Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodríguez publicly thanked President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday for what she called their "goodwill" in rebuilding diplomatic and economic relations between Washington and Caracas, a striking turn from a regime figure who, just months ago, denounced the United States for capturing her former boss.
Rodríguez made the remarks during the signing ceremony for Venezuela's new Mining Law, a sweeping piece of legislation that revokes decades of socialist restrictions on the country's mining sector and opens the door to foreign investment, particularly from American companies. Christian K. Caruzo reported that Rodríguez used her opening remarks at the ceremony to express gratitude to Trump, Rubio, and other U.S. officials involved in the diplomatic process.
The scene would have been unthinkable a year ago. Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro spent years antagonizing Washington, courting Tehran, and treating the International Monetary Fund like a colonial relic. Now, with Maduro in U.S. custody and the regime scrambling to survive, the same government apparatus is rolling out the welcome mat for American capital and calling it progress.
Rodríguez's tone on Thursday stood in sharp contrast to her posture in the hours after Maduro's arrest. On January 3, a U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas, authorized by President Trump, resulted in the capture of Maduro and Cilia Flores. Rodríguez responded with a fiery emergency address, demanding their release and accusing the United States of launching an attack on Venezuelan sovereignty.
In that televised speech, as the New York Post reported, Rodríguez declared Maduro "the only president of Venezuela" and framed the U.S. raid as military aggression aimed at seizing the country's resources.
"The government of the United States launched an unprecedented military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," Rodríguez said.
She also announced military deployments in major cities and called for public mobilization. Iran's foreign minister reportedly spoke with Venezuela's foreign minister and condemned the U.S. action, with Rodríguez herself claiming the operation carried "Zionist" overtones.
That was January. By late March, the two countries had officially reestablished diplomatic ties. By Thursday, Rodríguez was thanking Trump by name.
The new Mining Law, approved last week by lawmakers in the regime-controlled National Assembly, headed by Rodríguez's brother, Jorge Rodríguez, represents one of the most concrete breaks with the Chávez-Maduro economic model. The legislation rescinds restrictions imposed by decree during the early years of Hugo Chávez's rule and introduces provisions designed to attract foreign investment into Venezuela's mining sector.
It follows a similar move months earlier, when lawmakers from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela approved reforms to the nation's hydrocarbons law, allowing foreign investment into the oil sector while revoking long-standing restrictions. Together, the two reforms amount to a quiet dismantling of the socialist framework that defined Venezuelan economic policy for more than two decades.
Rodríguez promoted the mining-law reform during a February visit by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Kyle Haustveit, assistant secretary for the Department of Energy's Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office, have also met with Rodríguez in Caracas in recent weeks. The breadth of the U.S. delegation signals that Washington sees real economic opportunity in a post-Maduro Venezuela, and that it intends to move fast.
The broader pattern of Democrats failing to constrain Trump's foreign policy makes the administration's Venezuela strategy all the more notable. While critics in Congress have questioned the approach, the results on the ground, diplomatic normalization, legislative reform, and renewed investment channels, speak for themselves.
At Thursday's signing ceremony, Rodríguez offered her most explicit public embrace of the bilateral relationship to date. In her opening remarks, she said:
"I would like to thank President Trump, the Secretary of State, and the Secretaries who have been involved in this entire process for their willingness to pursue diplomatic, economic, and cooperative relations with Venezuela adapted to a reality that allows the truth about Venezuela to be known."
Separately, the state-run outlet Telesur reported that Rodríguez described the resumption of talks between the IMF and Venezuela as a "great achievement of Venezuelan diplomacy" and thanked not only Trump and Rubio but also the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Qatar.
The IMF and World Bank both announced Thursday that they had resumed dealings with the Venezuelan regime, ending a seven-year-long rupture. For years, both Chávez and Maduro maintained a highly antagonistic stance toward the IMF. That the institution is now back at the table, and that Caracas is celebrating rather than protesting, marks a significant shift in the regime's orientation.
Michael Kozak, a senior official in the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, laid out the administration's strategy at a congressional hearing the same day. Speaking before the U.S. Congress Western Hemisphere Subcommittee at a hearing titled "Latin America After the Fall of Maduro," Kozak said the first phase of Trump's three-phase plan for Venezuela, stabilization, is "done."
The second phase, Kozak told lawmakers, will focus on recovery of the Venezuelan economy and "political reconciliation." He emphasized that the approach is not about "trusting" the regime, and pointed to the United States's "very significant" control of Venezuela's oil revenue as a source of leverage. The third phase, transition, remains ahead.
That framing matters. The administration is not handing Rodríguez a blank check. It is conditioning cooperation on measurable outcomes while holding substantial economic cards. The fact that Venezuela's own lawmakers are dismantling Chávez-era restrictions suggests the leverage is working.
The political dynamics in Washington are no less interesting. While some Democrats have openly admitted their party has failed to offer a coherent alternative, the Trump administration has moved decisively on Venezuela without waiting for consensus.
National Review noted that Rodríguez had been described as a hardline socialist, a former chief of Venezuela's intelligence service SEBIN, and a sanctioned official tied to documented human-rights abuses. Prior reporting indicated that she and her brother had tried to present themselves to Washington as a more acceptable post-Maduro alternative while preserving the ruling chavista system, a formula sometimes called "Madurismo without Maduro."
Trump himself acknowledged the relationship's transactional nature early on. After Rodríguez spoke with Rubio following Maduro's capture, Trump said: "She said, 'We'll do whatever you need.'" An administration official told the New York Times that Rodríguez is "certainly someone we think we can work at a much more professional level than we were able to do with him."
None of this erases Rodríguez's record. Her father was a Venezuelan Marxist figure. She rose through the ranks of the same system that impoverished millions and drove an exodus that destabilized the entire region. But the administration appears to have calculated that working with the regime's surviving structure, under firm conditions, is more productive than leaving a vacuum.
That calculation echoes broader debates playing out in Washington, where bipartisan disagreements over Trump's foreign policy approach have become a recurring feature of the political landscape.
Several things remain unclear. The exact terms of the new Mining Law have not been published in detail. The full scope of the IMF and World Bank's resumed engagement has not been specified. And the timeline for the third phase of Trump's plan, the democratic transition, has no public deadline.
Whether Rodríguez's public praise for Trump represents a genuine strategic pivot or a survival maneuver by a regime figure with no better options is a question only time will answer. What is clear is that the Trump administration has moved from confrontation to conditioned engagement in a matter of months, and that Venezuela's ruling class, for now, is playing along.
Meanwhile, the immigration consequences of Venezuela's collapse continue to shape domestic policy debates in Washington, a reminder that what happens in Caracas does not stay in Caracas.
When a socialist regime starts thanking the American president by name and dismantling its own economic restrictions to attract U.S. dollars, that is not goodwill. That is leverage, applied correctly.
