"One of the information we manage is that the US is holding an indictment against [Rodriguez] to make it public, just in case she derails," Valentina Lares Martiz revealed during a February 6, 2026 webinar hosted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an outlet also sponsored by the US government.

"Just to hold it over her head?" asked OCCRP deputy editor Julia Wallace.

"Yeah, so, I think she, she and her brother [Jorge Rodríguez], they are in this survival mode, and they will have the capacity to move the pieces, as long as the US backs her up," Armando.info's Lares Martiz affirmed. 

A January 17, 2026 report by the Associated Press revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration classified Acting president Rodríguez as a "priority target" almost as soon as she was appointed as Vice President in 2018. 

David Smilde, an academic who crusades for regime change in Venezuela at the US government and ExxonMobil-funded Atlantic Council, described the DEA investigation of Rodríguez as "logical." Smilde explained to the AP that the investigation "gives the U.S. government leverage over her. She may fear that if she does not do as the Trump administration demands, she could end up with an indictment like Maduro."

During the OCCRP webinar, Steven Dudley of the State Department-funded Insight Crime outlet remarked that "this isn't without precedent, in terms of [the US government] hanging an indictment over somebody to cajole them into doing their bidding."

Dudley added, "They don't need an indictment to cajole people. They have a giant military, and they've shown that they're willing to use that military. That is the biggest stick."

Confronting "a military aggression unprecedented in our history"

Delcy Rodríguez stepped in as Acting President following a deadly US military raid on Caracas this January 3 which left over 100 dead, including 32 Cuban military officers, and resulted in the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. In an interview with The Atlantic the following day, US President Donald Trump recognized Rodríguez as the new leader, but warned, "if she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro." 

Since then, Rodríguez has presided over the passage of an Organic Law on Hydrocarbons which rolled back the socialist reforms the late President Hugo Chavez made to the country's state oil company, PDVSA. In a January 16 speech to Venezuela's National Council of Economic Productivity, Rodríguez explained the impetus for the new law: 

"Enough time has passed, and Venezuela has been subjected to an unprecedented economic blockade. Well, recently, there has been a military aggression unprecedented in our history, and Venezuela must move forward…without compromising historical principles or compromising Venezuelan dignity. And in that direction, we have made the decision, seeing the successful results of the business models contemplated in the organic anti-blockade law, to take the models that are there and incorporate them into the Organic Law on Hydrocarbons."