NEW YORK—U.S. President Donald Trump met Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez late on Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, their first meeting since American forces captured then-leader Nicolas Maduro in a January raid.
The pull-aside meeting during a reception Trump hosted during the U.N. General Assembly came during Rodriguez’s first trip to the United States since taking office. She is set to address the General Assembly on Wednesday afternoon.
A White House official said the meeting with Rodriguez included Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and Stephen Miller, assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for policy.
Trump has built a working relationship with Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president. But critics say Washington has sidelined the opposition led by Maria Corina Machado, dropping demands for free elections in favor of oil and investment deals with the interim government. A small group of Venezuelans protested in New York on Tuesday, calling for elections.
In his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday morning, Trump called Maduro an “outlaw dictator,” said hundreds of political prisoners had been freed since his capture and held up the raid as proof the US would use its “unmatched military might” to protect its interests in the Western Hemisphere.
“To the victor belong the spoils,” he said, calling an oil deal his administration signed with Caracas last month “perhaps the biggest deal ever made.” Trump has said he wants $100 billion in investment to flow into Venezuela’s oil industry.
