US lifts sanctions on Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly

The US Treasury Department on Wednesday removed from its sanctions list Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and brother of acting president Delcy Rodríguez. The Treasury did not explain the reasons for the decision.

Rodríguez, who has led the Venezuelan parliament since 2021, was taken off the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals list, which entails the blocking of assets in the United States, a ban on entering the country and a prohibition on transactions with US citizens and companies. He had been designated in September 2018, along with his sister, former first lady Cilia Flores and then defence minister Vladimir Padrino. At the time, the Treasury said Nicolás Maduro had given them “high-ranking positions” in the government to help him “remain in power”.

Rodríguez was removed from the list in April, which allowed her to travel to New York in September for the UN General Assembly, where she met US President Donald Trump. Rodríguez took power after Maduro and Flores were detained in a US military operation in Caracas in January; both face charges in New York of drug trafficking and, since last week, of torture and repression.

Since then, the Rodríguez government has negotiated an oil agreement with Washington, announced in August, which according to El País gives the United States majority control over a fifth of Venezuela’s reserves, the largest in the world. According to Reuters, the Rodríguez siblings pushed legal changes to further open the energy and mining sectors to foreign companies.

Presidential elections remain without a date. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio received in Washington Dinorah Figuera, head of the opposition delegation in talks with the Venezuelan government, with no announcements. Opposition leader María Corina Machado is not taking part in that dialogue and has been unable to return to Venezuela.