Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: The United States lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s interim leader, meteorologists warn of a destructive El Niño, and Uruguay holds a secular Easter week.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: The United States lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s interim leader, meteorologists warn of a destructive El Niño, and Uruguay holds a secular Easter week.

100 Days of Delcy Rodríguez

Around 100 days have passed since the United States launched a military raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and empowered his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez. U.S. President Donald Trump views the maneuver as so successful that he has repeatedly mentioned it as a model for change in Iran.

Though events in Tehran have spiraled in a different direction, U.S.-Venezuela cooperation under Rodríguez’s interim government is humming forward. The United States has praised the administration’s recent move to liberalize the oil sector and last week removed sanctions that it imposed on Rodríguez in 2018 for undermining democracy.

Venezuelan economist Asdrúbal Oliveros estimates that the country’s GDP could grow by between 12 percent and 15 percent this year—a reversal from years of underperformance.

The last few weeks have also brought signs of political liberalization, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says is another U.S. goal in Venezuela. More than 400 political prisoners have been released since early January, according to rights group Foro Penal, although certain releases may be temporary.

Some independent media organizations in Venezuela have said they are able to report more freely, and dissidents who were freed from jail have participated in political rallies without being arrested. The government’s “repressive apparatus is still standing,” but it “is sending signals that it is not open to carrying out a bloodbath,” historian Pedro Benítez told news site Efecto Cocuyo.

Whether Oliveros’s bullish economic forecast comes to fruition will depend in part on if foreign oil companies move forward with investments in Venezuela.

Chevron has said it wants to increase its Venezuelan oil output by 50 percent in two years. In late February, French firm Maurel & Prom moved a drilling rig back into the country’s main crude-producing region for the first time in eight years. A strong oil industry revival would have spillover effects in other parts of the economy, such as road construction and real........

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