Venezuela Talks Resume After US Delists Jorge Rodríguez

October 15, 2026 — The U.S. Treasury removed Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and brother of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, from its sanctions blacklist on October 14. Hours later he opened a third round of U.S.-backed political talks in Caracas as head of the interim government’s delegation, facing an opposition team led by Dinorah Figuera, AFP reported.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) posted the change as a one-line deletion from its Specially Designated Nationals list. The notice gives no reason. A source familiar with the decision told Al Jazeera that it is part of Washington’s wider recognition of the interim government and of President Donald Trump’s three-phase plan for Venezuela’s stabilization and political transition.

Why he was sanctioned, and what the 2018 order promised

Treasury designated Jorge Rodríguez on September 25, 2018, together with Delcy Rodríguez, then-first lady Cilia Flores and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, under Executive Order 13692. At the time he was communications minister. Treasury’s press release said Nicolás Maduro had given the Rodríguez siblings senior posts “to help him maintain power and solidify his authoritarian rule.”

The same release spelled out the exit route that Washington is now using. “U.S. sanctions need not be permanent; they are intended to change behavior,” it said, and the United States would consider lifting them for designated people “who take concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order.” Eight years later, both Rodríguez siblings are off the list, and they are the officials leading the interim government’s side of a transition the United States is sponsoring.

Removal has practical effects. As the 2018 release noted, a designation blocks a person’s property under U.S. jurisdiction and generally bars U.S. persons from dealing with them, so the deletion lifts both restrictions for Venezuela’s chief negotiator.

What the third round is meant to settle

The talks began in August, eight months after U.S. forces captured Maduro in Caracas on January 3. A State Department official told AFP that this round will focus on “the political process, elections, the participation of the different political parties” and on finishing the selection of a new Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). According to AFP, the main agreements so far are the TSJ overhaul and cooperation to recover Venezuelan gold reserves frozen in a London bank.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio set out Washington’s scorecard when he met Figuera in Washington on October 9. The State Department’s readout credited the first two rounds with steps toward an independent TSJ, “the release of over 1,200 political prisoners,” restored access to blocked news websites and work to reform the Law Against Hatred. Rubio urged “continued progress on political freedoms and electoral reform.”

The gaps are just as clear. Delcy Rodríguez told the UN General Assembly in September that Venezuela will hold elections but gave no date. Opposition leader María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has demanded a vote by July, and her party wants her political disqualification lifted immediately. A former TSJ magistrate told AFP the previous week that she was forced to sign that 2023 disqualification because her relatives had been detained. CNN en Español described the talks as involving “a sector of the opposition,” not all of it.

Timeline: sanctions relief and transition steps

The record below pairs each U.S. sanctions action with the political events around it, drawn from OFAC notices, the State Department and wire reporting.

Compiled by Peter’s World from OFAC recent-actions notices (Apr. 1, Apr. 14, June 18 and Oct. 14, 2026), Treasury press release SM495 (Sept. 25, 2018), the State Department’s Oct. 9, 2026 readout, AFP via France 24, Al Jazeera and CNN en Español.

Why it matters

This section is Peter’s World analysis based on the sources cited in this article.

The timing suggests a pattern even without a Treasury statement. Washington is spending its sanctions leverage in stages, and each delisting rewards the interim authorities for steps already taken while the remaining measures stay in reserve for steps still to come. Delisting the chief negotiator on the day talks open signals good faith to the government side. It also gives up a personal lever the United States held over one of the people across the table.

That shifts weight onto the questions the talks have not resolved: an election date, Machado’s eligibility and a court that both sides accept. The State Department’s own list of achievements centers on prisoner releases and institutions, not on a calendar. If this round ends without a date, the opposition factions outside the process will have a stronger argument that relief is running ahead of reform.

There is an economic track as well. Al Jazeera reported that Jorge Rodríguez has steered laws opening Venezuela’s oil and mining sectors and its power grid to foreign investors, and that a deal gives the United States access to 17 oil fields. The signals to watch are any agreed election calendar, the final TSJ appointments and whether Treasury delists further officials named in the 2018 action.

Sources

• OFAC: Venezuela-related Designation Removal (Oct. 14, 2026)
• U.S. Treasury: Treasury Targets Venezuelan President Maduro’s Inner Circle (Sept. 25, 2018)
• U.S. State Department: Secretary Rubio’s Meeting with Dinorah Figuera (Oct. 9, 2026)
• Al Jazeera: US lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s top legislator (Oct. 14, 2026)
• France 24 (AFP): Gobierno y oposición de Venezuela retoman el diálogo (Oct. 15, 2026)

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