Articles and notes where Venezuela is a central actor.
Ten months after the night-time assault that removed Nicolás Maduro, the State Department negotiates with Delcy Rodríguez a status of forces agreement that would give United States troops a legal basis to remain. The scope is deliberately narrow, and the contract is what would make the occupation survive the government that began it.
Drones hit a guerrilla camp in southern Apure on October 30 and the army that operates them has published no toll: 19 dead by one count, around 20 by another, nine bodies in a morgue in San Fernando. Five years after an operation that ended with the force withdrawn and 12 soldiers hostage, the target changed, the method changed, and the only record is the one a human rights group wrote.
In seven months, Washington burned through nearly a third of its strategic oil reserve in the war on Iran — and now promises to refill it with Venezuelan crude it does not yet control.
The Russian foreign minister treated multipolarity as an ongoing process and organized his speech in four parts: a dated list of targets of US uses of force, the reform Moscow wants at the UN, the letter born outside it with nine signatures, and Ukraine with no new script.
Eight months after Maduro was seized by United States forces, the interim leader thanked Trump at the General Assembly and declared alignment with Washington, promising an election with no date.
Washington put the doctrine of 1823 in writing, invaded Venezuela, sanctions Cuba, expands bases in Greenland and keeps a stalled war against Iran. Lula answered from the UN rostrum by naming the mechanisms of that offensive, and the vote of 4 October 2026 decides who administers the answer, with the Bolsonaro family on the other side.
Venezuela’s National Assembly approved on Tuesday, in a first reading, the bill for a partial reform of the Constitutional Law against Hatred, at the request of the executive. The reform replaces prison sentences with fines and community work and sets out clear administrative procedures for applying the law; the text drops the word “hatred” and is to be renamed the Law for Democratic Coexistence, Peace and Coexistence. Opposition lawmaker Amelia Belisario said the law “served to persecute dissent.” The non-governmental organization Espacio Público warned that the reform keeps mechanisms that can restrict freedom of expression, by leaving sanctioning procedures in the hands of the ministry with jurisdiction over justice.
A strike against alleged members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Venezuela’s Apure state, near the Colombian border, had US intelligence and drone support, according to four US officials quoted by the New York Times. The operation took place last Friday, and a senior Venezuelan military officer confirmed the attack. Fundaredes, the first organization to raise the alarm, counted 23 dead and an undetermined number of wounded in the bombing of an ELN base used as a cocaine distribution center, based on testimony from survivors and local residents that the Times collected. Local reporters with Alianza Rebelde Investiga identified eight of the dead — including two Colombians and four Mexicans — using information from the morgue, the hospital and the San Fernando de Apure cemetery. Venezuelan authorities counted 19 dead in the operation so far, a lower toll than Fundaredes’. The attack came after the United States forcibly removed Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela’s government came under the control of an administration aligned with Donald Trump, according to Infobae, in a New York Times text.
The administration of Donald Trump is negotiating an agreement with Venezuela that would allow a long-term US military presence in the country, according to The New York Times, in a TASS report. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading efforts to conclude the military pact, a status of forces agreement (SOFA), and details on the long-term presence and the locations where troops will be stationed will be left to subsequent agreements. The newspaper does not say whether the United States intends to build and maintain its own bases in the country or to station troops at existing Venezuelan bases. An unnamed State Department official said Washington hopes to expand security cooperation with Venezuela and that no discussions regarding bases are currently taking place.
The United States has urged Venezuela to release the remaining political prisoners held in the country. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met his Venezuelan counterpart, Oliver Blanco, on Monday, when he called for their release and discussed reforms aimed at laying the groundwork for free and credible elections, according to the State Department. More than 1,000 political prisoners have been freed since US forces seized Nicolás Maduro in a raid on Caracas on January 3 and took him to New York, where he faces trial on drug-trafficking and torture charges. Venezuelan prisoners’ rights group Foro Penal says 322 people remain in detention. The State Department reiterated its commitment to Donald Trump’s three-phase plan, which provides for stabilization, economic recovery and political reconciliation, and democratic transition.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco in Washington on Monday to discuss the country’s political future, nearly a year after US forces seized former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. The State Department reaffirmed Donald Trump’s three-phase plan for Venezuela — stabilization, economic recovery and political reconciliation, and democratic transition.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio received Venezuela's foreign minister, Oliver Blanco, in Washington on Monday in the first meeting between the two countries' top diplomats since the US military attack on the South American country on January 3. The meeting took place two weeks after Venezuelan authorities and the opposition agreed on a blueprint to reform the country's electoral process that would allow free and fair elections at some point in 2027, and the Trump administration has stepped up pressure on the interim government and opposition groups to move quickly on election preparations.
