of “enriching themselves at the expense of the Venezuelan people”.
She had only recently been appointed vice president when those sanctions were imposed. That role continued until January 3, when a US military operation abducted Maduro.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured in the raid, are currently awaiting trial in the US on drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges.
Legal experts have broadly denounced the US attack as unlawful under international law. Rodriguez has also demanded that Maduro and Flores be sent back to Venezuela.
Rodriguez takes a softer line
Since becoming Maduro’s replacement, Rodriguez has generally tried to keep relations with Washington from collapsing completely, even if the whole arrangement remains a little hard to describe without reaching for a whiteboard.
She has moved to make Venezuela more open to outside investment. In January, she signed a law intended to open the country’s large oil reserves to private investors. A separate bill aimed at attracting foreign investment into the mining sector received an initial vote in March.
Critics, however, have questioned how these reforms have advanced and under what circumstances they are being pushed through. Trump has openly said he intends to “run” Venezuela, and after Maduro’s abduction he warned that more military action could follow if Rodriguez did not comply with his demands.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in an article published on January 4.
Rodriguez, for her part, has kept her criticism of Maduro’s abduction limited while continuing to improve ties with the US.
Wider picture in Venezuela
The US State Department said the American embassy in Caracas officially resumed operations on Monday after being closed for seven years.
International organizations, including the United Nations, have said human rights abuses continue in Venezuela despite the change in leadership.
Trump has presented Venezuela as a model for the kind of regime change he would like to see in Iran and Cuba. Critics point out, with some justification, that Maduro’s removal has not meant a full overhaul of the Venezuelan state.
The country’s government has long faced allegations of harshly crushing political opposition through arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
