How Venezuela’s New Leader Rose From Pariah to Powerful U.S. Partner

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How Venezuela’s New Leader Rose From Pariah to Powerful U.S. Partner

Delcy Rodríguez has preserved an authoritarian system and avoided elections for five months while courting Trump officials and the oil industry

By Vera Bergengruen, Kejal Vyas and Alex Leary, WSJ

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May 24, 2026 5:30 am ET

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez consolidated power in Venezuela with U.S. support, delaying free elections.

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CARACAS, Venezuela—Before White House officials left the presidential palace one recent afternoon, interim President Delcy Rodríguez gave them blue goody bags tagged with her name. Inside was Venezuelan rum for the men and straw beach bags and chocolate for the women.

She posed smiling for photos with the American officials, who posted them on social media with the caption #SelfieByDelcy. And then she asked them to convey a message to Washington.

“Please tell President Trump, who is a man of action, that here too there are men and women of action,” Rodríguez said through a translator to approving murmurs from oil executives and U.S. officials. “And we have given our word to build solid foundations for a long-term relationship.”

Rodríguez has rapidly positioned herself as Washington’s indispensable partner in Venezuela since U.S. commandos captured her boss, strongman Nicolás Maduro, in January. Once an adversary sanctioned by the U.S. and a hard-line socialist, she now hosts a steady stream of Americans eager to invest in oil-rich Venezuela, and wins praise from Trump.

So far, Rodríguez’s alliance with the U.S. is giving her the money, legitimacy and time to consolidate power and preserve much of the authoritarian system built under Maduro—while pushing free elections further out of reach.

The Trump administration doesn’t want to disrupt the relationship, White House officials said. Rodríguez is compliant, open for business and keeping the country calm, the officials said.

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright laugh while delivering joint remarks.

Rodríguez with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in Caracas. Ariana Cubillos/AP

Elections aren’t even on Trump’s mind at this point, said a senior administration official. The Iran war has hardened his feelings, the official said, as he views Venezuela’s oil as a hedge against turmoil in global energy markets.

Rodríguez, whose government didn’t return requests for comment, is betting the Trump era will end with her in power. She has told Washington that while she supports holding elections eventually, the U.S. should unwind the sprawling set of sanctions on Venezuela so revenue flows can resume and repairs can be made to battered infrastructure before a vote is held, a person familiar with the discussions said.

“They have no intention of leaving office anytime soon,” said James Story, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. “This is the Cosa Nostra.”

Rodríguez is taking credit for Venezuela’s new economic era in a country brought to ruin by mismanagement and corruption. She has embarked on a bus-and-motorcycle caravan across Venezuela and traveled abroad, tightened control over the state and reshuffled her cabinet.

It is all part of a technocratic rebranding of the far-left movement long hostile to Washington. Under the makeover, encounters between Americans and Venezuelans in Caracas feel less like bilateral meetings than audiences. U.S. officials and executives rise respectfully when Rodríguez enters the ornate rooms in the Miraflores palace to settle into the central chair, the visitors arrayed before her in rows.

Unlike Maduro, a bus driver who admired Communist Cuba, Rodríguez is fluent in the language of Western investors and diplomats. A lawyer educated in Britain and France, she has impressed visiting U.S. officials over elaborate dinners at a restored coffee hacienda in Caracas.

“Drill, Baby, Drill!” Trump energy adviser Jarrod Agen wrote in a VIP guest book during a recent visit to Caracas.

Neither side is eager to disrupt the arrangement. U.S. officials acknowledge that the president needs Venezuela to remain his marquee foreign-policy success as the unpopular war in Iran grinds on. Trump seeks near-daily updates on Venezuela and frequently speaks about the country, saying oil wealth is pouring into both the U.S. and Venezuela.

“They’re dancing in the streets because there’s a lot of money coming in,” Trump said earlier this month. The White House promoted the resumption of Miami-to-Caracas flights, and Trump signed newspaper front pages touting the inaugural flight for staffers.

The deepening Trump-Rodríguez partnership is alarming her opponents, both in Venezuela and in the U.S. They worry that Trump’s fixation on oil and investment risks entrenching the system Rodríguez inherited and fear that a return to democracy is a lost cause.