Detained in the United States since January 3, 2026, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro sent a message to the Venezuelan people on Sunday, November 1, asking for prayers. “Pray for us and know that Cilia and I are with you every step of the way,” the text says, closing with embraces and blessings for families in Venezuela and elsewhere.
The Venezuelan armed forces bombed a National Liberation Army (ELN) encampment in the border state of Apure, leaving at least 19 dead, according to TRT World, citing the NGO FundaRedes and sources close to the operation. FundaRedes coordinator Juan Francisco Garcia told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that nine bodies arrived in San Fernando and another ten were transferred later.
Venezuela’s army attacked a camp of the National Liberation Army (ELN) inside Venezuelan territory on Friday, the first time the country has struck ELN forces camped on its own soil, according to TRT World. A staff member of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Fundaredes counted at least nine bodies at the destroyed camp, Tarazona said, according to the report, which released video of the site. TRT World noted that Venezuela was ruled by socialists for decades until Nicolás Maduro was ousted by US forces in January.
A military bombardment against the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla killed several people on Venezuela's border with Colombia, in Apure, the NGO Fundaredes and a human rights activist told Agence France-Presse, according to G1. Fundaredes director Javier Tarazona said a coordinator for the NGO saw the first nine dead in the operation; for him, it is “the first bombardment by Venezuela against the ELN”.
María Corina Machado thanked Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for opening a “floodgate to freedom” with the January 3 action, at a news conference in Caracas, according to Al Jazeera. She said Rubio set out a sequence of events pointing to presidential elections in 2027, according to the BBC. Shortly before her remarks on Thursday, Delcy Rodríguez said elections would be held “with the world as witness,” without setting a date, according to Al Jazeera.
Colombia’s president, Abelardo de la Espriella, ordered on Thursday the temporary militarization of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela, amid a wave of violence and killings by illegal groups, a city that in recent days saw the murder of a mayoral hopeful and a bombing that left four police officers wounded.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Thursday that the United States suggested holding presidential elections in Venezuela in 2027, according to G1.
Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said she had ordered an assessment of non-essential state assets that could be offered to the private sector or returned to their former owners, in a recorded address on Thursday, according to CNN en Español. She said the initiative is already “advanced” and that “private property is a protected right guaranteed by our Constitution.” In the same address, she reiterated that “there will be elections, everything our Constitution requires” and said the election “should not be a problem or make us go back to times of confrontation that nobody wants anymore”.
Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, asked the Foreign Ministry and the Attorney General’s office to take steps to recover the Venezuelan gold held at the Bank of England and said “ya basta de excusas,” citing an agreement to recover the assets, with reserves worth about $2 billion still frozen, according to EFE.
Alvin Hellerstein, the US federal judge handling the case against Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro, has died at 92, the federal court for the Southern District of New York confirmed, according to Le Monde. Maduro’s trial had been due to open on July 1, 2027. Hellerstein was one of the oldest US federal judges, and questions had been raised about whether he was the right judge to preside over what could be a prolonged trial of Maduro on drug-trafficking charges, according to the South China Morning Post.
Donald Trump showed off at a rally in Corpus Christi a tanker he claimed carried one million barrels of Venezuelan oil, calling the deal the greatest oil victory in history, according to the British newspaper The Guardian, and suggested Venezuela could one day become the 51st US state, the paper also reports. According to Reuters, Trump said he will visit the ship in Texas with the first oil under the deal made after deposing the country's former leader.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the Trump administration told Venezuela's interim authorities “weeks and weeks ago” that opposition leader María Corina Machado should be allowed to return as the country moves ahead with preparing for elections next year, according to AP, in a text published by the Orlando Sentinel. Rubio told reporters on a call that the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez replied to the US that Machado was free to enter the country. Machado returned to Venezuela over the weekend.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that Venezuela's interim government told the United States “weeks and weeks” earlier that opposition leader María Corina Machado could return to the country without interference, according to CBS News. Rubio added that he told the interim authorities the US expectation was that she, a Venezuelan, belongs in her country.
Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said María Corina Machado “could have spared herself this show” and that “the airports are there”, referring to the opposition leader's return; Machado had been in exile and came back to the country on Sunday (25). Rodríguez also said other beneficiaries of the amnesty law had been able to enter through airport facilities, according to Le Monde. Machado's spokesperson, Claudia Macero, said the opposition leader is willing to sit at the table with Rodríguez and with anyone else she must talk to, publicly, transparently and with a precise program.
