Laura Dogu’s visit comes as Venezuela moves to privatise its oil sector under pressure from Trump.By News AgenciesPublished On 1 Feb 20261 Feb 2026Click here to share on social mediashare2ShareThe top United States envoy for Venezuela has arrived in Caracas to reopen a US diplomatic mission seven years after ties were severed.Laura Dogu announced her arrival in a post on X on Saturday, saying, “My team and I are ready to work.”Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe move comes almost one month after US forces abducted Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolas Maduro, from the presidential palace in Caracas, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.Maduro was then taken to a prison in New York, and is facing drug trafficking and narcoterrorism conspiracy charges.The move has been widely criticised as a violation of international law.Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Yvan Gil wrote on Telegram that he had received Dogu, and that talks would centre on creating a “roadmap on matters of bilateral interest” as well as “addressing and resolving existing differences through diplomatic dialogue and on the basis of mutual respect and international law”.Dogu, who previously served as US ambassador to Honduras and Nicaragua, was appointed to the role of charge d’affaires to the Venezuela Affairs Unit, based out of the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia.Venezuela and the US broke off diplomatic relations in February 2019, in a decision by Maduro after Trump gave public support to Venezuelan lawmaker Juan Guaido, who claimed to be the nation’s interim president in January that year.Minister of the Popular Power for Interior Diosdado Cabello, one of Venezuela’s most powerful politicians and a Maduro loyalist, said earlier in January that reopening the US embassy in Caracas would give the Venezuelan government a way to oversee the treatment of the deposed president. Advertisement Although the Trump administration has claimed that Maduro’s abduction was necessary for security reasons, officials have also repeatedly framed their interests in Venezuela around controlling its vast oil reserves, which are the largest in the world.Since the abduction, Trump has pressured Interim President Delcy Rodriguez to open the country’s nationalised oil sector to US firms.The two countries have reached a …
