Who is the die-hard socialist Trump favours as Venezuela’s new leader?

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Venezuela’s new interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, who scaled the regime’s ranks on the strength of her anti-American beliefs and full-blown support of socialist ideals, but also her pragmatic handling of the economy, now finds herself under pressure from the United States to pave the way for a capitalist overhaul of her country.

It’s an “inherently destabilizing” situation that is almost certain to result in further violence and geopolitical risk, said Ben Rowswell, Canada’s former ambassador to Venezuela and a consultant with Catalyze4.

And yet there were signs late Sunday that Ms. Rodríguez was open to working with the U.S., suggesting the two sides explore a “cooperation agenda,” a sign of the desperate state the Venezuelan government finds itself in.

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After the U.S. launched strikes on Venezuela Saturday and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, power was transferred to Vice-President Rodríguez, whom Mr. Maduro once praised as a “tiger.”

Her commitment to socialism took root at a young age.

Ms. Rodríguez, along with her brother Jorge Rodríguez, who is the head of Venezuela’s national assembly, are children of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a well-known leftist leader who in the 1970s was involved in the kidnapping of an American businessman.

Their father was imprisoned and died while being interrogated in 1976 when Ms. Rodríguez was seven years old.

Her world view was shaped by that episode and what she saw as “the injustice of the capitalist pro-Western regime suppressing the one true cause,” Mr. Rowswell said. “It was the fire in the belly that made her an effective socialist politician, and she rose through the ranks on the intensity of her commitment to socialism.”

During Mr. Rowswell’s time as ambassador, from 2014 to 2017, Ms. Rodríguez, as foreign minister, would pack roughly 70 ambassadors to Venezuela into a room. She would then lecture them for hours on their policies toward her country and celebrate the “new world order” of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea that had “freed the world of American domination.”

Yet Ms. Rodríguez also displayed a pragmatic streak in her roles as finance and oil minister that caught the eye of some in the Trump administration.

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In the wake of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries, including Canada, she orchestrated a series of market reforms in 2019, abandoning price and currency controls, allowing the use of U.S. dollars and slashing regulations on the private sector.

The moves helped stabilize Venezuela’s economy, but rather than being evidence of Ms. Rodríguez as a moderate – a narrative that has taken hold in the wake of Mr. Maduro’s arrest – her actions were an effort to ensure the survival of the regime so that “people didn’t rise up with pitchforks,” Mr. Rowswell said.

“She doesn’t have a moderate bone in her body.”

Still, Mr. Trump presented her as a willing, if begrudging, ally, insisting that when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially spoke with her, she told him, “We’ll do whatever you need.”

“She was quite gracious,” Mr. Trump said, “but she really doesn’t have a choice.”

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Mr. Trump was quick to dismiss the idea that María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning opposition leader who has repeatedly praised him, could replace Mr. Maduro. She did not have the “support or respect” needed to run the country, Mr. Trump said.

Since the invasion Ms. Rodríguez has sent conflicting signals. In her first address as interim president, she assailed what she called an illegal invasion by the U.S. and insisted Mr. Maduro was the country’s legitimate leader. Then in a statement late Sunday night, she said the Venezuelan government was willing to co-operate. “We extend an invitation to the U.S. government to work together on a cooperation agenda, aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” the statement said.

Mr. Rubio, who on also backed away from Mr. Trump’s earlier pledge to “run” Venezuela, said the U.S. military would keep its “quarantine” in place to block oil exports and force Ms. Rodríguez’s government to comply with U.S. demands.

The crisis puts Ms. Rodríguez in a bind, with the Trump administration demanding she follow their orders on the one side, while hardliners in the regime watch her every move “because they’re opposed to surrendering to the U.S.,” said Mark Jones, a professor at Rice University specializing in Latin American politics.

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In backing Ms. Rodríguez as Venezuela’s leader, the Trump administration was also fully aware they couldn’t “just parachute” Ms. Machado in, as “it would require a substantial U.S. military presence in the country, and that could lead to disaster for the U.S. and the Trump administration,” Mr. Jones said. “Trump really has no choice but to work with Rodríguez now.”

There are several ways this could play out, with most scenarios likely resulting in further violence, Mr. Rowswell said.

If Ms. Rodríguez turns out to be Maduro 2.0, the U.S. may launch a second wave of attacks to remove her, he said.

Indeed, on Sunday Mr. Trump threatened a fate worse than Mr. Maduro’s arrest for Ms. Rodríguez if she “doesn’t do what’s right,” without saying what that fate would be.

Any move seen as appeasing the U.S. could also spark a battle for power from the country’s military and paramilitary forces.

But it’s also possible Ms. Rodríguez is a “wily enough negotiator” that she strikes a deal with the U.S. that “just involves economic interest for those close to Trump,” Mr. Rowswell said.

“So it’s not so much America manipulating Venezuela, but Venezuela appealing to the craven economic interests that seem to determine so much of what Trump does.”