President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, in New York next Tuesday during the UN General Assembly. The pull-aside meeting will be the first in-person encounter between the two leaders and will bring the United States and Venezuela together at the highest level in more than a decade.
The meeting follows the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured then-President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year. It will be the first time the leaders have met since that operation, which altered the political setting for relations between Washington and Caracas.
Trump has also announced an agreement between the United States and Venezuela that he said would give the U.S. majority control of billions of barrels of oil reserves in the Caribbean country. The terms of that arrangement have not been set out, and the planned discussion between Trump and Rodríguez has no public agenda so far.
The encounter is due after Trump addresses the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and holds meetings with other global leaders. His programme for the same day includes bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Japan, as well as talks with several leaders from the Persian Gulf.
The Rodríguez meeting will close Trump’s official agenda during the UN High-Level Week. Its timing and duration have not been disclosed, and neither side has announced expected commitments from the discussion.
The last direct meeting between the heads of state of the United States and Venezuela took place more than ten years ago. Barack Obama and Nicolás Maduro held a brief conversation during a summit in Panama in April 2015.
The planned meeting now gives Trump and Rodríguez a direct channel at a moment when the two governments are discussing Venezuela’s oil reserves and following Maduro’s capture. It also places Venezuela among the bilateral engagements Trump is holding alongside the General Assembly.
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