South America · updated 1h ago · 2 min read
Trump Meets Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez in New York on UN General Assembly Sidelines
Trump will meet Delcy Rodríguez on the UN General Assembly sidelines in New York. This will be their first in-person meeting since Maduro's January ouster.
How the rapprochement is politically characterised.
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MercoPress emphasises a US-Venezuela alliance and protectorate angle, while Reuters sticks to the logistics and offers no added geopolitical judgement.
Trump-Delcy UN meeting
US President Donald Trump will meet Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez in New York on Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, a senior US official said on Friday, with the meeting described as a “pull-aside.”
“US President Donald Trump will have a meeting with Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez in New York on Tuesday”
Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, said the president will host a UN General Assembly leaders' reception and that “There, he'll participate in a pull-aside with the acting president Rodriguez of Venezuela,” while Reuters reported no details on what they might discuss.R
The Reuters account ties the meeting to the recent US-Venezuela energy agreement signed last month that would allow the US to take partial control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, with the expectation that American companies can help revive Venezuela’s “battered energy industry.”
Reuters also placed the meeting in the context of Maria Corina Machado’s “growing dilemma over when to return home,” noting she left the country late last year to receive the Nobel Peace Prize after largely living in hiding since a contested 2024 election.
Informal, first in years
Multiple outlets characterized the Trump-Rodríguez encounter as informal and not a formal bilateral session, with MercoPress saying the meeting would be “informal rather than a formal bilateral.”
MercoPress also said the meeting would be the first encounter between a US president and a Venezuelan leader in more than eleven years, since the brief meeting between Barack Obama and Nicolás Maduro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama in 2015.M
MercoPress linked the trip to a broader shift in relations after Washington restored diplomatic relations with Caracas, suspended since 2019, following its formal recognition of the interim government.
The same MercoPress report said the rapprochement deepened on August 28, when Trump announced a deal giving the United States privileged access to more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves, and it added that Maduro remains in US custody awaiting trial. M
Machado, oil, and politics
The meeting is framed against ongoing political uncertainty in Venezuela, with Reuters saying opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is facing “a growing dilemma over when to return home to rally support.”R
“Maria Corina Machado is facing a growing dilemma over when to return home to rally support”
In El Mundo’s account, the meeting is described as the first face-to-face meeting between leaders of Venezuela and the United States that Nicolás Maduro repeatedly sought, and it says it occurs as democratic leader María Corina Machado appears in Venezuela again after fleeing more than nine months ago.
El Mundo also quotes Machado telling The Wall Street Journal in an interview, “I cannot lead the process from abroad; the time has come to return. My return is not a challenge, it is a contribution to the process,” while it reports that opposition sources said, “We thought she would be in Caracas by the 15th.”
El Mundo further says the negotiation table aims to have a new Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) and a new National Electoral Council (CNE) by December, and it adds that electoral advantage is being measured through an Atlas Intel poll showing Machado at 52% positive image among Venezuelans compared to 19% for Delcy Rodríguez.