CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived Wednesday in Venezuela for a firsthand assessment of the country’s oil industry, a visit that further asserts the U.S. government’s self-appointed role in turning around Venezuela’s dilapidated energy sector.

Wright met Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez at the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas. He is expected to meet with government officials, oil executives and others during a three-day visit to the South American country.

Wright’s visit comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues to lift sanctions to allow foreign companies to operate in Venezuela and help rebuild the nation’s most important industry. It follows last month’s enactment of a Venezuelan law that opened the nation’s oil sector to private investment, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

“I bring today a message from President Trump,” Wright told reporters as he stood next to Rodríguez with flags from both countries behind them. “He is passionately committed to absolutely transforming the relationship between the United States and Venezuela, part of a broader agenda to make the Americas great again, to bring our countries closer together, to bring commerce, peace, prosperity, jobs, opportunity to the people of Venezuela.”

Rodríguez was sworn into her new role after the brazen Jan. 3 seizure of then-President Nicolas Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Caracas. She proposed the overhaul of the country’s energy law after Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment.

Rodríguez on Wednesday acknowledged that Venezuela’s relationship with the U.S. has had “highs and lows” but said both countries are now working on a mutually benefiting “energy agenda.”

“Let diplomatic dialogue … and energy dialogue be the appropriate and suitable channels for the U.S. and Venezuela to maturely determine how to move forward,” she said.

Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to the country’s oil law to serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA.

The new law now grants private companies control over oil production and sales, ending PDVSA’s monopoly over those activities as well as pricing. It also allows for independent arbitration of disputes, removing a mandate for disagreements to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party.

Foreign investors view the involvement of independent arbitrators as crucial to guard against future expropriation.

Wright told reporters the reform “is a meaningful step in the right direction” but “probably not far and clear enough to encourage the kind of large capital flows” the U.S. would like to see in Venezuela.

Wright planned to visit oil fields Thursday.

Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenue as a lifeblood of its economy.

Trump imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry during his first term, locking out the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. of the global oil markets in an attempt to topple Maduro. That pushed his government to rely on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle deeply discounted crude into global supply chains.

In December, Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering or leaving the South American country, ramping up pressure on Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on Venezuela’s economy. U.S. forces that month also began seizing oil tankers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.

Since Maduro’s Jan. 3 ouster, the Trump administration set out to control the productionrefining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products and oversee where the revenue flows. The administration also began lifting broad sanctions, but also continued seizing tankers — now in agreement with Venezuela’s government — including one this week in the Indian Ocean after it was tracked from the Caribbean Sea.

Wright on Wednesday told reporters the blockade is “essentially over” as the U.S. is “flowing Venezuelan crude out, selling it at a much higher price than Venezuela was selling it before,” and the revenue is being used in specific projects benefiting Venezuelans.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to personally attack Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt over a debacle regarding the upcoming annual governors’ weekend in Washington.

“We will soon have a Governor in Oklahoma who knows how to accurately write a Press Release to the Public, in this case, to state that I invited, not happily, almost all Democrat Governors to the Governor’s Dinner at the White House,” Trump wrote in a Thursday Truth Social post. “Stitt, a wiseguy, knew this, but tried to get some cheap publicity by stating otherwise.”

Trump’s latest criticism against the Republican comes after Stitt, who serves as chair of the National Governors Association, became embroiled in a back-and-forth over whether Democrats would be invited to the routinely bipartisan governors event. Stitt at one point announced that a bipartisan business meeting with the president would be removed from the NGA’s agenda for the weekend because the White House said Democrats would be excluded from the event.

After a conversation with Trump, Stitt informed governors on Wednesday that all governors would be invited to the meeting, attributing the dispute to a “misunderstanding in scheduling,” according to a letter viewed by Blue Light News.

But that wasn’t enough to salve the president’s displeasure: In a Wednesday afternoon social media post — after Democrats had begun receiving invitations to the meeting — Trump took to Truth Social to lament that “as usual with him, Stitt got it WRONG!”

