Trump to meet Delcy Rodriguez at UN next week

US President Donald Trump will meet Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodriguez for the first time during the United Nations General Assembly next week, US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said Friday.

Waltz said Trump would take part in a “pull-aside” with Rodriguez on Tuesday, September 22.

Rodriguez was Venezuela's vice president under longtime leader Nicolas Maduro. She has cooperated with Washington's demands, including granting the United States access to Venezuela's oil reserves.

Under a recent agreement that Trump called the “biggest oil deal in world history,” the two countries announced that the United States would be granted control of about one-fifth of Venezuela's reserves. Critics of Rodriguez described the move as signing away sovereignty over the country's resources.

Earlier this month, at a G20 meeting of energy ministers, US oil company Continental Resources signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuela's national oil company PDVSA to develop oil from the Orinoco basin. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright called the project “a milestone deal in the US-Venezuelan relationship” and “a milestone deal in making the Western Hemisphere the center of the global energy system.”

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured in a US military raid in January and taken to a federal jail in New York, where they await trial on drug trafficking and other charges.