Delcy, Trump hold first face-to-face meeting

Venezue­lan Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez and US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump held a first face-to-face meet­ing on Tues­day night in New York amid the rapid rap­proche­ment be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Cara­cas.

The closed-door gath­er­ing took place at the Lotte New York Palace ho­tel dur­ing a re­cep­tion for world lead­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the on­go­ing 81st ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. Trump was flanked by Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Scott Bessent, and oth­er White House of­fi­cials, while Ro­dríguez was joined by For­eign Min­is­ter Félix Plasen­cia.

The Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment pub­lished pho­tos of the meet­ing, with the two lead­ers smil­ing for the cam­eras in front of the coun­tries’ flags.

On her so­cial me­dia chan­nels, Ro­dríguez praised the “his­toric” sit-down with Trump and re­port­ed that the dis­cus­sions fo­cused on strength­en­ing “co­op­er­a­tion in strate­gic ar­eas such as en­er­gy and min­ing.”

“We thanked Pres­i­dent Trump and his gov­ern­ment […] for its sup­port for Venezuela’s rein­ser­tion in­to mul­ti­lat­er­al spaces,” she stat­ed. “Venezuela and the Unit­ed States share a his­toric re­la­tion that, in this new era, we must dri­ve for­ward through di­a­logue.”

Tues­day’s sum­mit was the first be­tween US and Venezue­lan lead­ers since a brief en­counter be­tween Barack Oba­ma and Nicolás Maduro dur­ing the 2015 Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Pana­ma.

Ro­dríguez is al­so set to be the first Venezue­lan head of state to par­tic­i­pate in the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly since Maduro in 2018, dur­ing Trump’s first term. In 2019, then as vice pres­i­dent, Ro­dríguez ad­dressed the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, de­nounc­ing US sanc­tions as a form of “state ter­ror­ism” and ac­cus­ing Trump of “stick­ing his im­pe­r­i­al claws” against Venezuela and Cu­ba

The high-lev­el meet­ing fol­lows a rapid diplo­mat­ic rap­proche­ment be­tween Cara­cas and Wash­ing­ton fol­low­ing the Jan­u­ary 3 US bomb­ings and kid­nap­ping of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and First La­dy Cil­ia Flo­res. In the months since, the act­ing Ro­dríguez ad­min­is­tra­tion has fast-tracked en­er­gy and min­ing re­forms tai­lored to US and West­ern cor­po­rate in­ter­ests while al­so re­align­ing the coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

The Venezue­lan act­ing pres­i­dent and her diplo­mat­ic team have yet to men­tion Maduro in their New York trip. Maduro and Flo­res are present­ly de­tained in Brook­lyn, some 10 miles from the UN head­quar­ters, and fac­ing drug traf­fick­ing con­spir­a­cy charges. Both plead­ed not guilty.