Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has officially addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, September 23, a day after meeting US President Donald Trump in New York. Her speech had originally been scheduled for Thursday, but was moved to Wednesday afternoon. The appearance was the first in-person address to the assembly by a Venezuelan head of state since President Nicolás Maduro spoke there in 2018.
Rodríguez called for dialogue and a just peace, invoked the devastation of Venezuela’s June 24 earthquakes, and described the new energy agreement with Washington as important to her country’s economy. She thanked Trump for restoring diplomatic cooperation and announced what she called an orderly, institutional process of infrastructural strengthening, while demanding the end of the illegal sanctions led by the US empire. However, her failure to mention the illegal and ongoing detention of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores by the US regime was a notable and deafening silence.
The speech followed a closed-door encounter Tuesday evening at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, during a reception Trump hosted for foreign leaders attending the 81st General Assembly. Rodríguez called it a “historic meeting” and said the two had discussed energy, mining, security, and other areas of cooperation. The image of a Chavista leader seated with the president who ordered a military attack on her country nine months earlier was a profound capture of the tensions running through new Venezuela-US relationship.
“We held a historic meeting with the president of the US, Donald Trump,” Rodríguez wrote in a post about the meeting, “with whom we discussed strengthening the bilateral relationship between our countries and advancing a cooperation agenda in strategic areas such as energy, mining, security, and other matters of common interest.”
She thanked Trump and his administration for “assistance” following the June 24 earthquakes and for “supporting” Venezuela’s return to multilateral forums. Rodríguez said the historic relationship between the two countries should now be guided by dialogue and concrete benefits for the Venezuelan people.
An encounter under unequal conditions
The White House account of those present listed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller alongside Trump. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia and Deputy Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco accompanied Rodríguez. Following the meeting, Rubio called it a short but important meeting focused on economic recovery and “political transition,” according to corporate media.
The encounter was the first between sitting US and Venezuelan leaders since Barack Obama briefly met President Maduro at the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama. This meeting followed the brutal invasion of Venezuela by the US empire on January 3 and the abduction of President Maduro and First Lady and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores, who remain held captive by the US regime.
Caracas and Washington agreed on March 5 to restore the diplomatic and consular relations severed in 2019, when Washington had backed a failed regime change attempt by recognizing former deputy Juan Guaidó as the so-called “interim president” of Venezuela.
Rodríguez had listened comfortably on Tuesday as Trump had brazenly defended the US empire’s vicious attack against Venezuela from the UN podium and presented access to its oil as a prize of war. “To the victor belongs the spoils,” he said. That boast makes the question of who controls Venezuela’s resources unavoidable in any assessment of the talks. However, the fact that the US empire is forced to deal with a Chavista government—in theory—to gain its strategic interest is seen by some analysts as a sign of the complexities in the relationship.
The symbolism of the photograph
In a photograph circulated by the Venezuelan presidency, Rodríguez raises two fingers in a V for victory while holding her other hand in a clenched fist beside Trump. The gestures recall President Maduro’s V sign after being kidnapped and arriving in the US empire. Some supporters claim that the image is a show of resolve by a leader obliged to negotiate with the government holding Venezuela’s president; other observers saw tension in her clenched hand. A photograph cannot establish what Rodríguez intended, but the contrasting interpretations reveal the political weight of the meeting.
Chavista critics on the left have raised serious concerns that the agreements negotiated after the invasion concede too much control to Washington. That concern has been sharpened by Trump’s language about Venezuelan oil and US oversight of its revenues. Within Chavismo, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez defended the acting president’s difficult diplomatic course on Wednesday, portraying her participation at the UN as a victory for Venezuela. The encounter also disappointed far-right opposition politicians—in Venezuela and the US—who had expected the US empire’s attack to remove Chavismo from power. None of these competing reactions, on their own, have created a significant split within Chavismo so far, as criticism within the camp continues to come from a place of support.
Some Venezuelan politicians have also celebrated a sovereign-risk reading near 6,030 basis points at the time of the New York visit. The date matters: financial reporting recorded 6,037 basis points on September 3, nearly three weeks before the Trump meeting. The figure therefore cannot demonstrate that Tuesday’s encounter caused a sudden fall from 9,000. Even around 6,000 basis points, Venezuela’s borrowing-risk premium remains exceptionally high.
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A wider diplomatic agenda
Rodríguez’s UN visit began on Monday with meetings with the heads of the Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, followed by talks with UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The financial discussions concerned reconstruction, technical cooperation, and renewed access to international institutions, as Venezuela confronts the damage from the earthquakes and the continuing effects of US colonial sanctions.
The acting president also met with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, according to her social media posts. On Tuesday, she briefly spoke with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and both expressed interest in continued contact. Chilean President José Antonio Kast has scheduled a meeting with her at UN headquarters for Thursday afternoon, September 24. These engagements span neighbors and governments with sharply different positions toward Venezuela.
The National Assembly had authorized Rodríguez’s travel on Wednesday, as Article 235 of Venezuela’s Constitution requires parliamentary or Delegated Commission authorization when a president’s absence from national territory exceeds five consecutive days. The authorization permits a longer stay; by itself, it does not confirm how long Rodríguez will remain abroad.
Her return to the UN at presidential level brings Venezuela’s case to an international forum while President Maduro and Flores remain imprisoned in the US settler colony. Whether diplomacy yields reconstruction assistance, relief from coercive measures, or progress toward their release remains an open question for many analysts.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
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