Donald Trump said he may one day seek office in Venezuela, making the remark in a joking exchange during a cabinet meeting that nonetheless underscored how dramatically U.S. relations with Caracas have shifted since Washington\u2019s January raid that removed Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power. Speaking at the White House on 26 March, Trump moved from a\u2026<\/p>\n
Donald Trump said he may one day seek office in Venezuela, making the remark in a joking exchange during a cabinet meeting that nonetheless underscored how dramatically U.S. relations with Caracas have shifted since Washington\u2019s January raid that removed Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power. Speaking at the White House on 26 March, Trump moved from a discussion about oil revenues and U.S. ties with Venezuela to a boast about his popularity there, saying: \u201cOur relationship with Venezuela has been amazing. The people, actually I\u2019m the highest polling person. And in other words, after the presidency, I think I may go to Venezuela and run for president against Delcy. I may run against Delcy. It\u2019s an option. No, they like me in Venezuela, but it\u2019s an option for me. It\u2019s a wonderful option.\u201d The room laughed, but the comment came in the middle of a serious discussion about the new U.S.-Venezuelan relationship and the future of Maduro, who Trump said will face additional charges in the United States.<\/p>\n
The remark was the latest example of Trump publicly tying his own political future, image and personal standing to the upheaval in Venezuela that followed the U.S. operation on 3 January. Reuters has reported that Maduro was captured by U.S. forces during a raid in Caracas and later appeared in New York on drug charges, while Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who had been vice president and oil minister, was sworn in days later as Venezuela\u2019s interim president. At the time, the Trump administration said Maduro\u2019s removal would open the way for a stabilisation effort, economic recovery and eventually a political transition, though the U.S. role in the country immediately drew international scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s joke also reflected how personally invested he has become in portraying the Venezuela operation as a political and economic success. In the same 26 March exchange, he said the United States had \u201ctaken in billions and billions of dollars\u201d through its arrangement with Venezuela and described the relationship as \u201csort of like a joint venture\u201d. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sitting alongside him, said Venezuela had generated more oil revenue in the first two months of the year than in much of the previous year and said the money was being placed in a U.S. Treasury blocked account rather than being \u201cstolen anymore\u201d. The comments were part of a broader administration message that the post-Maduro order in Caracas is producing both strategic and commercial gains for Washington.<\/p>\n
That tone has been building for weeks. On 13 February, Trump said the U.S. relationship with Venezuela was \u201cvery good\u201d and told reporters he planned to visit the country. He said Washington was \u201cworking together very closely\u201d with Rodr\u00edguez on oil access and, when asked by Reuters whether he recognised her government, replied: \u201cYeah, we have done that. We are dealing with them, and really right now they have done a great job.\u201d On 4 March he went further, posting on Truth Social that Rodr\u00edguez was \u201cdoing a great job\u201d and that \u201cThe Oil is beginning to flow.\u201d Those comments showed that Trump had moved from talking about the military removal of Maduro to openly praising the woman who emerged from Maduro\u2019s inner circle to lead the interim government.<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez herself is one of the most powerful and controversial figures produced by Venezuela\u2019s ruling socialist system. Reuters has described the 56-year-old labour lawyer as one of the \u201ciron fists\u201d of Venezuelan politics, a senior official who served as communications minister, foreign minister, finance minister, oil minister and vice president before becoming interim president. Her influence has long been reinforced by her alliance with her brother Jorge Rodr\u00edguez, the head of the National Assembly, and by her central role in defending the Chavista state during years of economic collapse, migration, alleged repression and international isolation. Maduro once called her a \u201ctigress\u201d, while critics have long viewed her as one of the regime\u2019s most durable enforcers.<\/p>\n
