Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez took to the stage at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, delivering a speech in which she thanked US President Donald Trump for resuming "diplomatic relations and cooperation" with Venezuela. This was a stark departure from her 2019 address at the same venue, where she accused the US of perpetrating "economic terrorism."
In 2019, Rodriguez denounced the US for militarizing international relations and punishing millions of innocent people "in order to apply regime change doctrines and steal other nations' resources." She cited Venezuelan economic losses of $130 billion between 2015 and 2018 due to US sanctions. She also opined that the domination of the US political system by "plutocratic minorities" made the country unqualified to impose its model on others.
Seven years later, US plutocracy is going strong with Trump at the helm. Rodriguez appeared in a photograph with a grinning Trump in New York on Tuesday, less than nine months after he oversaw regime change in Venezuela by kidnapping Maduro. The kidnapped president is now in a Brooklyn jail, scheduled to stand trial in June 2027. Despite his attempts to remind everyone that, as a sitting head of state, his prosecution in a foreign court contravenes international law, his efforts have been futile.
The abduction took place on January 3, when the US military launched air attacks on Venezuela, killing some 100 people and whisking Maduro and his wife away. He is accused of leading the "Cartel of the Suns"—which does not actually exist—and engaging in "conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices." This is quite the accusation coming from the country that just used all manner of destructive devices to bomb Venezuela and kill a bunch of people.
The waning corporate media interest in Maduro's fate amounts to another coup for US impunity. The US has secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves, a deal Trump hailed as the "biggest oil deal in world history." Speaking at the UN, Trump boasted: "To the victor belong the spoils." This is a blatant admission of trampling Venezuelan sovereignty.
Since January, the US has lifted many coercive economic measures against Venezuela, including against Rodriguez herself. But trading sanctions for de facto colonialism isn't a great deal either. The continued bombing of vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, which a recent UN report warned may constitute crimes against humanity, suggests the US is nowhere near kicking its old habit of terrorism.
According to Gregory Wilpert, founder of Venezuelanalysis, "One cannot help but wonder whether Delcy Rodriguez is over-complying with Trump in some aspects of her negotiations with him." Given her highly vulnerable position, the Trump administration could treat her as it treated Maduro or Iran. Rodriguez promised elections in Venezuela at an unspecified time, but the US doesn't really care about democracy as long as the right people are in power. And Rodriguez might just be one of those people.
Source: www.aljazeera.com