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Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president, urged President Donald Trump to remove sanctions against Venezuela in full, arguing that partial licenses from Washington do not give foreign investors the long-term legal certainty they need. Speaking at a televised event with local and foreign investors at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Rodríguez said Venezuela had asked Trump “for the investors, not only for Venezuela,” and called for “no [sanctions] against Venezuela nor against its economy.”
Rodríguez made the case that licensing measures, even when they ease certain constraints, do not solve the central issue of predictability for investors planning projects over years. She said, “Una licencia no es, no da, ni brinda la certidumbre necesaria para una inversión a largo tiempo,” adding that investors require stability beyond time-limited authorization.
To illustrate her point, Rodríguez pointed to Chevron Corp., describing it as having operated for years under temporary permissions in Venezuela that sometimes ended when the licenses’ terms ran out. She said the licenses had allowed Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil despite sanctions that have been in place since 2019, while also saying that in some instances the authorizations only permitted preventive maintenance at the company’s facilities.
Rodríguez said Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but she linked the country’s long-running production challenges to corruption, poor management, and U.S. economic sanctions. In her account, the combination of those pressures contributed to a continual decline in production even while the reserves remained among the largest globally.
She described U.S. Treasury licenses as providing a measure of relief that falls short of fully removing sanctions. Rodríguez said, “Definitivamente debemos entre ambos gobiernos crear las verdaderas condiciones para que las inversiones en el país puedan desarrollarse a corto, mediano y a largo tiempo también,” arguing that both governments must create the conditions that allow investment to develop across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons.
Rodríguez’s remarks came after a U.S.-led shift in sanction enforcement after the January 3 military operation that she described as deposing and capturing then-President Nicolás Maduro. She said Trump’s administration had since loosened Venezuela sanctions in limited ways, allowing U.S. companies to do business with the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., known as PDVSA.
She also said Trump issued a license authorizing transactions with Minerven, the state gold-mining company. Rodríguez described that move as a sign of Trump’s intention to exert greater control over Venezuela’s natural resources, even as the sanctions regime continued in a reduced or selectively licensed form.
Rodríguez said the U.S. and Venezuelan governments have increased their ties and that Washington and Caracas also agreed to restore diplomatic relations broken in 2019. She added that the sanctions adjustments are occurring as Venezuela seeks to spur foreign investment using new legislation for the oil and mining sectors, among other legal instruments.
In her remarks, Rodríguez presented the appeal to fully lift sanctions as tied to investor confidence rather than only the existence of specific authorizations. She argued that even with licensing that permits certain commercial activity, the lack of a comprehensive end to sanctions prevents investors from committing to long-term projects.