Trump calls Venezuela’s interim president 'a terrific person' after phone call

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he had held a “long call” with Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, the first known contact between the two leaders since the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.

“We just had a great conversation today, and she’s a terrific person,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

He later said on social media that he and Rodriguez had discussed “many topics”, including oil, minerals, trade and national security.

“We are making tremendous progress,” Trump said.

After Maduro’s capture in a deadly US special forces operation on January 3, Trump said he was content to let his former deputy Rodriguez take over – as long as she granted the United States access to Venezuelan oil.

He has suggested the United States could maintain oversight of the Caribbean country for years.

Rodriguez has been walking a diplomatic tightrope, seeking to meet Trump’s demands without alienating Maduro loyalists, who control Venezuela’s security forces and feared paramilitaries.

Writing on Telegram, she described her call with the US leader as “productive and courteous” and characterised by “mutual respect”.

Read moreVenezuelans regain access to X, a year after Maduro blocked network

‘New political era’

The 56-year-old added that she and Trump, 79, had discussed a “bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our people, as well as outstanding issues in relations between our governments”.

Earlier, at her first press conference as interim president, Rodriguez said Venezuela was entering a “new political era” marked by greater tolerance for “ideological and political diversity”.

Under pressure from Washington, Venezuela has released dozens of political prisoners in the past week, but hundreds remain behind bars.

Rodriguez claimed that a total of 406 political prisoners had been released since December in a process that “has not yet concluded”.

The Foro Penal legal rights NGO, which represents many detainees, gave a much smaller figure of around 180 freed.

An AFP count, based on data from NGOs and opposition parties, showed 70 people released since the fall of Maduro, who was taken to the United States to face trial on alleged drug trafficking charges.

Trump has so far sidelined opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from Venezuela’s post-Maduro transition, claiming the Nobel Peace Prize laureate does not command enough “respect” in the country.

Machado, who is currently living outside Venezuela, is due to meet Trump on Thursday at the White House to press for the opposition to be given a pre-eminent role.

Read moreVenezuela frees several Americans from prison, US official says

Released out of view

The trickle of prisoner releases continued on Wednesday with the freeing of 17 journalists and media workers.

Roland Carreño, a journalist and prominent opposition activist detained in August 2024 during post-election protests, was among those released.

A leading member of the Popular Will party, he was previously imprisoned between 2020 and 2023 on terrorism charges – an accusation frequently used to jail opposition figures in Venezuela.

In a video shared by another freed journalist, Carreño called for “peace and reconciliation”.

To avoid scenes of jubilant opposition activists celebrating their release, authorities have been freeing detainees quietly at alternative locations, far from television cameras and relatives waiting outside detention centres.

Carreño was released at a shopping mall.

Former presidential candidate Enrique Márquez, one of the first to be freed, was driven home in a patrol car.

A US State Department official confirmed on Tuesday that Americans had been released, without specifying how many or from where.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)