Americas — 2026-09-26

Venezuela Interim President Rodriguez Thanks Trump at UNGA as US Secures Majority Control of Oil Reserves

BLUFWashington's oil leverage over Caracas now sidelines Machado entirely, and she very likely remains unable to return to Venezuela within the next 30 days as the regime consolidates its new bilateral channel.

Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodríguez told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that "there will be elections" but set no date, saying the timing would be determined by "the Venezuelan people" 1. She thanked President Trump for restoring diplomatic relations and cited energy, security and economic cooperation as areas of shared interest, calling a recent bilateral agreement one of the largest ever reached between the two countries 1. Trump's UNGA address a day earlier had touted US-Venezuela oil arrangements giving Washington majority access to more than 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, calling it "perhaps the biggest deal ever made" and projecting roughly $100 billion in future investment 2. Rodríguez separately described a closed-door Tuesday meeting with Trump in New York, attended by Secretary of State Rubio and Treasury Secretary Bessent among others, as "historic" 2. Opposition leader María Corina Machado remained unable to return to Venezuela after three failed travel attempts from Panama this week 1.

Analysis
Rodríguez's UNGA appearance formalizes what the oil deal already signaled: Caracas has traded sovereignty rhetoric for negotiated access to Washington, with Machado sidelined from that channel entirely. Machado very likely remains unable to return to Venezuela within the next 30 days, as her Panama-based travel attempts have failed three times running with no indication the blocking mechanism has lifted. This confidence is high, resting on a consistent, repeated pattern of thwarted attempts rather than a single blocked trip. The unspecified election timeline gives Rodríguez's government continued latitude to defer a vote while consolidating the economic relationship Trump touted.

4 sources