MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump and Delcy Rodríguez to meet in New York, first encounter with a Venezuelan leader in 11 years

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz confirmed Rodríguez's trip on Friday and said the meeting would be “informal” rather than a “formal bilateral,” what is diplomatically known as a “pull-aside”

US President Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday with Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, in what will 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.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz confirmed Rodríguez's trip on Friday and said the meeting would be “informal” rather than a “formal bilateral,” what is diplomatically known as a “pull-aside.” That same Tuesday, Trump will deliver his address to the General Assembly, hold a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, and chair a meeting with Gulf leaders, before returning to Washington that night.

The Chavista leader's trip to the United States, a government that until recently defined itself by its opposition to Washington, is the clearest sign of the new alliance between the two countries since Trump ordered a military operation earlier this year that ended with Maduro's arrest and left Venezuela in what the paper describes as a kind of American protectorate. Washington also restored diplomatic relations with Caracas, suspended since 2019, after formally recognizing the interim government.

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, a figure the US government places at around a quarter of the country's total. Facing criticism, Trump called it “a gift from Venezuela to the American people” and insisted it would not cost a dollar, adding that part of those reserves would help replenish US strategic stockpiles, now at their lowest level in four decades.

On Wednesday, Trump also announced he was removing Venezuela from the list of countries flagged for failing to meet their anti-drug trafficking commitments. “Given the positive progress made under the leadership of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, I have determined that Venezuela should no longer be designated as having failed demonstrably to fulfill its drug control commitments,” he said in a decree released by the State Department. He also praised bilateral cooperation against cartels, including the joint military operation that in June killed Tren de Aragua leader Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero, known as Niño Guerrero. Maduro, whom Washington describes as an “illegitimate former dictator and drug trafficker,” remains in US custody awaiting trial.

The last Venezuelan head of state to address the General Assembly was Maduro himself, in September 2018. Delcy Rodríguez knows the chamber well: she attended in 2016 as foreign minister and in 2019 as vice president, when she called US sanctions “state terrorism” that no longer uses bombs but banks and insurers, accused Trump of “extending his imperial claws” toward Cuba, and asked Washington for “less arrogance and more tolerance.” Several delegations walked out in protest during that speech, her last formal appearance before the body until the one she will give next week as head of state.