María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday, a surprise homecoming after nearly a year in exile that drew jubilant crowds in a direct challenge to the US-backed interim government, AFP reported. It was her first appearance in the country since December, a return that comes amid doubts about the country’s democratic future, the Associated Press reported, in a text republished by PBS NewsHour.
Opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado returned home to a fraught political landscape after more than 10 months in exile, according to the BBC. It was her first public appearance in Venezuela since December, about a month before the US military deposed then-president Nicolás Maduro, according to NPR.
Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets this Thursday in the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years, calling for elections and political change, with a notably thin presence of security forces. The march was organised by María Corina Machado's Vente Venezuela movement in Caracas and other cities, including Valencia, Maracay, San Cristóbal and Maracaibo. The interim government of Delcy Rodríguez and US President Donald Trump say there will be elections, but no date has been set.
An alliance of Venezuelan opposition parties on Sunday confirmed exiled Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado as its leader, The Hindu reported, increasing pressure on interim authorities to allow her return. The announcement comes as one opposition faction engages in political transition talks with the interim government, after the US ouster of longtime leader Nicolás Maduro.
For the first time in 20 years, Cuba was not mentioned in a Venezuelan representative’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly, according to G1. Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, told Bloomberg that Venezuela is “a friendly country” and that “ally is a very strong word”, according to G1.
The Justice Department of the United States charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former First Lady Cilia Flores with conspiring to commit torture, narcoterrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and weapons offenses, in a superseding indictment. According to the department, the torture described includes electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells and psychological torture, such as threats to harm and kill victims’ families. Maduro and Flores each pleaded not guilty to the new charges on Thursday, according to ABC News, which reports that the indictment accuses them of torturing people, including Americans, to help them cling to power.
Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty on Thursday (October 15), during a hearing in a Manhattan court in New York, according to Opera Mundi. The two were captured in Caracas during a US operation in January 2026 and taken to New York.
María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader, criticized in an interview businessman Alejandro Betancourt, Washington’s new oil partner in Venezuela, and held him responsible for “obscene corruption,” according to The New York Times. Betancourt struck a deal with the Trump administration to control roughly a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were expected to appear on Thursday in a federal court in Manhattan to face newly filed criminal charges, according to NBC New York. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein entered a not-guilty plea on their behalf, the Associated Press reported.
Crude oil prices retreated on the news that President Donald Trump is considering lifting sanctions on shadow-fleet tankers used to carry oil from Venezuela, Russia and Iran, with Brent trading at US$ 104.39 per barrel and WTI at US$ 94.02, after Brent topped US$ 106 earlier in the week, according to OilPrice.
Electromagnetic weapons of the United States (US) Space Force played a crucial role in military operations in Venezuela and Iran and include Meadowlands, an offensive system that can jam enemy satellites and disrupt their communications, according to The Wall Street Journal, cited by The Jerusalem Post.
The third round of talks between Venezuela’s government and opposition has begun, according to TASS; the United States (US) State Department said the delegations held two rounds of talks in Caracas in August and September, with another scheduled to begin on October 14 and focused on finalizing the Supreme Court selection process.
The administration of US President Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Jorge Rodríguez, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly and the brother of the nation’s president, according to a notice posted on the US Treasury Department’s website on Wednesday and reported by Reuters. Caracas and Washington have cut a deal that gives the US access to 17 oilfields, and international energy firms have separately committed to expanding projects, Reuters reported.
Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s government has handed Álvaro Pulido over to the United States, according to El País. Pulido, Álex Saab’s Colombian-born associate, had been held in Caracas since 2023. He is due to appear Tuesday before a federal court in Miami, where he faces two criminal cases dating from 2019 and 2021. In one of them, prosecutors accuse him and Saab of laundering about $350 million through fictitious imports linked to a social housing contract.
The party of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado demanded on Thursday, October 8, the immediate lifting of her ineligibility, according to Le Monde. A former magistrate, Barbara Cesar Siero, said two of her brothers and her sister-in-law, all military personnel, were arrested in December 2023 to force her to sign the document that declared Machado ineligible.
Prosecutors in the United States (US) have accused Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of conspiracy to commit torture, in charges made public on Thursday. The fresh charges are in addition to the drug-trafficking and weapons charges already brought against them, which they have denied, and relate to the alleged torture of US citizens held in Venezuela while Maduro was in power, according to the BBC.
