U.S. Restarts Diplomatic Relations With Venezuela

Washington has rapidly warmed up ties with Venezuela — and applied major pressure on it — since capturing the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, two months ago.

The U.S. State Department announced the re-establishment of diplomatic and consular relations with Venezuela in a statement issued on Thursday evening, underscoring a rapid rapprochement between the two longtime foes since U.S. commandos captured President Nicolás Maduro two months ago.

Mr. Maduro had severed ties with Washington in 2019 during an earlier pressure campaign by President Trump, then in his first term in office.

Up until Mr. Maduro’s ousting, such a major shift would have been almost unthinkable. Under Mr. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s foreign policy was defined by opposition to U.S. interference — or what Mr. Maduro and Mr. Chávez saw as resistance to U.S. imperialism.

Thursday’s announcement comes after yet another visit to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, by a high-ranking U.S. official. Doug Burgum, the Interior Department secretary, departed on Thursday after leading a delegation of dozens of representatives of U.S. industries, particularly mining, aimed at gaining access to Venezuela’s extensive reserves of gold, rare earths and other critical minerals.

Washington has exerted enormous pressure on Mr. Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodríguez, to hand over control of Venezuela’s oil industry, which is the backbone of the country’s economy. The United States now essentially dictates whom Venezuela’s national oil company sells to.

The reopening of diplomatic ties is likely to see the reopening of each country’s embassy in the other’s capital. Neither country’s embassy is open yet, however, according to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss a developing situation.

The State Department’s statement said that the move was intended to help “the Venezuelan people move forward through a phased process that creates the conditions for a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government.”

Analysts say elections are still a distant prospect in Venezuela, despite a marked reduction in political repression and the release of hundreds of political prisoners under Ms. Rodríguez’s leadership. The country’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize and then gave it to Mr. Trump, said last week that she intended to return to Venezuela in the coming weeks after nearly two years in exile.

Mr. Trump surprised many Venezuelans by supporting Ms. Rodríguez over Ms. Machado, who was barred from running in Venezuela’s last presidential election in 2024 but whose stand-in candidate was widely acknowledged to have handily won. Observers documented widespread fraud in the election’s vote-counting, and a crackdown on protests after Mr. Maduro was pronounced the winner resulted in thousands of injuries and at least 20 deaths, according to human rights groups.

Venezuela’s government remains largely unchanged except for Mr. Maduro’s absence. Ms. Rodríguez was one of Mr. Maduro’s most trusted deputies, and her brother is the head of the country’s legislative assembly. Diosdado Cabello, often referred to as Mr. Maduro’s enforcer, remains in a powerful role despite the United States having put a $25 million bounty on his head after accusing him of facilitating large-scale drug trafficking.

During Mr. Burgum’s visit, Mr. Trump praised Ms. Rodríguez in a social media post as doing a “great job,” noting that “The Oil is beginning to flow.” Ms. Rodríguez, for her part, wrote a post that complimented the U.S. government’s “friendly disposition toward working together.”

Edward Wong contributed reporting.

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