Delcy meets Trump ahead of PM Persad-Bissessar

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez, who ar­rived in the Unit­ed States yes­ter­day to at­tend the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), is sched­uled to meet US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to­day and Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to­mor­row.

On her first trip to the US since be­com­ing act­ing pres­i­dent, Ro­dríguez was wel­comed yes­ter­day by John Bar­rett, the US Chargé d'Af­faires for Venezuela, along with Venezue­lan min­is­ters Cal­ix­to Or­te­ga, Vice Pres­i­dent for Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, and Oliv­er Blan­co, First Vice Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and In­ter­na­tion­al Trade.

Ro­dríguez is ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to US me­dia re­ports, she said her speech will seek to en­sure that "Venezuela's voice is heard" and that the coun­try is seen as one that "bets on peace, di­a­logue and the con­struc­tion of shared paths."

She said she ar­rived in New York with the "re­solve and hope of a peo­ple who be­lieve in the en­counter and uni­ty among na­tions."

Ro­dríguez added that her ad­dress would de­fend Venezuela's prin­ci­ples through a work agen­da based on re­spect, co­op­er­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing.

Her sched­ule yes­ter­day in­clud­ed meet­ings with In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) Pres­i­dent Ilan Gold­fa­jn and UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res.

Ro­dríguez's talks with Trump to­day will mark their first face-to-face meet­ing since the Unit­ed States cap­tured for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, in Jan­u­ary. The meet­ing will take place on the side­lines of a re­cep­tion be­ing host­ed by Trump.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly an­nounced that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ro­dríguez will hold a bi­lat­er­al meet­ing at noon to­mor­row on the side­lines of the UN­GA. Dis­cus­sions are ex­pect­ed to fo­cus pri­mar­i­ly on en­er­gy and trade, while al­so ad­dress­ing broad­er ar­eas of mul­ti­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion.

The meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to for­malise en­hanced co­op­er­a­tion on pri­or­i­ty mat­ters iden­ti­fied dur­ing talks be­tween the for­eign af­fairs min­is­ters of T&T and Venezuela in Cara­cas two weeks ago.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials are hope­ful that to­mor­row's meet­ing could re­sult in an ex­change of in­vi­ta­tions for each leader to vis­it the oth­er's coun­try, as well as the is­suance of a joint state­ment.