Within the chaotic aftermath of the Trump administration’s weekend assault on Venezuela and seize of its president, Nicolás Maduro, the nation is now being helmed by an formidable new chief: Delcy Rodríguez.
Venezuelans aren’t any stranger to the 56-year-old Rodríguez, who till now was Maduro’s vice chairman. A hard-line socialist whom the strongman chief as soon as billed as a “tigress,” Rodríguez has made a reputation for herself as a expert political operator identified for her pragmatism and for loyalty.
Within the chaotic aftermath of the Trump administration’s weekend assault on Venezuela and seize of its president, Nicolás Maduro, the nation is now being helmed by an formidable new chief: Delcy Rodríguez.
Venezuelans aren’t any stranger to the 56-year-old Rodríguez, who till now was Maduro’s vice chairman. A hard-line socialist whom the strongman chief as soon as billed as a “tigress,” Rodríguez has made a reputation for herself as a expert political operator identified for her pragmatism and for loyalty.
Rodríguez developed that status over years of navigating Venezuelan politics. Earlier than her ascent to the vice presidency, Rodríguez served in a variety of authorities positions, together with communication and data minister and international minister. In latest years, she has grown much more influential after gaining oversight of Venezuela’s oil trade and the nation’s intelligence service.
With all eyes on Venezuela this weekend, Rodríguez rapidly emerged within the highlight as one of many nation’s strongest actors. She was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president on Monday, with the backing of the nation’s Supreme Court docket and army.
“This is identical regime; it’s simply not headed by Nicolás Maduro,” Christopher Hernandez-Roy, an professional on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research’ Americas program, stated at an occasion on Monday. “It’s the identical those who run the army who’ve backed Maduro and now have formally backed Delcy Rodríguez.”
For Rodríguez, who speaks English and French along with Spanish, politics run within the household. Her father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, was a socialist chief and leftist guerrilla who began a Marxist political celebration. He was in the end arrested over his ties to the 1976 kidnapping of American businessman William Niehous and died whereas in police custody.
Maybe considered one of Rodríguez’s closest political allies is her brother, additionally named Jorge, who was Maduro’s chief political strategist and heads the nation’s Nationwide Meeting. The 2 siblings have championed Maduro’s rule, together with by serving to to preside over his sham reelection in 2024.
Even earlier than Maduro’s ousting, the Rodríguez siblings had been in shut contact with Washington. Final yr, the Miami Herald reported that the duo had been selling themselves and different senior officers to Washington as a “extra acceptable” various to Maduro. Qatari mediators helped them current their case.
In keeping with the Monetary Occasions, the siblings had been concerned in secretive talks with Washington final yr a couple of transitional authorities in a post-Maduro state of affairs.
The Trump administration had been “telegraphing that they had been constructing [this transition] round Delcy for a while now,” the Occasions reported one investor in Venezuela saying. “They don’t see her being a lapdog, however she was at all times the one who was most constructive in all of the negotiations” with the US.
Over the weekend, as information of the U.S. army operation broke, Rodríguez was defiant, publicly demanding Maduro’s launch and calling on President Donald Trump to supply proof of life. Maduro is Venezuela’s “solely president,” she insisted.
Trump on Saturday stated Rodríguez is “prepared to do what we expect is critical to make Venezuela nice once more. However she once more struck a starkly totally different tone in a televised tackle later that day, condemning the U.S. actions as an “atrocity that violates worldwide regulation.”
“By no means once more will we be slaves, by no means once more will we be a colony of any empire,” she declared. “We’re able to defend Venezuela.”
In response, Trump publicly intensified his threats. “If she doesn’t do what’s proper, she goes to pay a really massive worth, in all probability greater than Maduro,” Trump stated in an interview with the Atlantic on Sunday morning.
Since then, Rodríguez has turned down the temperature. “We invite the US authorities to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation,” Rodríguez stated in a assertion posted on social media late on Sunday. “President Donald Trump, our peoples and our area deserve peace and dialogue, not warfare.”
“Venezuela has the proper to peace, improvement, sovereignty and a future,” she added.
