To the victor belong Venezuela’s spoils: Delcy Rodriguez’s UNGA about-face

Seven years after using the UN stage in New York to warn of US regime change and the seizure of Venezuela’s resources, the country’s interim president returned to thank the man who delivered both. Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez took to the stage yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City to deliver a rather bland speech, in which she thanked United States President Donald Trump for resuming “diplomatic relations and cooperation” with Venezuela. This was a different vibe, to be sure, than the one she opted for at the same venue in September 2019, when, as vice president under Nicolas Maduro, she accused the US of perpetrating “economic terrorism” that did not require the use of bombs “but rather through banks and insurance companies”. Denouncing the global superpower’s militarisation of international relations and punishment of millions of innocent people “in order to apply regime change doctrines and steal other nations’ resources”, the Rodriguez of 2019 went on to cite Venezuelan economic losses to the tune of $130bn between 2015 and 2018 alone on account of US sanctions. She additionally offered her opinion that the domination of the US political system by “plutocratic minorities” made the country unqualified to impose its model on other countries.

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