Delcy Rodríguez poses with Trump in New York as Maduro languishes in jail nearby

Delcy Rodríguez e Donald Trump posam juntos em uma foto na terça-feira. Fotografia: Presidência venezuelana/AFP/Getty Images. Ver imagem em tela cheia. Delcy Rodríguez e Donald Trump posam juntos em uma foto na terça-feira.

Photograph: Venezuelan presidency/AFP/Getty ImagesDelcy RodríguezDelcy Rodríguez poses with Trump in New York as Maduro languishes in jail nearbyVenezuela’s interim president hails ‘historic meeting’ and does not say whether she will visit snatched predecessor.

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleVenezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has celebrated a “historic” meeting with Donald Trump in New York, posing for a smiley photo with the US president, less than nine months after he ordered the abduction of her boss, Nicolás Maduro.

Os antigos inimigos se encontraram em um hotel cinco estrelas, a algumas quadras da Trump Tower em Manhattan, tarde de terça-feira, nas margens da Assembleia Geral da UN.

O hotel fica a cerca de 7 milhas da prisão de Brooklyn, onde Maduro está detido desde que foi sequestrado durante um ataque de forças especiais em Caracas em janeiro.

Read moreOn the eve of Tuesday’s encounter, an American reporter asked Rodríguez if she would be visiting Maduro, under whom she served as vice-president, during her stay in New York.

But she did find time to meet Trump at the luxury Lotte New York Palace hotel, with the get-together seen as a key part of Rodríguez’s push for international legitimacy after years of Venezuela’s diplomatic isolation under Maduro’s dictatorship.

On Wednesday she is expected to address the annual UN assembly.

Oliver Blanco, one of Rodríguez’s top diplomats, claimed the meeting marked “a new stage of dialogue and understanding between both countries” and was “an important step toward new opportunities for our country and our people”.

Blanco também postou uma foto alegre na qual ele e Trump sorriram e deram o polegar para cima para a câmera.

Um assistente da Casa Branca disse que a reunião também contou com a presença de altos funcionários dos EUA, incluindo o secretário de Estado, Marco Rubio, e o vice-chefe de gabinete, Stephen Miller.

Hours earlier, Rodríguez had sat in the general assembly hall watching Trump celebrate the “massive military operation” during which Maduro – whom he called an “outlaw dictator” and “a real criminal” – was captured.

View image in fullscreenObservers suggested Delcy Rodríguez’s clenched left hand signified her discomfort around Donald Trump. Photograph: Venezuelan presidency/AFP/Getty ImagesSome observers also detected signs of discomfort in the body language captured in the photo of Trump and Rodríguez, who appeared to be clenching her left fist.

Alguns dos críticos de Rodríguez na Venezuela chamaram o tratamento dela por Trump de uma humilhação incondicional para um político do partido socialista que passou anos denunciando o imperialismo americano.

After Maduro’s capture, Trump warned that Rodríguez would “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” if she did not toe the US line. Since then, Rodríguez has made a series of concessions, including ceding control of Venezuela’s oil revenues to Washington and agreeing to a controversial 65bn-barrel oil deal that Trump on Tuesday called “the largest oil deal in history”.

Uma figura da oposição denunciou a reunião Rodríguez-Trump como um encontro entre uma “marionete descarada e seu marionetista inescrupuloso”.

But Rodríguez has succeeded in consolidating power, with Trump seemingly more focused on gaining access to Venezuela’s natural resources than pushing for a fresh presidential election that would move the South American country back towards democracy.

Trump has repeatedly praised Rodríguez’s “fantastic” and “terrific” leadership while sidelining her main rival, the opposition leader María Corina Machado. Machado, who left Venezuela late last year to receive her Nobel peace prize in Oslo, has been unable to return and is exiled in Panama.

Ela supostamente fez três tentativas de retornar à Venezuela nesta semana, mas falhou.

For Trump, meeting Rodríguez was a way to show Maga voters he had “won Venezuela” by commandeering its massive oil reserves with January’s invasion. “So that picture was a win-win for Delcy and for Trump,” Pérez added.

Before Tuesday’s tête-à-tête, the presidents of the US and Venezuela had last met in 2015, when Barack Obama and Maduro spoke briefly during a regional summit in Panama.

Na década que se seguiu, Maduro tornou-se um paria internacional enquanto conduzia seu país ao caos econômico e a um regime cada vez mais autoritário, e a Venezuela foi atingida por sanções internacionais punitivas.

At the 2015 summit, Obama conceded that the days in which “the US could meddle with impunity” in Latin America were over. But Trump has dramatically different ideas and has been forging ahead with attempts to reassert US dominance in a region it has long considered its back yard.

As well as capturing Venezuela’s government and trying to topple Cuba’s communist government by strangling its economy, Trump’s push for hegemony has also seen the US accused of trying to swing Brazil’s presidential election in favour of the far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro through diplomatic and economic pressure.

Addressing the UN assembly on Tuesday, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, hit back at such efforts, without directly citing the US. “We will not allow the enemies of democracy – internal or external – to attack the will of the people.

Brazilian democracy belongs to the Brazilians,” said Lula who is facing a tough battle to win re-election in October’s vote.