Since taking office, however, Rodr\u00edguez has tried to present herself not only as a continuity figure but also as the face of a more pragmatic order. In January she called for diplomacy with Washington and said that if she needed to travel there she would go \u201cwalking on her feet, not dragged there.\u201d She also said she would \u201cforge a new politics in Venezuela\u201d. By March, she was hosting senior U.S. officials in Caracas, praising cooperation on minerals and investment, and pushing reforms to mining and oil laws designed to attract foreign capital. Reuters reported that a delegation led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited Caracas with more than two dozen U.S. mining and minerals companies, part of a push to open Venezuela more fully to American investment after Maduro\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n
The economic backdrop to Trump\u2019s remarks is central to why the story matters. Venezuela has the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves, but years of sanctions, corruption, underinvestment and institutional collapse crippled output under Maduro. Reuters reported this month that Venezuelan production had risen to 1.1 million barrels per day in March, up from 942,000 barrels per day in January, according to government data presented by Rodr\u00edguez. The Trump administration has used those gains to argue that a new arrangement is working, issuing sanctions waivers to encourage U.S. investment and backing deals involving Venezuelan oil. For Trump, that has allowed the politics and the economics of Venezuela to merge into a single narrative of restoration, leverage and profit.<\/p>\n
The diplomatic reset has accelerated even further in recent days. On 30 March, the U.S. formally reopened its embassy in Caracas, which had been closed since the collapse in relations during Trump\u2019s first term. The State Department said the move marked \u201ca new chapter\u201d in bilateral ties, and Reuters reported that the administration sees the reopened embassy as a key part of the president\u2019s three-phase plan for Venezuela. That plan, according to Rubio, begins with stabilisation, moves to recovery with U.S. access to Venezuelan energy resources, and only then turns to political transition. Trump\u2019s off-hand line about running against Rodr\u00edguez therefore landed at a moment when Washington was not merely commenting on Venezuela from afar but rebuilding an institutional presence inside the country.<\/p>\n
The joke also came at a delicate moment for Maduro\u2019s legacy and legal exposure. Trump said on 26 March that additional cases would be brought against the deposed leader, who is already facing narcoterrorism and narcotics-related charges in New York. Maduro\u2019s fall remains the foundational event behind the current political order in Caracas, and the administration has continued to present his removal as both justified and profitable. Trump has repeatedly cited the Venezuela operation as proof of his willingness to use force in the region, while U.S. policy after the raid has included cutting off a major source of oil to Cuba and hinting at broader Western Hemisphere pressure campaigns. In that setting, even a joke about future office in Venezuela carried echoes of a much larger assertion of American power.<\/p>\n
Inside Venezuela, the post-Maduro transition remains unsettled. Reuters reported this month that students have returned to the streets after years of repression, demanding democratic reforms, better university funding and the release of prisoners, while also expressing unease about the fact that political change came through U.S. military intervention rather than a domestic democratic process. Rodr\u00edguez has promoted investment, oil reform and cooperation with Washington, but critics continue to question whether the system she now leads is substantively different from the one she helped build. That tension helps explain why Trump\u2019s claim that he is \u201cthe highest polling person\u201d in Venezuela was so striking. It was cast as a punchline, but it leaned on an unresolved reality: the country\u2019s future remains contested, and its politics are now deeply entangled with Trump\u2019s own self-image and foreign policy.<\/p>\n
For now, there is no sign that Trump\u2019s remark was anything more than a joke delivered in the loose, improvised style that often defines his public appearances. But it was not an isolated joke detached from events. It came after weeks of Trump praising Rodr\u00edguez, celebrating oil cooperation, planning a visit to Caracas and reopening the U.S. embassy there. It came while Maduro was being pursued through the U.S. courts and while Venezuela\u2019s interim government was courting investors with promises of legal reform and a more open economy. In that sense, the comment about running \u201cagainst Delcy\u201d was less a random quip than a distillation of the strange new order that has emerged since January: a U.S. president who helped topple Venezuela\u2019s ruler, an interim leader from the old regime now working with Washington, and a bilateral relationship in which Trump increasingly speaks not as a distant observer, but as a man who sees himself at the centre of the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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