Security & Strategic Review - February 2026

Since being sworn in as Venezuela’s president on 6 January, Delcy Rodríguez has walked a fine line as she attempts to balance four competing interests – the US government, which now has effective control over the oil sector; hardline nationalists, who were outraged by the 3 January US operation to capture former president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026); the democratic opposition, which is demanding a transition process; and her own family, as she attempts to retain the power that she wields along with her brother, national assembly president Jorge Rodríguez.