Laura Dogu’s visit comes as Venezuela begins privatizing its oil sector under pressure from Trump.

The top U.S. envoy to Venezuela has arrived in Caracas, reopening the U.S. diplomatic mission after seven years of severed ties.

Laura Dogu announced her arrival in a post on X on Saturday, saying: “My team and I are ready to work.”

The move comes nearly a month after US troops kidnapped Then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro departed from the presidential palace in Caracas on orders from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Maduro was later taken to a New York jail to face drug trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy charges.

This move has widely criticized considered a violation of international law.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil wrote in a cable that he had met with Dogu and that the talks focused on developing a “road map on issues of bilateral interest” and “addressing and resolving existing differences through diplomatic dialogue and on the basis of mutual respect and international law.”

Dogu, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Honduras and Nicaragua, has been appointed Charge d’Affaires for Venezuela at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.

In February 2019, Maduro decided to sever diplomatic relations with the United States after Trump publicly supported Venezuelan lawmaker Juan Guaidó, who claimed to be the country’s interim president in January of that year.

Popular Power Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, one of Venezuela’s most powerful politicians and a Maduro loyalist, said earlier in January that reopening the U.S. embassy in Caracas would give the Venezuelan government an opportunity to monitor the treatment of the deposed president.

Although the Trump administration has claim Officials also said Maduro’s kidnapping was necessary for security reasons Repeatedly framed Their interests in Venezuela revolve around controlling its vast oil reserves, which is largest in the world.

Since the kidnapping, Trump has pressured interim President Delcy Rodriguez to open the country’s nationalized oil sector to American companies.

The two countries have reached an agreement to export Venezuelan crude oil worth up to $2 billion to the United States, Rodriguez said on Thursday. signed into law A reform bill would pave the way for greater privatization.

The legislation gives private companies control over Venezuelan oil sales and production and requires legal disputes to be resolved outside Venezuelan courts, changes long sought by foreign companies that view the country’s judicial system as dominated by the ruling Socialist Party.

The bill also caps royalties collected by the government at 30%.

The Trump administration said on the same day that it would ease some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry and allow the country’s government and national oil company PDVSA to conduct limited transactions that are necessary for a list of export-related activities involving “mature U.S. entities.”

Trump has announced that he ordered to reopen Venezuela’s commercial airspace and “informed” Rodriguez that U.S. oil companies would soon arrive in the country to explore potential projects.

Rodriguez, Friday Announce An amnesty bill aimed at freeing hundreds of prisoners in the country and said she would close El Helicoide, Caracas’s notorious secret service prison, and replace it with a sports and cultural center.

The move is one of the main demands of the Venezuelan opposition.