Venezuelan Gov’t Resumes IMF, World Bank Ties, Appoints New Central Bank President

Caracas, April 17, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela has reestablished ties with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after a seven-year hiatus.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed the news on Thursday night, calling it a “great achievement of Venezuelan diplomacy” and a “very important step” for the Venezuelan economy.

“This is the result of months-long negotiations that the Venezuelan far-right unsuccessfully tried to sabotage,” she stated in a televised broadcast. “Good has triumphed.”

The IMF announced the “resumption of dealings” with Venezuela in a statement on Thursday, stating that the decision was “guided by the views of IMF members representing a majority of the total voting power.”

Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva stated earlier this week that the IMF had been approached by Venezuelan authorities at a technical level and that the Caribbean nation “desperately needs help.”

The World Bank likewise issued a statement disclosing the resumption of dealings with the acting Rodríguez government. Venezuela’s last loan with the institution concluded in 2005.

Venezuela had its relationship with the IMF suspended in 2019 after the first Trump administration and allies recognized the self-proclaimed “interim government” led by Juan Guaidó as the Caribbean nation’s legitimate authority.

In March, the White House recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s “sole leader” and later withdrew sanctions against her, while US officials spoke of efforts to reincorporate Caracas into the IMF fold.

Though relations were officially frozen in 2019, Venezuela had sought to distance itself from the Washington-based institution more than a decade prior. In 2007, former President Hugo Chávez formally withdrew Venezuela from the IMF and the World Bank, calling them “weapons of US imperialism.”

Chávez repeatedly denounced the US-controlled multilateral institutions’ role in promoting debt and underdevelopment in Global South countries and pushed for the creation of lending institutions as part of Latin American integration efforts. Under Chávez’s predecessors, Venezuela implemented draconian IMF-conditioned structural adjustment policies that saw over half of Venezuelans living in poverty by 1998.

Last year, President Nicolás Maduro stated that Venezuela had “broken the shackles” of the World Bank and the IMF and was instead building its own “self-sustainable model and relations with a new world.”

Venezuela’s priority will be accessing US $5.1 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) that it is entitled to as an IMF member. In 2021, the lending institution issued $650 billion amid the Covid-19 pandemic as an effort to help countries boost reserves and address fiscal needs. 

However, Venezuela was blocked from accessing the funds as the IMF refused to rule on the country’s legitimate authorities.

Caracas’ reengagement with the IMF and the World Bank also comes amid growing speculation about the fate of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt. The Caribbean nation owes as much as $170 billion from a combination of defaulted bonds, unpaid loans, and international arbitration awards that have accrued interest for years as US sanctions battered Venezuela’s economy and cut it off from credit markets.  

Venezuelan bonds have been rallying in recent weeks following Washington’s rapprochement with Caracas as creditors bet on a debt restructuring deal that can bring significant windfalls.

Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Rodríguez administration has fast-tracked a number of pro-business reforms, including in the hydrocarbons and mining sectors. Upon enacting the Mining Law on Thursday, the acting president thanked Trump, Rubio, and other administration officials for their “good disposition” in establishing “cooperation.”

Rodríguez recently announced further plans to overhaul the South American country’s labor, pension, and tax legislation, while also identifying state assets that are “not strategic.” The Cisneros Group, one of Venezuela’s largest business conglomerates, recently announced the raising of funds ahead of expectations of a “wave of privatizations.”

Since January, the Trump administration has imposed control over Venezuelan oil revenues, mandating that royalties, taxes, and dividends be deposited in US Treasury accounts. In a congressional hearing on Thursday, Assistant State Secretary Michael Kozak stated that “around $3 billion” have moved through the dedicated accounts. 

He did not specify what portion of the revenues has been returned to Caracas, only that the funds had been used to pay public sector incomes and import oil industry inputs, while blocking any transactions with China, Cuba, and Iran.

Earlier this week, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued new restricted licenses allowing transactions with the Venezuelan Central Bank and public banks that are expected to facilitate the partial return of seized Venezuelan export revenues.

On Thursday, Venezuelan authorities additionally announced a change in the Central Bank leadership, with Luis Pérez replacing Laura Guerra as president of the institution. Guerra had been appointed to the post in April 2025 by Maduro.

Pérez is an economist who had served on the BCV board of directors since 2018. In his social media profile, he describes himself as a cryptocurrency enthusiast.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.