Venezuela Is Open for Business — Except When It Isn't

Delcy Rodríguez's government is moving fast on the economic front. Fast enough to make investors notice. Fast enough to get mainstream headlines about a 'new Venezuela.'

The Banker From Paris

According to the Wall Street Journal, Rodríguez has hired Matthieu Pigasse — a Centerview Partners investment banker based in Paris with a self-described socialist worldview — to lead Venezuela's effort to restructure approximately $150 billion in debt.

Pigasse is a high-profile dealmaker. He's also ideologically comfortable with left-wing governments. That makes him a natural fit for a regime trying to talk to international bond markets without fully abandoning its Chavista identity.

Bloomberg reported that at least some bond investors who held Venezuelan debt through the dark years are now getting paid. When creditors start seeing returns on paper they wrote off years ago, money moves.

The US-Educated Technocrat Gets the Keys

On the domestic side, TRT World reported that Rodríguez appointed Calixto Ortega — former head of Venezuela's central bank and a diplomat previously stationed in Houston — to run the country's International Center for Productive Investment.

Ortega replaced Alex Saab, a Colombian-born operator widely described as a Maduro frontman. The U.S. had accused Saab of money laundering. His firing wasn't subtle. Rodríguez sacked him as industry minister the week before pulling him from the investment post entirely.

The message to Washington and American oil companies: the Maduro-era baggage is being cleared out. Whether that's real reform or a costume change remains unclear.

Trump Claims He's Running Venezuela. The Evidence Says Otherwise.

After the U.S. military captured Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and flew him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges, President Trump told reporters, according to WLRN, "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition."

WLRN's Tim Padgett reported on the case of Carmelo and Daniel De Grazia — two Venezuelan bankers arrested by the Maduro regime in April 2024 and locked inside Rodeo I, a prison the United Nations has cited for torture and brutal human rights violations. A Venezuelan court ordered them released last month. They are still in prison.

Carmelo De Grazia's son told WLRN his father entered prison weighing close to 190 pounds. He now weighs less than 120. He is locked in his cell 23 hours a day. He is a gastric bypass patient who cannot digest the food they give him.

"I don't think I exaggerate when I say that my father is dying," De Grazia Parra told WLRN.

If Trump is running Venezuela, why can't he get two men out of prison after a Venezuelan court itself said they should go free?

What Mainstream Media Is Getting Wrong

The financial press — WSJ, Bloomberg — is largely covering the Pigasse hire and the debt restructuring as a straightforward business story. Investor confidence. Market signals. Reform momentum. The progressive press is framing Rodríguez as a reluctant reformer forced into capitalism by collapse and U.S. pressure. Fortune published a detailed biography noting she studied law and once had a "brief stint focusing on labor law in France" before climbing Chavismo's ranks.

What stands out: a government sophisticated enough to hire a Parisian investment banker to restructure $150 billion in debt cannot simultaneously claim it lacks the institutional capacity to release two men a court already ordered freed.

Machado Is Still on the Sidelines

TRT World also noted that opposition leader María Corina Machado — who handed Trump her Nobel medal at the White House — remains on the periphery of all these moves. Trump told reporters he's still talking to her. "Maybe we can get her involved in some way. I'd love to be able to do that," he said.

Machado has been the face of genuine Venezuelan opposition for years. If the endgame is actual democracy and not just a regime that swapped Maduro for a friendlier socialist with American oil contacts, she needs to be at the table.

Iria Puyosa, senior research fellow at the Atlantic Council's Democracy+Tech Initiative and former professor at the Central University of Venezuela, warned that Rodríguez lacks support from all factions within Chavismo. "Rodríguez cannot guarantee the stability required for the business operations Trump emphasized," Puyosa wrote.

What This Means for Regular People

For American investors and oil companies, Venezuela is dangling real incentives. The debt restructuring is serious work. The Ortega appointment signals access. The money may start flowing.

For Venezuelans still inside that country — especially anyone who ever crossed the regime — nothing has fundamentally changed. Courts order men released and they stay in prison. A new investment czar gets announced while a gastric bypass patient starves in Rodeo I.

For American taxpayers and the Trump administration's credibility: if you claim you're running a country, you own what happens there. Two men dying in a torture prison under a court-ordered release is on your watch now.