U.S. President Donald Trump will have a meeting with ‌Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez in New York ​on Tuesday (September 22, 2026), a senior U.S. official said, in what will be the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since Washington ousted ‌former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.

Mr. Trump’s meeting with Ms. Rodriguez, Mr. Maduro’s former deputy, will be ‌on the sidelines of a reception ‌that ⁠the Republican President will be hosting, U.S. ⁠ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told reporters in a briefing call on Friday (September 18, 2026).

“The president will host a UN General Assembly leaders’ reception. ​There, he’ll participate ‌in a pull-aside with the acting president Rodriguez of Venezuela,” Mr. Waltz said. He did not give any details of what they might discuss.

The ‌Venezuelan Communications Ministry, which handles all press queries ​for the government, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, ⁠the U.S. and Venezuela signed an energy agreement that would allow the U.S. to take partial ‌control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, betting that American companies can help revive the South American nation’s battered energy industry.

Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is facing a growing dilemma over when to return home to rally support amid reticence ‌from the Trump administration about her homecoming.

Ms. Machado left the ​country late last year to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, after largely living in ⁠hiding since a contested 2024 election. She sought to ⁠cultivate Mr. Trump as an ally well before Mr. Maduro’s removal. But since the ouster, Mr. Trump ‌has repeatedly expressed support for Ms.Rodriguez.

U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu arrived in Caracas on Saturday (January 31, 2026) to reopen the American diplomatic mission in Venezuela after seven years of severed ties.

The move comes almost one month after a military action ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump removed the South American country’s then-leader Nicolás Maduro from office.

“My team and I are ready to work,” Ms. Dogu said in a message posted by the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela ‘s account on X. It also posted pictures of her upon her landing at Maiquetia airport.

Venezuela and the United States broke off diplomatic relations in February 2019 in a decision by Maduro and closed their embassies mutually after Mr. Trump gave public support to lawmaker Juan Guaidó in his claim to be the nation’s interim president in January of that year.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, one of Venezuela’s most powerful politicians and a Maduro loyalist, said earlier in January that reopening the U.S. embassy would give the Venezuelan government a way to oversee the treatment of the deposed president, who is jailed in the U.S.

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil said in a message on Telegram that Ms. Dogu’s arrival is part of a joint schedule to “deal with and resolve existing differences through diplomatic dialogue, in a foundation of mutual respect and (based on) international law.” Ms. Dogu, who was also an ambassador in Nicaragua and Honduras, arrived in Venezuela one day after the country’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, announced an amnesty bill to release political prisoners. That move was one of the key demands of the Venezuelan opposition.