Venezuelan officials, including Delcy Rodriguez and Diosdado Cabello, greet supporters from a vehicle during an anti-sanctions campaign in Caracas.

Rodríguez greeted supporters in April with figures from Maduro’s regime, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters

“I don’t see any elections in the short term, namely because I see no will from the top two actors: the U.S. and the Delcy government,” said Enrique Márquez, an opposition politician and former political prisoner whom Trump invited to the State of the Union address in February.

The potential return of opposition leader María Corina Machado would sharpen the tension between the oil-and-stability bargain and the democratic transition Washington still says it supports.

Rodríguez’s country is rapidly growing impatient with the pace of change. Her approval rating slipped to about 30% in three private polls conducted last month as Venezuelans suffer under hyperinflation, high unemployment and power outages. A recent Meganalisis poll showed 46% of Venezuelans were thankful to Trump for the change in their country, down from 92% in January.

Labor unions have protested for pension and wage hikes. Dissidents demand the release of political prisoners. Some former allies in the ruling socialist party are upset with Rodríguez for submitting to what they call Yankee imperialism. The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, a local research group, documented 1,926 protests against the government during the first three months of 2026, an increase of 144% from the same period last year.

Since January, the U.S. has taken control of millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said the proceeds of oil sales are held in New York bank accounts. The accounting firm KPMG is auditing expenses before the money is returned to pay for the salaries of teachers, police and other public sector workers—partly to prevent graft in a country widely perceived to be among the world’s most corrupt. “The wealth of the country is actually benefiting the people of Venezuela,” Rubio said.

But neither government has detailed how much money has been transferred.

One of the few trusted economic indicators in Venezuela is the amount of U.S. dollars that Americans are pumping into the country, stemming the depreciation of the local bolivar currency. At least $4 billion has gone into the foreign-exchange market, said Tamara Herrera, an economist at the Caracas banking consulting firm Sintesis Financiera.

Still, dollar shortages persist. And most Venezuelans are reeling from inflation that, despite easing in recent months, still tops 600% annually.

Earlier this year, Rodríguez announced the launch of a website called Sovereign Transparency, where she said citizens can track how her administration is spending public money. To date, the site shows movement on only one day: March 13, when $300 million entered and exited the fund for wage and pension hikes.

A man pushing a hand truck loaded with bottled drinks past a supermarket with signs displaying food prices in US dollars.

Venezuelans are suffering under hyperinflation. Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images

‘Trump speed’

Critics say the changes she has made have been more cosmetic than structural. She has replaced key figures from Maduro’s old security establishment, reshuffled nearly half the cabinet and kept her powerful brother atop the legislature.

At the same time, Trump’s backing has helped Rodríguez gain international legitimacy by lifting sanctions on her personally and pushing other countries and institutions to re-engage. She visited the Netherlands this month and has been invited to the Ibero-American Summit in Madrid despite European Union sanctions on her.

In a sign of how closely Rodríguez and Trump officials are coordinating, Rubio was the one who announced that she would travel to India later this month to discuss opportunities for Venezuelan oil sales.

Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela's acting president, speaks with journalists after a session at the International Court of Justice.

Rodríguez appears to be in no rush to hold elections. Bart Maat/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. officials dispatched to Caracas say they have been working at a frantic pace, with the White House closely tracking their efforts. Inside the U.S. Embassy, which had been closed since 2019, workers have been scrubbing mold, rolling out fresh wall-to-wall carpeting and installing new air conditioning units. Embassy officials have started hiring more than 100 local staff.

“We are witnessing the rebuilding of our economic ties, the reopening of Venezuela to global commerce and the reconnecting of our two countries,” the U.S. chargé d’affaires, John Barrett, told reporters and officials after the first direct U.S. flight in seven years landed in Caracas. Standing next to him, Agen said the changes move at “Trump speed.”

But the lack of momentum toward elections has worried some of Trump’s closest allies—Florida Republicans. They now hear from Venezuelan-American constituents who were ecstatic about Maduro’s ouster but now fear the old repressive apparatus remains in place.

“Delcy Rodríguez is a terrible person,” Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) recently told reporters. “We’ve got to have an election soon.”

Asked by visiting reporters in front of U.S. officials recently when she would hold elections, Rodríguez smiled uneasily.

“I don’t know,” she said with a wave as she walked out of the room. “Some time.”