US Urges Venezuela to Follow Phased Plan Before Elections
The United States has urged Venezuela to continue with a phased plan of economic recovery and political reconciliation before holding democratic elections, according to Al Jazeera. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the plan with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco in a meeting on the country's political future. Neither man spoke to reporters afterward, and details were released in a State Department readout.
Blanco was recently named foreign minister, and the meeting was his first visit to the United States in that role. The talks take place against a sharp change in Venezuela's leadership. U.S. forces took former president Nicolas Maduro from Caracas to the United States nearly a year before November 2026, where he faces drug trafficking and other charges. His former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, became interim president.
The plan Washington referred to is the three-phase approach set out by President Donald Trump's administration. According to the White House, the phases cover stability, economic recovery and political reconciliation. Al Jazeera reported that Washington reaffirmed the plan in its latest statement, with democratic transition as the final stage.
Rubio has said Venezuela's electoral system was designed to rig elections and must be quickly replaced before a valid election can be held, according to Reuters. Rodriguez has assured Venezuelans that elections would be held "with the world as witness," but she has not specified a date. The State Department said on October 9, 2026, that reconciliation talks involving the interim government were producing tangible reforms in civil liberties.
Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, returned to Venezuela in the week before November 3 and said she came back to organize a movement ahead of elections. Machado said Rubio laid out a sequence that envisions presidential elections in 2027. She also said she had received no message from Rodriguez or from Washington about a possible meeting with the interim president.
The economic side of the relationship has drawn attention too. In September 2026, the Trump administration said it had struck a deal giving Washington a stake in about one-fifth of Venezuela's oil resources. The U.S. said it was creating a joint venture with North American Blue Energy Partners, a company owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, which Reuters describes as the second-largest private oil operator in Venezuela after Chevron. Under the agreement, Caracas is giving the company rights lasting 100 years over 17 oilfields with proven reserves of 65 billion barrels. The Pentagon will hold a 35 percent stake in the company, and the U.S. will be guaranteed the right to buy 20 percent of its oil output at cost.
Machado said the oil agreement "does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants." She has also called for transparent contracts, open bidding and international arbitration for future investment in Venezuela, a process in which disputes are settled by an independent panel rather than by courts.
