Delcy Rodríguez: ‘Drug trafficking and human rights were the excuse; the real motive was oil’

Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez alluded on Wednesday to Donald Trump’s announcement that oil revenues would henceforth be used exclusively to purchase American products, stating that “it is not unusual or irregular that economic relations exist between the United States and Venezuela.” She made these remarks during a meeting at Miraflores Palace with a delegation of members of the new National Assembly, including opposition figures Stalin González and Antonio Ecarri.

According to Rodríguez, “71% of Venezuelan exports go to eight countries and 27% to the United States.” She added there will be no supervised investments because “Venezuela must have economic relations with all countries in the hemisphere,” without specifically mentioning Trump.

The new Venezuelan president referred to the “kidnapping” of Nicolás Maduro as “a stain” that contaminates the relationship between the two countries and asserted that drug trafficking and human rights “were an excuse” for the U.S. intervention, “because the real motive is Venezuelan oil.” On Wednesday, the state-owned oil company PDVSA announced the existence of trade negotiations with the United States, just four days after the capture of the Chavista leader and his wife, Cilia Flores.

However, the official discourse emphasized Venezuela’s commercial sovereignty over third parties: “Energy resources must serve our development and that of other countries around the world,” Rodríguez said. “We are an energy powerhouse. It has brought us tremendous problems because of the energy voracity of the Global North.”

In recent days, the president has issued contradictory rhetoric. While in official statements she has expressed her willingness to work “jointly” with the United States, in speeches such as the one delivered Wednesday she insisted that the opposition’s extremism has led the country to “kneel” before foreign governments.

In that vein, Rodríguez, who until now had not addressed the opposition, stated that “the wound of January 3” was fueled by the opposition’s “fascist” elements. “A parliament at the service of foreign governments cannot be tolerated, nor can fascist social expressions be allowed, as they have been extremely dangerous for the Republic,” she asserted. “Extremism has led them to offer to bring our country to its knees and compromise our resources,” she added. While launching her attacks against the opposition, Rodríguez offered to initiate “a dialogue to heal the wound left in our people [by the U.S. intervention], which was supported and promoted by Venezuelan fascism and extremism.”

Almost simultaneously with the president’s speech, the other strongman of her government, Diosdado Cabello, stated on his program on state television that the number of deaths on the night of January 3 stood at 100, significantly raising the previously known figure of 32 Venezuelan military personnel, 24 Cubans, and two civilian women.

On the same program, Cabello insisted that the U.S. operation had not initially planned to take Cilia Flores, “the first combatant,” as she is known in Chavista rhetoric, but that it was she who, out of loyalty to her husband, said: “If you take him, take me too.” “In this way, she saved his life,” the minister said.

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