Trump meets Rodríguez near Maduro’s prison as Venezuela’s oil flows to US
Press TV – September 23, 2026
US President Donald Trump has met Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, face-to-face for the first time at the Lotte New York Palace hotel, less than 15 kilometers from the Brooklyn prison where Nicolas Maduro has been held since US forces abducted him nearly nine months ago.
The closed-door meeting, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, was the first between US and Venezuelan heads of state in more than 11 years.
Rodríguez called it a “historic meeting,” saying the two sides discussed strengthening bilateral ties and cooperation in energy, mining, and security.
For critics of Venezuela’s interim government, the image of Rodríguez standing beside the man who ordered Maduro’s abduction amounted to a betrayal — the moment Caracas legitimized a kidnapping and opened the country’s resources to a foreign power.
The Lotte New York Palace sits in the heart of Manhattan. The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Maduro is being held on what many Venezuelans call fabricated “narcoterrorism” charges, is a short drive away.
Rodríguez posted images of the meeting on Telegram and X, calling it a “historic meeting” and saying: “Venezuela and the United States have historical relations which, at this stage, we are called upon to guide through dialogue.”
She thanked Trump for US support after June earthquakes and for backing the country’s “return” to international forums.
Trump, in his UN address the same day, again called Maduro a “dictator” and a “criminal,” and framed the US military aggression that removed him as a financial victory. “The spoils belong to the victor,” Trump said.
The oil deal behind the handshake
The meeting followed an oil agreement announced in late August that handed Washington control over a vast share of Venezuela’s reserves.
Under the deal, North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) — a company founded in 2024 by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt — received 100-year concessions covering 17 Venezuelan oil fields with roughly 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
The US government secured a 35% stake in NABEP’s parent company, preferential access to 20% of production at cost, and veto power over board appointments, with the board’s majority required to be US citizens. The agreement is governed by US law.
Trump has claimed the US and Venezuela together now hold “more than 60% of the world’s oil.” Observers describe the deal as treating Venezuela not as a sovereign nation but as a vassal state whose resources exist for Washington’s benefit.
Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency after Maduro’s abduction, installed with Washington’s acquiescence.
Since then, she has replaced legal firms representing Venezuela and PDVSA in US lawsuits, moved to regain control of Citgo from opposition-appointed boards, signed a petroleum law reform opening the sector to foreign private investment, and refused to set an election date.
For these services, she received what Maduro never could: international legitimacy, a UN platform, and a photograph with the US president. The price was Venezuela’s resource sovereignty.
Her visit drew protests from Venezuelans in New York and Doral, Florida, who called on world leaders not to normalize relations with what they described as an illegitimate government installed by force.
Critics asked how Washington could sit at a table with Caracas while expanding deportation programs targeting Venezuelan migrants in Florida.
Maduro remains in a US prison, his trial scheduled for June 1, 2027. He has consistently denied the charges and described his detention as a kidnapping. “I am innocent,” he said at his arraignment. “I was kidnapped.”
For Venezuela, its president is in a US cell, its oil is under US control, and its interim leader has shaken the hand of the man who took both.
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From the Archives
NATO Sanctions and the Coming Global Diesel Fuel Disaster
By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 11.04.2022
Amid the ongoing global inflation crisis, NATO heads of state and mainstream media repeat a mantra that high energy prices are a direct result of Putin’s actions in Ukraine since end of February. The reality is that it is the western sanctions that are responsible. Those sanctions including cutting SWIFT interbank access for key Russian banks and some of the most severe sanctions ever imposed, are hardly having an impact on the military actions in Ukraine. What many overlook is the fact that they are increasingly impacting the economies of the West, especially the EU and USA. A closer look at the state of the global supply of diesel fuel is alarming. But Western sanctions planners at the US Treasury and the EU know fully well what they are doing. And it bodes ill for the world economy.
While most of us rarely think about diesel fuel as anything other than a pollutant, in fact it is essential to the entire world economy in a way few energy sources are. The director general of Fuels Europe, part of the European Petroleum Refiners Association, stated recently, “… there is a clear link between diesel and GDP, because almost everything that goes into and out of a factory goes using diesel.” … continue
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