Federal prosecutors in the US are expected to bring new charges against Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, for allegedly torturing Americans, according to CBS News. The charges involve the torture of more than a dozen Americans wrongfully detained under Maduro's government, and additional people may be charged, according to the BBC, in a text citing CBS. Lawyers for Flores, 69, argued that she has medical issues that cannot be treated effectively in jail and that she could instead live under 24-hour guard, according to the Associated Press, in a text published by WPXI.
Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores are expected to face new criminal charges in the US over the alleged torture of Americans held in the South American country, a US official said on Wednesday, according to Reuters, in a text published by The Jerusalem Post. The announcement could come as soon as Thursday. The possibility of new charges was first reported by CNN on Wednesday.
Venezuela’s Cardón refinery halted after a fire, according to sources cited by Reuters. Authorities managed to fully extinguish and control the fire, which started at 3:25 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, according to Noticia al Día.
Venezuela did not take any formal steps to demand the release of Maduro and Flores or to request their immunity so they would not be tried in the United States, according to El País. A hearing was scheduled for November 17 to address only the couple's immunity.
Former Republican congressman David Rivera has been sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison for money laundering and for working as an undeclared foreign agent, according to the BBC. NBC News reports the case involves a secret $50 million lobbying campaign on Venezuela’s behalf during the first Trump administration. There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime, according to the BBC.
According to an investigation by The New York Times, Venezuelan gold that Donald Trump’s administration brought to the US is sitting in warehouses because no refiner will process it. In early March, the president looked approvingly at the 10 Venezuelan gold bars stacked in the Roosevelt Room, across from the Oval Office, White House officials recalled. On the same day the bars arrived, the administration issued a policy allowing the import of Venezuelan gold, with the first supplies coming from a state-owned mining company that the US still designated as a national security threat. All that gold — hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth — sits untouched in warehouses, according to three people with knowledge of the shipments.
Hundreds of supporters of Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado took to the streets to demand her safe return and presidential elections that could lead to a democratic transition. In Caracas, hundreds of activists in sky blue shirts — the colour of Machado’s Vente Venezuela party — rode motorcycles through the capital’s main avenues on Sunday, with similar demonstrations in Valencia, Maracaibo and Merida, according to Al Jazeera. Machado has been living in exile for the past nine months and has had plans to return spoiled multiple times; opposition activists have accused the government of blocking her return, a claim the authorities deny.
Venezuelan authorities released a significant number of political prisoners from several detention centres in the early hours of Saturday, according to Foro Penal. Among those released was Wilder Vasquez, handed a five-year sentence in 2018 over claims he was plotting to kill former President Nicolás Maduro. The releases came days after the country's interim leader met US President Donald Trump in New York, according to the BBC.
Human rights group Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP) said 39 political dissidents were freed between Friday and Saturday, September 25 and 26, 2026, from various prisons, including eight women accused of “narco-terrorism” in 2021, according to Al Jazeera. The releases followed a second round of negotiations on Friday between the government of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, and the opposition, held with US approval since Washington’s military removal of Maduro in January 2026. Rights group Foro Penal said 344 people remained classified as political prisoners as of September 18, 2026, down from 391 on August 10, 2026.
In her speech to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, thanked Donald Trump for his willingness to “resume the path of diplomatic relations and cooperation with Venezuela”, praised the oil deal with Washington and announced that the country will hold elections, without setting a date, and made no mention of Nicolás Maduro, according to Sandra Cohen’s column at G1, which describes the 18-minute address as a break with the Bolivarian rhetoric that in 2019 had her praising Maduro and attacking Trump from the same podium.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado tried three times in 24 hours to return to Venezuela and was unable to enter the country, according to The Straits Times, which carries a Bloomberg report, and Deutsche Welle. She set out from Panama, where she is in exile, and the attempts included a boat and flights to the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao, from where she would continue by sea, according to Bloomberg. The Vente Venezuela party confirmed the attempt was thwarted and did not identify who blocked it, according to Deutsche Welle. Pedro Urruchurtu, an adviser to Machado, said on social media that the latest sea and air attempts are among seven failed efforts to return since she left the country clandestinely nine months ago, according to Reuters. The main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), demanded respect for Machado’s right to return and expressed “firm solidarity” with her, according to Deutsche Welle. The Venezuelan government considers Machado a fugitive and accuses her of calling for military intervention in the country, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The attempts came on the same day acting president Delcy Rodríguez met US President Donald Trump in New York.
