The Trump administration has halted federal criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a move designed to open the country to U.S. investment and secure access to the world’s largest petroleum reserves. This directive, issued quietly to federal prosecutors in Miami, comes despite Rodríguez being a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and having consistently surfaced on federal law enforcement radar since at least 2018. The decision to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was explicitly made to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela following the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, according to U.S. law enforcement officials.
The U.S. has lifted sanctions against Rodríguez and recognized her as Venezuela’s sole head of state in recent months. This recognition allows her to re-establish ties with western banks and more freely work with U.S. investors. President Donald Trump praised Rodríguez as a “terrific person” after Maduro’s ouster, later stating on social media in early March that Rodríguez “is doing a great job,” and that “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”
The State's Role in Capital Accumulation
Rodríguez has hosted ceremonies with a steady stream of American oilmen in recent months. These delegations have included high-profile U.S. officials such as Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Rick de la Torre, CEO of Tower Strategy, which advises companies on Venezuela, stated that the decision to shield Rodríguez "fits well with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals in Venezuela," adding that "the U.S. is providing her with breathing space and carrots to lay the foundation for democracy and U.S. investment.”
The DEA had amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, with allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling. One confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021, the fifth year since the alleged event, that Rodríguez was using Caribbean hotels “as a front to launder money.” Her name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which remained ongoing as recently as this year, involving field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York. She had also been linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities first arrested in 2020, the sixth year since his arrest, on money-laundering charges. Rodríguez deported Saab this month as part of a purge of insider businessmen accused of enriching themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.
A Justice Department spokesperson claimed “there was never an investigation into her to shut down,” a statement contradicted by DEA records and former officials briefed on the development. One former official stated, “Everybody has been told to stand down.” Justice Department policy requires the attorney general to personally approve the charging of any foreign head of state, who are normally immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Imperial Policy and Liberal Dissent
The pausing of investigations into Rodríguez mirrors similar actions taken by the Trump administration regarding Colombian President Gustavo Petro, another prominent Latin American leftist. The DEA had designated Petro a “priority target” over alleged ties to drug traffickers, with federal prosecutors probing these connections for months. U.S. officials recently assured the Colombian government that Petro does not face charges in those cases.
Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, described it as “deeply troubling” for law enforcement to be “told to stand down from a legitimate investigation for political or transactional reasons.” Levin stated, “The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” and that “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety – not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.”
While the U.S. state apparatus facilitates capital accumulation, some liberal politicians have offered limited critique. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, demanded an explanation for the favorable treatment of Rodríguez. They noted in a letter last week that sanctions were lifted “without any indication that she has taken concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order,” calling her a “central figure in Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.” These concerns, however, do not challenge the underlying imperial strategy of using sanctions and indictments as tools to secure resource access for U.S. corporations, but rather focus on the procedural aspects of "democratic order" within the existing framework. Missing in the mutual backslapping between U.S. officials and Rodríguez is any talk of elections, even as Rodríguez last month blew through a 90-day limit set by Venezuela’s high court to fill Maduro’s position on a temporary basis.