All governors were welcome at the event, Trump wrote, except two Democrats: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — the latter of whom had already received a formal invitation to the meeting at the time of the post, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In the Thursday morning post, Trump took credit for Stitt’s victory in his last race for governor, writing that the Republican “was massively behind his Opponent in his previous Election for Governor” and “called me to ask for help.”

Trump added: “I Endorsed him (Barely!), and he won his Race,” but the president eagerly anticipated the arrival of the governor’s successor. Stitt is term-limited and cannot seek another term when his current one expires in 2027.

A spokesperson for Stitt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for the NGA declined to comment on the post.

Stitt’s position atop the NGA has put him at odds with the president on at least one other occasion, when the Oklahoma Republican broke with his party to criticize the administration’s cross-state National Guard deployments last year.

The dispute regarding the upcoming NGA weekend has reignited tensions within the association, with 18 Democratic governors vowing to boycott a bipartisan dinner over the White House’s handling of the invitations.

With regard to the event, Trump wrote Thursday: “I’ll see whoever shows up at the White House, the fewer the better!”

Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.

After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.

That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.

Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.

“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.

Virginia is one of only two states where the legislature elects Supreme Court justices. Because the state has had divided control for much of the past quarter century, the balance of the court’s justices were appointed by bipartisan compromise. The court’s current seven members include one justice who was elected when Democrats had sole control of the General Assembly, three when Republicans controlled both chambers and three when control of the legislature was split.

“I voted for all these people – every one of them — and I don’t think any of them are overly political. And they shouldn’t be,” said Virginia House of Delegates Minority Leader Del. Terry Kilgore (R), who said he thinks the court will rule in his side’s favor. “They just should follow the law. If they do, we win.”

The question before the Virginia Supreme Court is not if, but when, new maps are allowed to go into effect — and whether they’ll be in place for this year’s midterms.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) signed legislation scheduling a statewide referendum for April 21 last week, asking voters to grant state lawmakers the power to redraw federal Congressional lines immediately. It came a day after Democratic state lawmakers unveiled proposed maps that aim to tilt the congressional map 10-1, potentially handing Democrats four more House seats and leaving just one Republican in the federal delegation.

But a wrench was thrown in their plans when a circuit court judge in conservative Tazewell County ruled late last month that Virginia Democrats did not follow proper procedure when initiating the constitutional amendment.

To change the Virginia Constitution is a multi-step process, requiring approval by two separate sessions of the General Assembly with a statewide general election for the House of Delegates taking place in between those sessions.

Judge Jack Hurley ruled that because early voting was already underway when the General Assembly first passed the amendment last October, it should not count as the first step. If the Virginia Supreme Court agrees, the earliest the state could enact new maps is after the next legislative election in 2027 — a blow to Democrats’ hopes of winning back the House this fall.

It’s a question both sides hope the top court weighs in on – and quickly.

“If they answer the question that there was not an intervening election, which, that’s the big one … then the redistricting is dead,” said former Del. Tim Anderson (R), and who is a practicing attorney. “If they say that there was an intervening election, then the redistricting amendment will go forward.”

The next opening on the court’s docket for a new case is March 2, a tight timeline since that’s the same week early voting is scheduled to begin.

Jay O’Keeffe is a left-leaning appellate attorney based in Roanoke who has argued before the top court. He said it is not uncommon for the justices’ opinions to reference Sir William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” the 18th century treatise often cited by those who interpret the law through an originalist, conservative-leaning reading of the law.

“The justices I’ve dealt with don’t seem to see themselves as political actors,”O’Keeffe said. “But you could imagine a more progressive court … approaching the whole job of judging in a different way.”

The question both Democrats and Republicans hope the Virginia Supreme Court will answer is whether the April referendum vote can proceed.

“In matters like this, the Supreme Court is going to try to call it right down the middle, and not on a political basis,” said Steve Emmert, a retired appellate lawyer. “What the parties need now is certainty, and they need it soon.”