Challenging the Insurrectionist Narrative About Delcy Rodriguez

Many are promoting a narrative that suggests interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez participated in the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro

Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2017 | Public Domain

The idea that the interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, had a role in the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro was born in the U.S. intelligence community, making its way into the Interenr rumor mill. While many speculate using anecdotal evidence to make dubious connections, it’s worth looking at what we know to be true. Such as the agreements being made between the U.S. and Venezuela, most of which have been on the table for years.

Maduro began reaching out to the U.S. soon after first taking office in 2013. In a 2014 New York Times op-ed titled “Venezuela: A Call for Peace,” he explicitly called for “dialogue and diplomacy” between Venezuela and the U.S. and opposition forces, a call that the United States ignored. In 2019, in an interview with ABC News, Maduro said he wanted to seek “21st-Century solutions” with the U.S. In 2020, Maduro again attempted to reach out to the U.S. This time to then-President Donald Trump. Because he was cut off diplomatically, he did so via a post on Twitter, saying he was seeking dialogue “whenever, wherever, and however they want.”

Maduro also reached out to the Trump administration several times in 2025, offering various deals that would allow U.S. private companies to operate in Venezuela. The offers were ignored in favor of kidnapping Maduro and stealing billions worth of Venezuelan oil. Now, the U.S. appears to be accepting those deals while attempting to claim a victory. The deals have provided anecdotal evidence to help drive false narratives that make the interim president look like a traitor.

A Department of State press release last week detailed how the White House is issuing licenses to U.S. oil companies, allowing them to work in Venezuela. This, despite there being no tangible changes in how the Venezuelan government operates.

“The Trump Administration is rapidly implementing President Trump’s vision to reopen and develop Venezuela’s oil industry for the shared benefit of the American and Venezuelan people,” reads the statement. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, the United States has already issued several general licenses at record speed for oil and gas companies to make unprecedented investments in Venezuela’s energy infrastructure.”

Since January, the U.S. issued licenses to authorize firms in the United States to market Venezuelan oil to buyers around the world, sell U.S.-origin diluent, necessary for oil production, to Venezuela, provide goods, equipment, and services for the Venezuelan oil and gas industry, and negotiate and enter into contracts with Venezuela to invest in upstream oil and gas projects.

“Venezuela holds tremendous economic potential, but years of instability, corruption, and economic mismanagement have limited the nation’s growth and prosperity,” reads the press release. “These general licenses invite American and other aligned companies to play a constructive role in supporting economic recovery and responsible investment.”

The statement further highlights that U.S. priorities over the last two decades have been primarily about resources. Not just access, but a certain level of profit. The U.S. government is accepting the same deals that were previously offered only after kidnapping Maduro due to incredible levels of propaganda targeting the Venezuelan president for many years. The Trump administration’s outlandish claims in just the last year expose how far federal agencies will go to manufacture narratives about foreign leaders and governments. After two decades, if the U.S. hadn’t removed Maduro, it would have made the country appear to have been in the wrong.

While the Trump administration portrays what it’s doing in Venezuela as a success and the case against Maduro becomes even more dubious, it’s clear that the United States has been falsifying descriptions of Venezuela, calling everything the U.S. government ever said about the country into question. Many of those portrayals have persisted over the last two decades, and the idea that interim president Delcy Rodriguez is complicit in Maduro’s kidnapping is becoming another one of those.

Seeing U.S. officials in Venezuela is precisely what we would have seen if any of the last three presidents had taken Maduro up on his offers. That’s what diplomacy looks like. Meanwhile, the current government is still in place, and no signs of uprisings or potential uprisings have been noted. This key fact alone exposes the U.S.’s complicity in enacting sanctions that led to starvation, suffering, and the appropriation of Venezuelans’ wealth. Actions that amount to outright collective punishment because Venezuelans have refused to back U.S.-backed coups.

After the first Trump administration implemented its initial “maximum pressure” sanctions against Venezuela, Trump’s special advisor to Venezuela Eliott Abrams later said, “Either Trump is going to win, or Maduro is going to win,” arguing that anything leaving Maduro in power was a win for Maduro. This is likely one of the biggest motivating factors for Trump. Meanwhile, accepting deals that were already on the table is easy to spin as another accomplishment. And if the administration can make Rodriguez look like a traitor and drive wedges into support for her and other leftist movements along the way, you can bet they’re going to exploit it.

Rodriguez continues to call for Maduro’s release and says he is Venezuela’s current president.

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