Trump admin. officials fly on first direct commercial flight between US and Venezuela in 7 years

Trump administration officials were aboard the first nonstop commercial flight from the United States to Venezuela in seven years when they took off Thursday from Miamito Caracas.

Jarrod Agen of the National Energy Dominance Council led the U.S. team, and Venezuela’s new ambassador to the United States, Félix Plasencia, was also aboard the American Airlines flight.

Agen told CBS News that a White House team traveling to Caracas is considering advancing some deals between U.S. companies and Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA and some of its mining companies. HKN Energy, a company backed by Ross Perot Jr., as well as Hunt Energy, are among the new American entrants to the Venezuelan market. Agen is also expected to meet with Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodríguez.

The trip comes nearly four months after U.S. forces seized Rodríguez’s predecessor, Nicolas Maduroand his wife during a daring special forces raid. Both were extradited to New York for face drug trafficking charges and have since pleaded not guilty.

Since Maduro’s departure from power, the administration has sought to encourage US investment in Venezuela’s oil sectorrolling back sanctions to allow U.S. oil companies to spend on infrastructure and production. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also led delegations to Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves.

“The economic opening in Venezuela is happening on a high-speed train. The democratic process is happening on a chicken cart,” former U.S. official Juan Gonzalez told CBS News, upon returning from a business trip to Caracas. Gonzalez served as the State Department’s assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs during the Biden administration. He said it was stunning to see old Maduro posters being taken down in Caracas and declared that Chavismo – the left-wing socialist ideology of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro – was dead and gone. But at this point, the Maduro regime remains intact – even if Maduro himself is missing.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. energy company, has historically operated in Venezuela, including under the Maduro regime. The Trump administration has attempted to urge the Rodríguez government to make regulatory changes to help increase investment and stabilize the country’s economy.

In an interview that will air Sunday on “Face the Nation,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Rodríguez has indeed made progress on changes to the country’s hydrocarbon laws, which effectively change the conditions under which companies can invest in Venezuela.

“It still requires work. It’s probably not enough to bring in the level of investment that would be desirable,” Wirth told CBS News. He spoke with CBS News before a meeting at the White House last week.

Venezuelan oil is the type of heavy crude that refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast are designed to process. He said he supported changes to the system aimed at increasing energy production in Venezuela, but he described it as a “work in progress.” Wirth said Chevron has excellent employees in Venezuela, but acknowledged that some of what he described as a very talented workforce had fled the country during the last two decades of Chavismo.

Wirth also told CBS News that he spoke to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and heard him discuss the need for timely elections in Venezuela. He did not share a timetable for this democratic transition. The United States reestablished its diplomatic presence in Caracas and appointed career foreign service officer John Barrett as charge d’affaires.

The Trump administration has remained tight-lipped on the election schedule. Several U.S. and Venezuelan officials have indicated that it could be two to three years before the country is ready for elections. The Trump administration has made stabilizing the country a top priority, with democracy a secondary goal. Rodríguez appears to be considering completing the remainder of Maduro’s six-year term, which could mean elections in 2030.

María Corina Machado, leader of the opposition told “Face the Nation” in February that a safe and clear timetable for moving away from Maduro’s regime is necessary before exiles feel safe enough to return. She has consulted at least twice with President Trump and recently Rubio about her future plans to return to Venezuela. She confidently told CBS News that “I will be president when the time comes.”

Machado’s party won the last presidential election in 2024, according to the State Department, which estimates that 12 million Venezuelans have gone to the polls peacefully. Nonetheless, the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner, and its representatives subsequently sought to arrest Edmundo Gonzalez (who replaced Machado in the race) and Machado as part of what the United States described as a plan to retain power.

Rodríguez – who was Maduro’s vice president – ​​was officially recognized by the Trump administration as “the sole head of state” in March, almost three months after a lightning shock. American military raid arrested Maduro in January and took him into custody in the United States on drug trafficking charges linked to the Cartel de los Soles.

United States lifted sanctions against Rodríguez earlier this month, even though Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello retains a $25 million U.S. government bounty on his head for his role in the Cartel de los Soles, which is the same drug trafficking organization that the United States has designated as a terrorist group. He led Maduro’s repressive security apparatus, but remains a key government figure today. Cabello, once Maduro’s top thug, can now be seen sitting across from senior Trump officials in meetings discussing trade deals.