In 2017, as political outsider Donald Trump headed towards Washington, Delcy Rodríguez spotted an opportunity.
The then-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, Rodríguez, instructed Citgo, a subsidiary of the state oil company, to donate $500,000 for the president’s inauguration. Faced with the challenges of Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government in supplying Venezuela, Rodríguez aimed for an agreement that would have opened doors for U.S. investment. At almost the same time, she watched as Trump’s former campaign chief was hired as a lobbyist for Citgo, courting Republicans in Congress and attempting to arrange a meeting with Exxon’s CEO.
The seduction effort failed. Within weeks of taking office, Trump, urged on by then-Senator Marco Rubio, focused primarily on restoring democracy in Venezuela in response to Maduro’s repression of the opposition. However, the initiative bore fruit for Rodríguez, making her a prominent figure in U.S. business and political circles, paving the way for her own ascent.
“She’s an ideologue, yet practical,” said Lee McClenny, a retired foreign service officer who served as the chief U.S. diplomat in Caracas during Rodríguez’s early engagements. “She understood that Venezuela needed to find a way to revitalize its dying oil economy and seemed willing to work with the Trump administration to achieve that.”
Almost a decade later, as Venezuela’s interim president, Rodríguez’s message—that Venezuela is open for business—seems to have persuaded Trump. Since Maduro’s surprising capture over the weekend, he has hailed Rodríguez as a “friendly” U.S. ally while threatening a fate similar to that of her predecessor unless she manages the ruling party and grants the U.S. “full access” to the country’s vast oil reserves. Although neither has mentioned elections, the Constitution requires them to be held within 30 days following the final vacancy of the presidency.
This account of Rodríguez’s political rise is based on interviews with ten former U.S. and Venezuelan officials, along with businessmen from both countries who have closely interacted with Rodríguez and, in some cases, have known her since childhood. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from someone they universally described as intellectually sharp, sometimes charming, but above all, an unrelenting operator who does not tolerate dissent. Rodríguez did not respond to requests for an interview from AP.
The Murder of a Father Hardens Leftist Outlook
Rodríguez came late to the leftist movement started by Hugo Chávez, following the footsteps of her older brother, Jorge Rodríguez, who as the president of the National Assembly swore her in as interim president on Monday.
The tragedy of her childhood fed a strong leftist perspective that accompanied the siblings throughout their lives. In 1976, during the height of the Cold War, as U.S. oil companies, political advisors, and Pentagon consultants wielded great influence in Venezuela, a little-known urban guerrilla group kidnapped a Midwestern businessman. Rodríguez’s father, a socialist leader, was detained for questioning and died in custody.
McClenny recalls Rodríguez mentioning the murder in meetings and bitterly blaming the U.S. for losing her father at the age of 7. This crime radicalized another leftist of the era: Maduro.
Years later, while Jorge Rodríguez served as an electoral official for Chávez, he secured a position for his sister in the president’s office.
However, she initially moved slowly and clashed with colleagues who viewed her as a pompous know-it-all.
In 2006, during a lightning international tour, Chávez expelled her from the presidential plane and ordered her to return home alone from Moscow, according to two former officials who were on the trip. Chávez became annoyed because the delegation’s meeting agenda had unraveled, triggering a dispute with Rodríguez, who was in charge of the schedule.
“It was painful to see how Chávez spoke about her,” said one of the ex-officials. “He never spoke ill of women, but throughout the flight back, he couldn’t stop calling her conceited, arrogant, and incompetent.”
Days later, she was fired and never held another high-profile position under Chávez.
Political Resurrection and Growing Power under Maduro
Years later, in 2013, Maduro revived Rodríguez’s career after Chávez passed away from cancer and he took power.
Rodríguez, a lawyer trained in Britain and France, speaks English and spent considerable time in the United States. This granted her an advantage in the internal power struggles within chavismo, the movement founded by Chávez, which includes various factions such as social democrats, hardline military, and corrupt actors, some linked to drug trafficking.
Her broader worldview and refined tastes also made her a favorite among the so-called “boligarchs,” a new elite that amassed fortunes during Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution. One of these associates, media magnate Raúl Gorrín, collaborated closely with Rodríguez in her clandestine efforts to improve relations with Trump’s first administration and helped organize a secret visit by Texas Republican Representative Pete Sessions to Caracas in April 2018 to meet with Maduro. Months later, U.S. federal prosecutors revealed the first of two money laundering charges against Gorrín.
Following Maduro’s rise to the vice presidency in 2018, Rodríguez gained control over vast sectors of the Venezuelan oil economy. To help manage the petro-state, she hired foreign advisors with experience in global markets. Among them were two former finance ministers from Ecuador who helped manage a dollarized and export-oriented economy under their leftist colleague, Rafael Correa. Another key partner is French attorney David Syed, who for years has sought to renegotiate Venezuela’s external debt amid severe U.S. sanctions that prevent Wall Street investors from recouping their payments.
“She sacrificed her personal life for her political career,” said a former friend.
As she accumulated more power, she crushed her internal rivals, including the once-powerful Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, who was imprisoned in 2024 as part of a corruption crackdown led by Rodríguez.
In her de facto role as Venezuela’s operations director, Rodríguez proved to be a more flexible and reliable partner than Maduro. Some have compared her to a sort of Venezuelan Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China.
Hans Humes, CEO of Greylock Capital Management, asserted that her experience will be invaluable as she works to boost the economy, unify chavismo, and protect Venezuela from the restrictions imposed by Trump. Imposing an opposition-led government right now, he claimed, could trigger bloodshed similar to what ripped Iraq apart after U.S. forces deposed Saddam Hussein and established a provisional government filled with many exiled leaders.
“We’ve seen how expatriates who have been away too long think things should be as they were before they left,” said Humes, who has met with both Maduro and Rodríguez several times. “What’s needed is people who know how to deal with things that aren’t as they used to be.”
Is Democracy Postponed?
It remains unclear where Rodríguez’s more pragmatic leadership style will leave Venezuelan democracy.
Trump, in comments following Maduro’s capture, stated that Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado lacks the “respect” needed to govern Venezuela, despite the candidate she endorsed winning what the U.S. and other governments regard as a decisive victory in the 2024 presidential elections stolen by Maduro.
Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, pointed out that it is impossible for the president to achieve his goal of driving criminal gangs, drug traffickers, and Middle Eastern terrorists from the Western Hemisphere while various factions of chavismo share power.
Nothing Trump has said suggests that his administration is considering a swift transition without Delcy. “No one is talking about elections,” Abrams noted. “If they think Delcy is in charge, they are completely wrong.”
Joshua Goodman / AP