Venezuela’s Vice President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez addresses the media in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 10, 2025.
Leonardo Fernandez Viloria | Reuters
Uncertainty gripped Venezuela on Saturday as folks scrambled to know who was accountable for the South American nation after a U.S. army operation captured President Nicolás Maduro.
“What’s going to occur tomorrow? What’s going to occur within the subsequent hour? No one is aware of,” Caracas resident Juan Pablo Petrone mentioned.
President Donald Trump delivered a surprising choose for who would take management: The US, maybe in coordination with certainly one of Maduro’s most trusted aides.
Delcy Rodríguez has served as Maduro’s vp since 2018, overseeing a lot of Venezuela’s oil-dependent financial system and its feared intelligence service. However she is somebody the Trump administration apparently is keen to work with, no less than for now.
“She’s basically keen to do what we predict is important to make Venezuela nice once more,” Trump advised reporters of Rodríguez, who confronted U.S. sanctions throughout Trump’s first administration for her function in undermining Venezuelan democracy.
Lengthy strains wound by way of supermarkets and out of doors fuel stations as Venezuelans, lengthy used to crises, stocked up as soon as once more. Small pro-government rallies broke out in components of Caracas, however most streets remained empty within the nation of 29 million folks.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Venezuelan opposition chief Maria Corina Machado speaks throughout a press convention in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 11, 2025.
Leonhard Foeger | Reuters
In a serious snub, Trump mentioned opposition chief Maria Corina Machado, who was awarded final yr’s Nobel Peace Prize, did not have the help to run the nation.
Trump mentioned Rodríguez had a protracted dialog with Secretary of State Marco Rubio by which Trump claimed she mentioned, “‘We’ll do no matter you want.'”
“I feel she was fairly gracious,” Trump added. “We won’t take an opportunity that any person else takes over Venezuela that does not have the great of the Venezuelan folks in thoughts.”
Rodríguez tried to challenge energy and unity among the many ruling social gathering’s many factions, downplaying any trace of betrayal. In remarks on state TV, she demanded the speedy launch of Maduro and his spouse, Cilia Flores, and denounced the U.S. operation as a flagrant violation of the United Nations constitution.
“There is just one president on this nation, and his identify is Nicolás Maduro,” Rodríguez mentioned, surrounded by prime civilian officers and army commanders.
There was no speedy signal that the U.S. was operating Venezuela.
No signal of a swearing-in
Trump indicated that Rodríguez had been sworn in already as president of Venezuela, per the switch of energy outlined within the structure. Nevertheless, state tv has not broadcast any swearing-in ceremony.
In her televised deal with, Rodríguez didn’t declare herself performing president or point out a political transition. A ticker on the backside of the display recognized her because the vp. She gave no signal that she could be cooperating with the U.S.
“What’s being achieved to Venezuela is an atrocity that violates worldwide regulation,” she mentioned. “Historical past and justice will make the extremists who promoted this armed aggression pay.”
The Venezuelan structure additionally mentioned a brand new election have to be known as inside a month within the occasion of the president’s absence. However consultants have been debating whether or not the succession situation would apply right here, given the federal government’s lack of widespread legitimacy and the extraordinary U.S. army intervention.
Venezuelan army officers have been fast to challenge defiance in video messages.
“They’ve attacked us however is not going to break us,” mentioned Protection Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino López, wearing fatigues.
Inside Minister Diosdado Cabello appeared on state TV in a helmet and flak jacket, urging Venezuelans to “belief within the political management and army” and “get out on the streets” to defend the nation’s sovereignty.
“These rats attacked and they’ll remorse what they did,” he mentioned of the U.S.
Caracas residents like Yanire Lucas have been left choosing up shattered glass and different particles after an early-morning explosion in a army base subsequent to her home.
“What is occurring is unprecedented,” Lucas mentioned, including that her household is scared to depart house. “We’re nonetheless on edge, and now we’re unsure about what to do.”
Sturdy ties with Wall Avenue
A lawyer educated in Britain and France, Rodríguez has a protracted historical past of representing the revolution began by the late Hugo Chávez on the world stage.
She and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, head of the Maduro-controlled Nationwide Meeting, have robust leftist credentials born from tragedy. Their father was a socialist chief who died in police custody within the Nineteen Seventies, against the law that shook many activists of the period, together with a younger Maduro.
Not like many in Maduro’s interior circle, the Rodríguez siblings have prevented legal indictment within the U.S. Delcy Rodríguez has developed robust ties with Republicans within the oil business and on Wall Avenue who balked on the notion of U.S.-led regime change.
Amongst her previous interlocutors was Blackwater founder Erik Prince and, extra lately, Richard Grenell, a Trump particular envoy who tried to barter a cope with Maduro for higher U.S. affect in Venezuela.
Fluent in English, Rodríguez is typically portrayed as a well-educated average in distinction to the army hardliners who took up arms with Chávez towards Venezuela’s democratically elected president within the Nineties.
A lot of them, particularly Cabello, are wished within the U.S. on drug trafficking expenses and stand accused of significant human rights abuses. However they proceed to carry sway over the armed forces, the normal arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela.
That presents main challenges to Rodríguez in asserting authority. However consultants say that Venezuela’s energy brokers have lengthy had a behavior of closing ranks behind their leaders.
“These leaders have all seen the worth of staying united. Cabello has at all times taken a second seat or third seat, realizing that his destiny is tied up with Maduro’s, and now he very effectively would possibly do this once more,” mentioned David Smilde, a sociology professor at Tulane College who has performed analysis into Venezuela’s political dynamics over the previous three a long time.
“Quite a bit depends upon what occurred final evening, which officers have been taken out, what the state of the army appears like now,” Smilde mentioned. “If it would not have a lot firepower anymore, they’re extra susceptible and diminished and will probably be simpler for her to achieve management.”
An obvious snub of the opposition
Shortly earlier than Trump’s press convention, Machado, the opposition chief, known as on her ally Edmundo González — a retired diplomat broadly thought-about to have gained the nation’s disputed 2024 presidential election — to “instantly assume his constitutional mandate and be acknowledged as commander-in-chief.”
In a triumphant assertion, Machado promised that her motion would “restore order, free political prisoners, construct an distinctive nation, and produce our youngsters again house.”
She added: “Right this moment we’re ready to claim our mandate and take energy.”
Requested about Machado, Trump was blunt: “I feel it will be very robust for (Machado) to be the chief,” he mentioned.
“She would not have the help or respect inside the nation.”
Venezuelans expressed shock, with many speculating on social media that Trump had combined up the 2 ladies’s names. Machado has not responded to Trump’s remarks.
