{"id":398254,"date":"2026-01-10T00:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/398254\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:51:11","slug":"u-s-and-venezuela-take-initial-steps-toward-restoring-relations-after-maduros-capture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/398254\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. and Venezuela take initial steps toward restoring relations after Maduro&#8217;s capture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>GUATIRE, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 The United States and Venezuela said Friday they were exploring the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations, as a\u00a0Trump administration\u00a0delegation visited the South American nation.<\/p>\n<p>The visit marks a major step toward warming icy relations between the historically adversarial governments. U.S. military forces captured former President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro last weekend in Caracas and took him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/venezuela-releases-imprisoned-political-figures-and-activists-which-trump-says-u-s-requested\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ MORE: Venezuela releases imprisoned political figures and activists, which Trump says U.S. requested<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The small team of U.S. diplomats and a security detail traveled to\u00a0Venezuela\u00a0to make a preliminary assessment about the potential reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, the State Department said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela&#8217;s government on Friday said it plans to send a delegation to the U.S. but it did not say when. Any delegation traveling to the U.S. will likely require sanctions to be waived by the Treasury Department.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the government of acting Venezuelan President\u00a0Delcy Rodr\u00edguez\u00a0said it &#8220;has decided to initiate an exploratory process of a diplomatic nature with the Government of the United States of America, aimed at the re-establishment of diplomatic missions in both countries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump has placed pressure on Rodriguez and other former Maduro loyalists now in power to advance his vision for the future of the nation \u2014 a major aspect of which would be reinvigorating the role of U.S. oil companies in a country with the worlds&#8217; largest proven reserves of crude oil.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. and Venezuela cut off ties in 2019, after the first Trump administration said opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3 was the rightful president of Venezuela, spiking tensions. Despite the assertions, Maduro maintained his firm grip on power.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration shuttered the embassy in Caracas and moved diplomats to nearby Bogot\u00e1, Colombia. U.S. officials have traveled to Caracas a handful of times since then. The\u00a0latest visit came last February\u00a0when Trump&#8217;s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell met with Maduro. The visit resulted in six detained Americans being freed by the government.<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City. Lee reported from Washington.<\/p>\n<p>\n                    A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"invite_body\">\n                    Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue.\n                <\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/give.newshour.org\/page\/88646\/donate\/1?ea.tracking.id=pbs_news_sept_2025_article&amp;supporter.appealCode=N2509AW1000100\" class=\"donation-link ga-click-funding ga-click-ender-funding\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    Donate now<\/p>\n<p>                <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GUATIRE, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 The United States and Venezuela said Friday they were exploring the possibility of restoring&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-398254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}