Senior Colombian authorities, including the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, met with their Venezuelan counterparts in Caracas on Friday, in what the interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, described as productive meetings, while calling for an end to the U.S. sanctions against her country.
The meeting, the first in-person gathering between the two neighboring South American countries since the removal, in early January, of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, focused on energy cooperation, security, and trade, Rodríguez said.
The initial plan was for Rodríguez to meet with the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, in what would have been her first bilateral meeting at the presidential level, but the meeting was canceled due to reasons of “force majeure,” according to the two governments.
In remarks after the meeting with the ministers, Rodríguez said that cooperation between the two countries should be extremely economically fruitful and fulfill the vision of their joint founder, the South American liberation hero Simón Bolívar.
“And I want to take this opportunity to also send a message to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, to make clear that unilateral coercive measures against the Venezuelan people affect the peoples of our Latin America,” Rodríguez said.
“The appeal is for sanctions against Venezuela to be suspended.”
As a former vice president, Rodríguez has sought to attract investment in oil and mining while trying to stabilize the country since Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces. Trump praised her several times, and she has hosted U.S. authorities and potential investors in Caracas. The United States and Venezuela have also formally restored diplomatic ties.
On Friday, Washington announced the expansion of sanctions exemptions for Venezuela to facilitate energy investment and allow the export of fertilizers.
