US lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s top legislator

Jorge Rodriguez has been removed from OFAC’s sanctions list in latest US push for oil control and bilateral diplomacy.

The United States Department of the Treasury has lifted sanctions on the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, brother of the country’s interim President, Delcy Rodriguez.

The move by US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) comes amid major US-Venezuela energy pacts and other talks with the Latin American country’s government.

The delisting notice was posted on the federal agency’s website on Wednesday, officially removing Jorge Rodriguez’s name from OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) blacklist.

The top lawmaker in the country, Jorge Rodriguez has held the position of National Assembly president since 2021. He was reappointed in January, weeks after the abduction of former President Nicolas Maduro by the US government. He served as vice president under Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, among other posts.

Jorge and Delcy Rodriguez had been sanctioned under US President Donald Trump’s first administration due to their ministerial roles under Maduro, who now faces several federal charges, including a sweeping superseding indictment adding torture to his other alleged crimes.

In 2018, the State Department said that Jorge Rodriguez was given prominent government positions by Maduro “to help him maintain power and solidify his authoritarian rule”.

A source familiar with the matter told Al Jazeera that the decision to lift sanctions on Jorge Rodriguez is part of Washington’s wider diplomatic recognition of the interim Venezuelan government, and Trump’s three-phase plan for Venezuela’s stabilisation and political transition.

During a press briefing at the US State Department on Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the next round of negotiations on Venezuela’s future was scheduled to begin on Wednesday. He also urged all Venezuelan opposition factions to join US-backed political talks with the interim president.

Earlier this year, the US Treasury dropped sanctions against Delcy Rodriguez and later lifted the restrictions on Venezuela’s central bank and its state-owned national airline, signalling Washington’s pivot from economic warfare to backroom bargaining. She has largely complied with Trump’s demands for Caracas to open up its energy industry to American companies.

As interim president, Delcy Rodriguez has promised to hold elections – including in her recent remarks at the United Nations General Assembly – but no firm date has been set. Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado has demanded they take place by July.

Jorge Rodriguez has shepherded several major reforms through the ruling party-controlled legislature since his sister took power, including a law that facilitated the entry of more foreign oil companies, a similar law for the mining sector and an effort to allow private investment for the country’s battered power grid.

Since Maduro’s ouster, Caracas and Washington have cut a deal giving the US access to 17 Venezuelan oil fields, while international energy firms have separately committed to expanding projects in the Latin American country. In August, Trump announced a plan to secure direct US access to a large share of Venezuela’s vast oil to refill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.