The U.S. lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on April 1, a move that changes how she may engage with U.S. businesses and investment channels, according to a U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control entry posted on the Treasury website.
The latest step follows a wider pattern in the U.S. relationship with Venezuela that began after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife during an operation in Caracas on Jan. 3, the Associated Press reported. AP said the couple were taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges, and that both pleaded not guilty.
AP reported that without explicitly referencing the specific sanctions targeting her, Rodríguez, in a statement carried on her Telegram channel after Treasury’s announcement, said the U.S. move represented progress toward normalizing relations. “We value President Donald Trump’s decision as a step toward normalizing and strengthening relations between our countries,” she said. She added, “We trust that this progress will allow for the lifting of current sanctions against our country, enabling us to build and guarantee an effective bilateral cooperation agenda for the benefit of our people.”
The sanctions change also comes amid the U.S. government’s parallel legal and diplomatic positioning around Venezuela’s leadership. AP reported that last month the administration recognized Rodríguez as the “sole Head of State” of Venezuela in an ongoing civil case in U.S. federal court.
During Trump’s first term, the U.S. sanctioned Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, AP said, describing them as part of a network Treasury said played a role in allegedly undermining Venezuelan democracy. AP said the siblings were added to the Treasury list in September 2018, months after Maduro won re-election in a contest widely considered a sham because opposition politicians and parties were banned from participating.
In the period since Maduro’s ouster, AP said, the Trump administration chose to work with Rodríguez rather than with Venezuela’s political opposition. AP said she has since led Venezuela’s cooperation with the administration’s phased plan to turn the country around, including pitching the oil-rich nation to international investors and opening Venezuela to private capital, international arbitration, and international scrutiny.
AP also tied the broader U.S. posture toward Venezuelan industries to sanctions authorizations issued in recent months. It reported that in March, Treasury issued a broad authorization allowing the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, to directly sell Venezuelan oil to U.S. companies and on global markets—an operational shift after years in which Washington largely blocked dealings with Venezuela’s government and its oil sector.
Within Venezuela, AP reported that Maduro is still legally president. It said that in the hours after the Jan. 3 operation, the country’s ruling-party-loyal high court declared Maduro’s absence “temporary,” removing the need for a speedy election. The court ordered Rodríguez to take office for up to 90 days, with the possibility of extending the term to six months if approved by the National Assembly, AP said, noting that the assembly is also controlled by the ruling party and presided over by her brother. AP added that the 90-day period ends Friday.