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Ilan Goldfajn is working to secure approval for a US$ 2.5 billion loan to Venezuela and has faced pushback from part of the lender’s board, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter who spoke to Reuters. Board members raised concern about lending to Caracas without the parallel work of other multilateral lenders that would ensure the country’s capacity to repay, even though they recognise the benefits of re-engaging with Venezuela, one of the sources said. The IDB has made no new loans to the country since May 2018, when Venezuela fell behind on payments, and Caracas owes more than US$ 2 billion in overdue principal and interest to the bank. The operation would fall under a Special Development Lending (SDL) arrangement, which for Venezuela is capped at US$ 500 million under the bank’s rules, and would require a size waiver and a second waiver for the absence of a standing programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Any proposal needs the approval of the IDB’s 14-member executive board, where the United States holds 30% of the voting power, followed by Argentina and Brazil with 11.35% each. Goldfajn told Reuters on Monday, 21 September, that the IDB is working on an “engagement note” with Venezuela, a short-term plan that typically precedes new lending. The bank declined to comment, and the Venezuelan government did not respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump met Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, in New York on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, their first encounter since the US military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in January, according to G1, which cited Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP). The talks took place on the sidelines of a reception Trump hosted for foreign leaders during the UN General Assembly; Venezuela’s delegation, which includes the oil minister and representatives of state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), is pitching the country as a destination for investment in energy, mining and public debt. Trump again called Maduro an “outlaw dictator” and cited the oil deal struck with Caracas last month, which he described as “maybe the biggest deal ever made”. The same day, the opposition party Vente Venezuela said María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, tried three times in the previous hours to return home — by boat from Panama and on flights to Aruba and Curaçao — and was blocked each time, bringing the total to seven failed attempts, according to the Spanish news agency EFE, in a report carried by ABC Color, and NTN24’s correspondent. Machado has been in Panama City since leaving Venezuela in December 2025 to collect the prize in Norway.
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, at the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly that drug cartels are “the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere” and argued they should be “killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release”, according to Reuters. He spoke ahead of a meeting with leaders and foreign ministers from the Shield of the Americas, an anti-cartel coalition launched by his administration in March and made up of Latin American governments aligned with Washington; Brazil and Mexico are not part of it. Trump cited the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the oil deal with the interim government as proof that Washington “will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere” and that it will use its “unmatched military might” if necessary, and said Mexico “must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity”. G1 reported that he asked members of the coalition to formally designate drug factions as “common threats to stability” and to impose sanctions. Since late 2025, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that, according to human rights groups, have killed more than 220 people and amount to extrajudicial killings.
A US federal judge blocked the deportation of Venezuelan Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, 20 September 2026, and still held with a bullet lodged in his back, according to his lawyer. The order by Judge Orlando L. Garcia, of the federal court in San Antonio, instructs Bobby Thompson, warden of the South Texas ICE Processing Center, to bring Garcés Pérez to a hearing on 30 September 2026; it was signed on Monday, 21 September, according to KXAN. Because his attendance is mandatory, he cannot be removed before the hearing, said his lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, who filed a federal lawsuit seeking a stay of removal and his release, according to the BBC. Travis County District Attorney José Garza wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and ICE Director David Venturella asking that the removal be paused while the shooting investigation continues, because Garcés Pérez is a central witness, according to Fox News. Congressman Joaquin Castro demanded his release from detention.
About 50 opposition supporters protested in Caracas on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, outside the office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) against the participation of Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, in the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Andrés Velásquez, a former governor and leader of the La Causa R party, said Rodríguez ‘does not represent Venezuela’ and that the only point of interest for Venezuelans in her meeting with US President Donald Trump is the setting of a date for presidential elections, according to EFE and Agence France-Presse (AFP). Protesters held banners in Spanish and English against Rodríguez and against what they call US tutelage over the country.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is drawing up a two-year engagement plan for Venezuela focused partly on electricity and social protection, its president, Ilan Goldfajn, said on Monday in an interview with Reuters. “We are, of course, reengaging,” he said, adding that the bank has missions to Venezuela to assess the macroeconomic framework and the data and to draft an engagement note setting out what it plans to do over the next two years. The IDB, the largest development lender in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 48 member countries, stopped making new loans to Venezuela in May 2018 after the country fell behind on payments, and still has about $2 billion in outstanding Venezuelan loans. Goldfajn did not say how the arrears would be addressed or when financing could resume, and said the bank is concentrating on the country’s macroeconomic framework and requirements across individual sectors rather than preparing its own debt-sustainability analysis.