caracas, venezuela
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It’s been less than two months since U.S. special forces captured Venezuela’s longtime authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime raid in Caracas, but it’s difficult to overstate how different the South American country feels right now.
There’s a new buzz and optimism that, frankly, we’ve never seen before.
I moved to Caracas in 2016.
Over the next decade, Venezuela saw it all. A quarter of the population escaped a devastating economic collapse. Crime rates exploded, but gradually declined in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Anti-Maduro protesters have taken to the streets every year, only to be suppressed by tear gas and rubber bullets.
But all the while, President Maduro appeared unmoved.
As I worked as a foreign correspondent in Caracas during the most turbulent months of 2019, I was often reminded of the words of The Leopard, the Italian novel about the 19th century conquest of Sicily: “For everything to remain the same, everything must change.”
Under Maduro, Venezuela holds elections almost every year, at least nominally. But while ministers may leave, Maduro, the man at the top, will always remain the same.
Similarly, a permanent crisis in the economy persisted, even though Caracas introduced a national cryptocurrency, the petro, to circumvent US sanctions, or the central bank removed five zeros from the national currency, the bolivar, to curb hyperinflation.
Until late last year, it seemed as if there was no crisis big enough for the government to change policy. Venezuela seemed destined to repeat the cycle.
What happened on January 3rd changed everything. US special forces captured Maduro during a raid in Caracas and spirited him away to New York City to face drug trafficking charges, which he denies.
In Maduro’s absence, he was replaced by former vice president and current acting president Delcy Rodríguez, who has relentlessly changed the country’s geopolitical outlook. Just 39 days after taking office, Mr. Rodriguez welcomed U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright as the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Caracas since President Bill Clinton in 1997.
I was there to cover Mr. Wright’s visit. This is why I think the changes taking place in Venezuela are unlike anything we have seen before.
Hugs and handshakes on an oil rig
One of the most surreal moments I witnessed last week took place not in Caracas, but at a Chevron-run oil field in a remote area called Petroindependencia 1.
CNN was one of three international broadcasters invited to accompany Mr. Rodriguez as he toured Mr. Wright around the country to highlight the potential of what is believed to be the world’s largest oil reserves.
The moment seemed simple. The two leaders visiting the industrial park shook hands, smiled for the cameras, and gave a nondescript speech or two.
What I didn’t expect was to find Rodriguez and Wright traveling in the same vehicle with a skeleton staff, Rodriguez friendly switching from English to Spanish to keep his secretary comfortable, and the two discussing technical details about how oil wells work (crude de-emulsification process, anyone?).
Keep in mind that for the past 27 years, the United States has been Venezuela’s nemesis.
Under President Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, oil projects by Western companies like the ones we visited were at best tolerated, but often confiscated, while the government pushed for closer trade ties with Iran and Russia for political reasons.
Politicians from all backgrounds will feel uncomfortable speaking English in public because it is considered the “imperial” language.
In the past few weeks, Rodriguez has wiped all that away. She has installed new economic leadership that appears to be competent and thorough. She abandoned her bellicose rhetoric in favor of building relationships with the US and European companies that received new licenses last week, and more importantly, sought positive relationships with the few remaining entrepreneurs in the country.
In the weeks since Rodriguez took office, at least seven tankers have left ports he visited bound for Texas and Louisiana, according to data reviewed by CNN. The White House says the United States is brokering the sale of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. The gains are already in the market, calming the inflationary spiral and making Caracas feel cheaper this month to me than it was in December.
Clearly, much work remains to be done. Chevron claims the project we visited produces about 40,000 barrels per day, but it has seven times the capacity. Wright said “political obstacles” still need to be cleared and this will take time, but when I asked Rodriguez, he said the two countries were working tirelessly to cement the new energy partnership and hoped it would be “long-term.”
This is a stark change from one woman who said in 2019 that “capitalism cannot create happiness.”
As our chosen group was visiting the oil fields on Thursday, several students took to the streets in Caracas and other cities to demand the release of political prisoners, hundreds of whom remain imprisoned, according to human rights watchdogs.
These were small protests involving hundreds rather than tens of thousands, but they were slowly but surely a sign that Caracas’s repressive apparatus is less feared than it once was.
Student movements have long been a pillar of the anti-Maduro movement, but the last public appearance of the pro-democracy movement was in January 2025.
Last July, security forces arrested more than 2,000 protesters in less than two days to quell an uprising after election authorities controversially recognized Mr. Maduro’s victory despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
This time, the protesters are not seeking a confrontation with the police, leader Miguerangel Suárez told me.
Suarez, a 26-year-old political student, believes there is now a chance to reclaim public space. “We have an opportunity to test how far[repression]will go. Now is the time to seek political guarantees,” he told me.
Other opposition leaders are also taking bolder stances against the government, more publicly than before. On February 9, Juan Pablo Guanipa, a close friend of Nobel laureate Maria Colina Machado who spent more than eight months in prison, was rearrested hours after his release for leading protests in Caracas. Rather than being returned to solitary confinement, he will be placed under house arrest and could receive a full pardon if amnesty legislation currently being debated is approved.
Machado, the undisputed leader of Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement, has spent the past few weeks on the sidelines, believing the Trump administration will push for a full transition to democracy and new elections once Venezuela is stabilized and the economic crisis is contained.
What I saw in Caracas falls short of Machado’s ambitions, as the Maduro regime remains in power even if it doesn’t.
Machado claims he intends to return to Caracas as soon as possible, but it is unclear at this time whether he will be allowed to return. She declined to speak to CNN for this article.
Suárez told me that while he respects Machado’s leadership in the pro-democracy movement, he believes Venezuela needs to achieve other concrete goals before returning to the voting booth: “To rebuild Venezuela, we must allow Machado into the country. All exiled brothers must be allowed into the country. Political prisoners must be freed, political parties must be allowed to operate, electoral authorities must change, and there must be a separation of powers. Only then can we move forward with our transition to democracy.”
Similar wariness was evident among several diplomats I spoke to. The consensus, at least in the international community, is that while Venezuela is taking its first small steps towards democracy, it should not rush ahead.
“Don’t rush, but don’t hesitate,” were the words heard from multiple sources, most of whom asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Throughout 2025, as the conflict between President Maduro and US President Donald Trump intensified, there appeared to be no good options left for Venezuela, caught between an authoritarian regime and the threat of foreign intervention reminiscent of Iraq circa 2003.
In the end, foreign intervention took place, but it was far less bloody than feared, and since then the personnel coming in from the United States have been diplomats and oil company executives rather than Marines.
That means going slowly – no one has toppled Maduro’s statue yet – but also avoiding the mistakes of perpetual war.
What has changed is that today we feel better than yesterday and we believe that Venezuela has an opportunity to make tomorrow even better.
Despite the obstacles left by 12 years of authoritarianism, the change in mentality is profound.
No one in Caracas is fooling themselves. The country is leaning and it will take a lot of effort for Venezuela to become great again, but even its harshest critics have to acknowledge its enthusiasm.
Perhaps the most surreal conversation I had was not hearing a Chavismo president praise capitalism, or hearing my friend who had been abroad for eight years finally looking for a flight to Caracas. But a European diplomat, after a long silence, said to me: “At least for now, we have to admit that Trump was right.”
