A senior member of the United Arab Emirates royal family has acted as a mediator in talks between Donald Trump and the interim president.
In a meeting room in Doha, some 7,500 miles from Caracas, officials were discussing Venezuela’s future without Nicolás Maduro, its dictator. A senior member of the United Arab Emirates royal family was acting as a liaison between the regime and Donald Trump, while the US president was building an “army” to pressure the Venezuelan leader into surrendering. But Maduro was not part of the secret meetings in Doha. Instead, it was Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, who were leading the talks. According to the Miami Herald, which has strong ties to Latin America, Ms. Rodríguez had gone to Washington to present herself as a “more acceptable” alternative to the Maduro regime. Today, she governs Venezuela with Trump’s approval.
Details of the meeting have fueled suspicions that Maduro’s removal was an internal operation, planned to leave in power a president who can manage the transition, without completely dissolving the state and without causing chaos or unrest.
As reported in October about the meeting, Ms. Rodríguez offered “Madurism without Maduro,” a kind of “lightened regime.” On Saturday, Donald Trump declared that the United States would “lead” Venezuela during the transition through an interim government led by Rodríguez, while preparations were made for American oil companies to come in and start producing. “She is basically willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump told reporters of Ms. Rodríguez, who was sanctioned by the United States during Trump’s first term for her role in undermining Venezuelan democracy.
DELCY RODRÍGUEZ GIVE UP?
On Sunday, Francisco Santos Calderón, Colombia’s former vice president, suggested that the entire operation to remove Maduro had been an inside job, with the help of Ms. Rodríguez. Santos said he was “absolutely certain” that Rodríguez had betrayed Maduro by allowing the U.S. to capture him without much resistance. “So they didn’t overthrow him, they handed him over,” he said. “I’m absolutely convinced that Delcy Rodríguez handed him over. All the information we have, when you put it together, leads to the conclusion that this was an operation where he surrendered. Of course, the stage had to be set. President Trump says that Delcy will be the one to lead the transition, so Delcy will lead the transition. She’s very clear about the role she’s going to play and she’s going to try to gain some independence.”
Indeed, Rodríguez, a 56-year-old lawyer with ties to the oil industry, seems like an ideal candidate to cooperate with the U.S. She has served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018. She entered the government shortly after Hugo Chávez’s election in 1999 and gradually rose through the ranks.
She has served as foreign minister, president of the Constituent Assembly and, while vice president, also held the posts of oil minister and finance minister. In her last role, Rodríguez managed to maintain her leftist profile while also becoming “the face of relative economic liberalization,” according to Geoff Ramsey, a Latin America expert at the Atlantic Council. These market-friendly policies helped pull Venezuela out of a deep economic crisis that lasted until 2021, during which the economy shrank by three-quarters and nearly eight million people were forced to flee the country. This success has earned her the approval not only of Maduro but also of a significant part of domestic business connected to the government, according to Pedro Garmendia, a Venezuelan analyst of political risk and geopolitical affairs. “They have begun to see her as a predictable and effective figure,” he said, referring to the private sectors that now see Rodríguez as an ally.
CONTRARY STATEMENTS
She can also rely on family history as revolutionary evidence. Her father once led an operation to kidnap an American businessman as part of a communist guerrilla group that accused him of being a CIA agent. Her brother Jorge is another important figure in the system and currently heads the country’s legislature. She and her brother, who has been a central figure in recent negotiating efforts with the US, have become the regime’s “power couple,” according to Garmendia.
“Both have learned to live and survive under American pressure and sanctions,” he said. Yet even with these credentials, Rodríguez now faces the difficult task of holding the coalition together and avoiding the internal perception of being a “tool of the United States,” Ramsey said, especially in the face of rivals within the ruling camp who could exploit any weakness. “Keeping everyone together will not be easy. So far she seems to be doing it,” he said, “but we can assume that within the ruling party the situation is far from calm.” Trump probably didn’t help matters on Saturday when he claimed that Ms. Rodríguez had spoken to Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, and offered to do “whatever the United States needs.”
Rodríguez’s efforts to “manage perception” domestically and appear to be resisting American pressure may explain the initial contradictory statements between Trump and Rodríguez, Ramsey said.
CONFRONTING STYLE
Rodríguez has embraced a confrontational style in her public roles, unafraid to openly attack opponents. After Venezuela was expelled from the Mercosur trade bloc in 2016, she tried to attend one of its meetings in Buenos Aires anyway. “Close the door on us and we’ll come in through the window,” she told reporters, moments after she managed to get past security and into the building.
During his press conference on Saturday, Trump did not specify how long he envisioned Rodríguez in charge. “Nobody is going to take over. They have a vice president, chosen by Mr. Maduro, who is currently the vice president and, I think, now the president,” he said. In a later interview with the New York Post, Trump said he would not send troops to Venezuela if Rodríguez did what he wanted. What Trump really wants for Venezuela remains unclear. Whether Rodríguez will agree to his wishes may depend on which side of her political identity prevails: revolutionary loyalist or pragmatic power broker.
Rodríguez’s takeover was one of two options presented to the US by Qatari mediators, the Miami Herald reported, citing anonymous sources; the other option was Miguel Rodríguez Torres, a retired general currently in exile.
Rodríguez is believed to have a “significant relationship” with members of the Qatari royal family and hides some of his assets there, making Doha a natural choice as a mediator between it and the US. During a meeting in the Qatari capital, a senior member of the royal family admitted that they were acting as a bridge between Caracas and Washington on matters related to “intelligence and economic cooperation,” the Miami Herald reported. The proposals for “Madurism without Maduro” were presented to the White House by Richard Grenell, one of Trump’s special envoys, who met with Maduro in January of last year.
An initial plan, presented in April, called for Maduro to step down, stay in Venezuela, and give U.S. companies access to Venezuelan oil. In exchange, the U.S. would drop criminal charges against the Venezuelan president and Rodríguez would take over.
But that proposal fell through, as Rubio argued that the US should accept nothing less than regime change. A second proposal, presented in September, suggested that Rodríguez lead a transitional government while Maduro sought asylum in Qatar or Turkey. That proposal was also rejected by the US, which believed that the regime’s criminal structures would simply reformat under new leadership. “A relaxed cartel was not an acceptable option,” one source said. Reports of meetings between Rodríguez’s team and the Americans faded toward the end of the year. Meanwhile, intermediaries assured the Trump administration that she would promote American energy investment, making her an easy choice to lead at least a transitional government. “I’ve followed her career for a long time, so I have a clear idea of who she is and what she represents,” a senior US official told the New York Times.
“I’m not claiming that she is the ultimate solution to the country’s problems, but she is definitely someone with whom we think we can cooperate on a much more professional level than we have been able to with her,” the official added, referring to Maduro.
However, US officials said their relationship with the interim government would depend on whether Rodríguez played by their rules and warned that they could take further military action if she did not respect US interests. On Saturday night, Rodríguez appeared on state television and struck a defiant tone. “We demand the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores,” she said. Trump appeared to sideline María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Trump said Ms. Machado did not have the support needed in the country to take over from Maduro, disappointing her supporters.
Reports suggested that her team failed to convince Washington that it had the capacity to take control of the state apparatus, largely because it lacked the support of the Venezuelan military.