Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez used her first state of the union address Thursday to call for opening the country’s state-run oil industry to foreign investment and to advocate for resuming diplomatic ties with the United States, less than two weeks after Washington captured and ousted former President Nicolás Maduro.
The address marked a sharp departure in tone from the fiery anti-American speeches that defined the Maduro era, and came on the same day Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader, María Corina Machado, was in Washington for a closed-door meeting with President Donald Trump.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez delivered her first state of the union address Thursday, calling for opening the country’s state-run oil industry to foreign investment and urging a resumption of diplomacy with the United States, less than two weeks after Washington captured and ousted former President Nicolás Maduro.
In a 44-minute speech before an audience of foreign diplomats in Caracas, Rodríguez declared that “a new policy is being formed in Venezuela” and urged lawmakers to approve oil sector reforms that would secure foreign companies’ access to the country’s vast petroleum reserves.
“Venezuela, in free trade relations with the world, can sell the products of its energy industry,” she said.
Rodríguez described oil revenues flowing into two sovereign wealth funds — one to support Venezuela’s deteriorating health services and another to rebuild public infrastructure constructed under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, and left to decline in the years since. The country’s hospitals are so poorly equipped that patients are asked to bring their own supplies, from syringes to surgical screws, according to the Associated Press.
A measured tone
The address stood in marked contrast to the hours-long anti-American speeches that defined the Maduro era. Rodríguez acknowledged that the U.S. capture of Maduro had left “a stain on our relations” even as she called for renewed bilateral diplomacy.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy,” Rodríguez said. “I ask that politics not be transformed, that it not begin with hatred and intolerance.”
She coupled calls for engagement with assertions of national sovereignty. “If one day, as acting president, I have to go to Washington, I will do so standing up, walking, not being dragged,” she said. “I’ll go standing tall … never crawling.”
A portrait of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was displayed next to her as she spoke. She called on the U.S. to “respect the dignity” of Maduro, who is being held in a Brooklyn jail after pleading not guilty to drug-trafficking charges.
Trump praises Rodríguez; Machado meets with Trump in Washington
The address came a day after Trump held his first known phone call with Rodríguez and praised the longtime Maduro loyalist as a “terrific person.” Trump has kept Machado — the Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader whose party is considered to have won Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections despite Maduro’s claims of victory — largely frozen out of discussions about the country’s political future while embracing Rodríguez.
On Thursday, Machado was in Washington for a closed-door meeting with Trump at the White House. She said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to him during the session. Emerging afterward, she told dozens of cheering supporters: “We can count on President Trump,” without elaborating.
Machado’s Washington visit received no coverage on Venezuela’s state-run television, which continued to broadcast pro-government imagery alongside statements from Iranian and Russian officials criticizing what they described as U.S. aggression, and footage from state-organized rallies demanding Maduro’s return. On the streets of Caracas on Thursday, crowds of teachers marched carrying posters condemning the U.S. for “kidnapping” Maduro, with national police in riot gear posted throughout the capital. Pro-government graffiti scrawled across city walls read: “To doubt is to betray.”
Uncertainty on the streets
On the streets of central Caracas, most residents declined to be interviewed, fearful of reprisals from Maduro’s security apparatus, which remains intact. Those who did speak described a country struggling to comprehend a political reality in which Washington claims to call the shots.
“It’s a complete sea of uncertainty, and the only one who now has the power to make decisions is the United States government,” said Pablo Rojas, 28, a music producer.
Rojas said he was watching Trump’s meeting with Machado closely “to see if she takes a leadership position, if they consider her ready to lead the country or be a candidate,” then shook his head. “It’s impossible to know what will happen.”
Economic opening, political continuity
David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University who has studied the country for 30 years, said the new government appeared to be pursuing a calculated trade.
“They’ve kept the same anti-imperialist rhetoric going, but more moderated,” Smilde said. “Their idea is to give Trump everything he wants economically, but stay the course politically.”
The day before her address, Rodríguez told reporters that her government would continue releasing political prisoners detained under Maduro’s rule. Human rights groups, however, verified only a fraction of the releases she claimed had taken place.