The U.S. Department of the Treasury removed Jorge Rodríguez, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, from its Specially Designated Nationals list on Wednesday, thereby lifting the sanctions against the brother of interim president Delcy Rodríguez.
The measure was published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which removed the name of the Chavista leader under the five variations that appeared in the registry, without providing a public explanation for the reasons behind the decision.
Jorge Rodríguez had been included on that list in September 2018, along with his sister Delcy, First Lady Cilia Flores, and then Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, as part of a coordinated action against Nicolás Maduro's inner circle.
The lifting of their sanctions completes the unblocking of the two brothers who currently hold executive and legislative power in Venezuela: Delcy was removed from the OFAC list on April 1 of this year, just three months after Maduro's capture.
Jorge Rodríguez is the key figure in the transition dialogue that Washington is promoting between chavismo and a opposition bloc led by Dinorah Figuera.
This process was formally established in August at the La Carlota airbase in Caracas, where the parties signed a joint declaration that includes the renewal of the Supreme Court of Justice and a supervision mechanism.
The decision is part of a rapid normalization between Washington and Caracas that began after the capture of Maduro on January 3, 2026.
Since then, the administration Trump formally recognized Delcy Rodríguez as head of state, restored diplomatic relations with Venezuela—suspended since 2019—and announced in August a historic oil agreement granting American companies access to 17 fields with estimated reserves of 65 billion barrels and a projected investment of more than 100 billion dollars.
At the same time, the Trump administration has eased sanctions related to the oil and mining operations of the Caribbean country, marking a significant shift from the maximum pressure policy that Washington maintained for years against chavismo.
The normalization process, however, has not benefited the entire Venezuelan opposition.
María Corina Machado, Nobel Peace Prize 2025 and the main representative of the opposition not included in the dialogue, remains in Panama and has reported that the Chavista authorities are preventing her from returning to Venezuela, with at least seven documented failed attempts until the end of September.
Machado is not participating in the negotiations led by Jorge Rodríguez on behalf of Chavismo, and her de facto exclusion from the process represents the main point of friction in Venezuelan politics at this moment.
The dialogue between chavismo and the opposition continues its course with Jorge Rodríguez as the key negotiator, now without the restrictions that his inclusion on the U.S. Treasury's sanctions list imposed for eight years.
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