Longtime Chávez supporters challenge Delcy Rodríguez over Trump ties and oil deal

Delcy Rodríguez’s rapprochement with Donald Trump is drawing public criticism from longtime supporters of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. In interviews published on 1 October, former Chavista officials and a state television veteran objected to the interim government’s oil deal with Washington and to Rodríguez’s meeting with Trump. Their objections expose a dispute within the movement that governs Venezuela, though its scale is unknown.

The criticism has sharpened since Rodríguez met Trump in New York last week. NewsJaws previously reported on Rodríguez’s meeting with Trump; the new development is the account of dissent from figures who spent years backing the Bolivarian movement. The Guardian’s interviews describe that reaction alongside a pro-government rally in Caracas, giving no representative measure of either camp.

Why Mario Silva objects to the oil agreement

Mario Silva spent more than two decades hosting a state-funded television programme that championed Chávez’s revolution. He told the Guardian that the programme had been cancelled and that he now criticizes Rodríguez’s administration on YouTube. Silva said he felt disappointed and depressed by the movement’s direction. After seeing a photograph of Rodríguez with Trump, he said he initially thought it might have been generated by artificial intelligence; he called the scene surreal.

Silva’s objections predate the Guardian’s interview. El Pitazo reported on 13 September that he had posted a video three days earlier criticizing the oil policies pursued under the agreement. In the video, Silva argued that Venezuela had been ‘given away’ and questioned whether an agreement with the United States could benefit the country. Those are his political judgments, not independently established conclusions about the deal.

What other former Chavista officials say

Elías Jaua, who served as vice-president and foreign minister under Chávez, told the Guardian that he was hearing bewilderment, disagreement and indignation from comrades across Venezuela. He characterized Trump’s oil deal as an act of pillage. Jaua’s account conveys the views he says he has encountered; it does not establish how many Chavistas share them.

Juan Barreto, a former member of the ruling Socialist Party and former mayor of Caracas, told the Guardian that an agreement of this kind would have been unimaginable when the Bolivarian revolution began after Chávez’s 1998 election. He described the current relationship as one of tutelage. For these critics, the dispute concerns both the terms of an oil arrangement and the symbolism of a government rooted in Chávez’s movement working closely with Washington.

What the two governments say the deal offers

Rodríguez has defended the agreement. According to the Guardian, she said it could produce more than $209 billion in revenue to improve health care and education. ‘We are thinking of Venezuela’s future,’ she said in a television broadcast. That figure is a projection from Rodríguez, not revenue shown to have been received or spent on those services.

A White House statement dated 2 September described the arrangement as a deal with a private company, rather than with Venezuela’s interim government. It said the US government would receive governance rights, economic ownership and guaranteed low-cost access to oil from a new private Venezuelan company. The statement said the deal covered 17 fields and that any funds allocated to state oil company PDVSA would pass through a US-managed, audited account.

The White House said the arrangement concerned more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves and forecast that substantial production could reach the United States as soon as early 2027. Those figures and the delivery timetable are administration claims. The announcement does not establish that the production, Rodríguez’s projected revenue or the promised public benefits have materialized. It also presents the private-company arrangement differently from critics’ descriptions of a deal between the two administrations.

Support for Rodríguez and the unanswered question

Rodríguez’s approach also has visible backing. The Guardian reported that thousands attended a pro-government rally in Caracas during her New York visit. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello praised the visit, while the report noted little mention of Nicolás Maduro and few calls for his release at that rally. Attendance shows support at that event, but it cannot establish the balance of opinion across the governing movement.

Orlando Pérez, a Latin America expert at the University of North Texas at Dallas, told the Guardian that some Chavistas see the turn toward Washington as a betrayal, while others may accept cooperation as a practical way to retain power. He argued that Rodríguez’s government would need to show supporters tangible benefits to avoid a backlash. That is his assessment, not a measured forecast. For now, the depth and political consequences of the dissent remain unclear.