WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. on Wednesday lifted sanctions on Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, according to an Office of Foreign Assets Control entry on the Treasury Department website. <\/p>\n
The newly announced sanctions relief represents a strong signal that the U.S. recognizes Rodr\u00edguez as a legitimate authority in Venezuela after the U.S. military captured Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s predecessor, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and his wife on Jan. 3 in Venezuela\u2019s capital, Caracas.<\/p>\n
The pair have since been taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges and both have pleaded not guilty. <\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez and her brother Jorge Rodr\u00edguez were hit with U.S. sanctions during Trump\u2019s first term for their role in allegedly undermining Venezuelan democracy.<\/p>\n
The siblings \u2014 along with other members of Maduro\u2019s inner circle \u2014 were added to the Treasury\u2019s list in September 2018, months after Maduro won reelection in a contest widely considered a sham because opposition politicians and parties were banned from participating.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaduro has given Delcy Eloina Rodr\u00edguez Gomez and Jorge Jesus Rodr\u00edguez Gomez senior positions within the Venezuelan government to help him maintain power and solidify his authoritarian rule,\u201d Treasury said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n
Now, just months since Maduro\u2019s ouster, Rodriguez has led Venezuela\u2019s cooperation with the Trump administration, pitching her oil-rich nation to international investors and opening the nation up to private capital, international arbitration, and scrutiny. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Maduro legally is still Venezuela\u2019s president. <\/p>\n
In the hours after the Jan. 3 operation, the country\u2019s ruling-party-loyal high court declared his absence \u201ctemporary,\u201d in effect eliminating the need for a speedy election and preserving the protections the office grants him under international law. The court ordered Rodr\u00edguez to take office for up to 90 days with the possibility of extending it to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is also controlled by the ruling party and presided over by her brother. <\/p>\n
The 90-day period ends Friday.<\/p>\n
Cano and Hussein write for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. on Wednesday lifted sanctions on Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, according to an Office of Foreign…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":698688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[292115,1582,276,7553,181159,454,34873,2961,224,5337,9105,92550,1812,22310,116528,34462,277,1439,32322],"class_list":["post-698687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-acting-president","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-capital","tag-delcy-rodriguez","tag-government","tag-jan","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-month","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-office","tag-rodriguez","tag-sanction","tag-treasury","tag-trump","tag-u-s","tag-venezuela"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116332926466840514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}