CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez for two hours Thursday in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, “to convey the message that the United States hopes to improve the working relationship,” a U.S. official told CBS News on Friday.
The official called the trip historic, and stated that Ratcliffe was the first Cabinet-level official to go to Venezuela. US military operation The removal of the country’s autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro almost two weeks ago.
In the meeting, the first notify According to The New York Times, Ratcliffe warned that Venezuela must stop supporting the drug trade.
“At the meeting in Caracas, Director Ratcliffe discussed potential opportunities for economic cooperation and that Venezuela can no longer be a safe haven for America’s adversaries, especially drug traffickers,” the official said.
The meeting took place on the same day as President Trump He met with the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado at the White House.
Although Mr. Trump has publicly praised Machado, the administration appears to be eyeing Rodríguez — Maduro’s former vice president. more topics To maintain stability in Venezuela in the short term.
That’s consistent with the findings of a CIA analytical assessment that modeled scenarios for potential political leadership in Venezuela if Maduro were not president, CBS News can confirm. The analysis, conducted closely and reported to a limited group of senior administration officials, concluded that Maduro-aligned officials — including Rodriguez — would be best suited to maintain short-term stability.
During his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Ratcliffe promised, as he said, that the agency would be less risky under his leadership. The visit to Caracas reflected the U.S. intelligence chief’s belief that he would not ask CIA personnel to take risks he would not take, the U.S. official told CBS News.
CBS News previously reported that the CIA had a small team working clandestinely on the ground in Venezuela to lay the groundwork for Maduro’s capture in August, including a human asset helping to track Maduro.
After months of preparations that included building a replica of Maduro’s compound and studying his daily habits, US forces arrived at the Venezuelan president’s residence just after 2am on January 3rd.
In the surprise operation, U.S. forces dismantled and disabled Venezuela’s air defense systems as U.S. military helicopters flew near Caracas, and U.S. military personnel deployed weapons “to ensure safe passage of the helicopters to the target area,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine said earlier this month.
Maduro was arrested along with his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought to the United States to face charges of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption.
Maduro and Flores appeared before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Jan. 5 in lower Manhattan federal court.
“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty, I’m a decent man,” said Maduro through an interpreter, insisting that he was “still the president of my country”.
Maduro has long been accused of human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, torture and repression during his rule of the South American country. Despite being called by the US, he held on to power “overwhelming evidence” that he lost re-election In 2024 to oppose the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.
United Nations experts from the United Nations Human Rights Office have expressed concern over the unilateral action taken by the United States to kidnap Maduro as a possible violation of international law.
“These actions represent a serious, flagrant and deliberate violation of the basic principles of international law, set a dangerous precedent and risk destabilizing the entire region and the world,” the group said in a statement last week.