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Caracas, February 15, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump is considering a visit to Venezuela, though he did not specify when the trip might take place or what agenda it would entail.

“I’m going to make a visit to Venezuela,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday. 

The US President addressed the press ahead of a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to meet soldiers who participated in the January 3 military attacks against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Questioned by a journalist, Trump stated that Washington recognizes the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s legitimate authority.

“We are dealing with them, and they have done a great job,” he stated. The White House refused comment on whether the recognition was the administration’s official stance.

In 2019, the first Trump administration recognized the self-proclaimed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate authority, prompting the Maduro government to sever diplomatic ties. The US later transferred its recognition to the defunct opposition-controlled National Assembly whose term expired in January 2021.

Since the January 3 attacks, Caracas and Washington have fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement, with US Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu arriving in the Caribbean nation in early February. An official recognition of the Rodríguez acting government could pave the way for the restructuring of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt.

In his Friday press remarks, Trump further described relations with Venezuelan leaders as being “as good as one could hope for,” and added that “the relationship with Venezuela today is a 10.”

Trump additionally highlighted progress in Venezuela’s oil sector.

“Oil is flowing, and other nations are paying a lot of money for it, and we are handling it. We are refining it,” he said. Since January, the White House has imposed control of Venezuelan oil exports, with proceeds deposited in bank accounts in Qatar before being partly rerouted to Caracas under US-set conditions.

Earlier last week, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez emphasized in an NBC interview that Maduro remains the country’s legitimate president. She also disclosed that she has spoken twice with Trump and has had “more frequent” contact with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and expressed “gratitude” for the “respectful and courteous” nature of the talks.

Venezuela’s acting president went on to announce that she has likewise been invited to visit the US. “We are considering going once we establish cooperation and can move forward with everything,” she said.

The invitation reportedly arose during a recent visit to Caracas by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was hosted by Rodríguez at Miraflores Palace on Wednesday. 

Wright and Rodríguez later toured the Petroindependencia crude upgrader, a mixed venture between Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA and Chevron, in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

The Trump administration official announced that Chevron would invest US $100 million to modernize operational facilities, with the goal of “doubling [Petroindependencia’s] productive capacity within 12 to 18 months and quintupling it within five years.” Petroindependencia has a current output of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

US issues new oil licenses

Following Wright’s Venezuela visit, the US Treasury Department issued two general licenses, 49 and 50, aimed at boosting conditions for Western multinational corporations to operate in Venezuela’s energy sector.

The first license allows for the negotiation and signing of future investment contracts, contingent upon the potential issuance of a specific license. The second waiver authorizes Chevron, BP, Eni, Shell, and Repsol to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity.

Repsol (Spain) and Eni (Italy), like Chevron, participate in oil and gas joint ventures in the South American country, whereas the UK-headquartered Shell and BP are set to lead offshore natural gas projects alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) in Venezuelan waters. 

However, GL50 requires that any contracts fall under US jurisdiction and mandates that all payments to “blocked” entities—as sanctions against PDVSA and Venezuela’s banking system remain in place—be made to accounts designated by the US Treasury.

It also explicitly prohibits transactions involving any person or entity linked to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or China, as well as vessels sanctioned by Washington.

The Trump administration has loosened restrictions against the Venezuelan energy sector, including allowing the import of US diluents, inputs and technology, following a recent pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform granted expanded benefits for private corporations, including reduced fiscal responsibilities and expanded control over operations and sales.

Upon leaving Caracas, Energy Secretary Wright claimed that “structural reforms” would continue in Venezuela, with changes to “labor laws, the court system and the banking system.”

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz from Caracas.

The F-35’s ‘computer brain,’ including its cloud-based components, could be cracked to accept third-party software updates, just like ‘jailbreaking‘ a cellphone, according to the Dutch Defense Minister. The statement comes as foreign operators of the jets continue to be pressed on what could happen if the United States were ever to cut off support. President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a number of policies that have resulted in new diplomatic strains with some long-time allies, especially in Europe.

“If, despite everything, you still want to upgrade, I’m going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone,” Gijs Tuinman said during an episode of BNR Nieuwsradio‘s “Boekestijn en de Wijk” podcast posted online yesterday, according to a machine translation.

Tuinman, who has been State Secretary for Defense in the Netherlands since 2024, does not appear to have offered any further details about what the jailbreaking process might entail. What, if any, cyber vulnerabilities this might indicate is also unclear. It is possible that he may have been speaking more notionally or figuratively about action that could be taken in the future, if necessary.

TWZ has reached out to the F-35 Joint Program Office and manufacturer Lockheed Martin for responses to Tuinman’s remarks.

As we have explored in detail in the past, the F-35 program imposes unique limits on the ability of operators to make changes to the jet’s software, as well as to associated systems on the ground. Virtually all F-35s in service today see software updates come through a cloud-based network, the original version of which is known as the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). Persistent issues with ALIS have led to the development of a follow-on Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN), the transition to which is still ongoing.

The ALIS/ODIN network is designed to handle much more than just software updates and logistical data. It is also the port used to upload mission data packages containing highly sensitive planning information, including details about enemy air defenses and other intelligence, onto F-35s before missions and to download intelligence and other data after a sortie.

Though now dated, the video below still offers a useful explanation of ALIS’ functions.

ALIS: Keeping the F-35 Mission Ready

To date, Israel is the only country known to have successfully negotiated a deal giving it the right to install domestically-developed software onto its F-35Is, as well as otherwise operate its jets outside of the ALIS/ODIN network. The Israelis also have the ability to conduct entirely independent depot-level maintenance, something we will come back to later.

Issues with ALIS, as well as concerns about the transfer of nationally sensitive information within the network, have led certain operators, including the Netherlands, to firewall off aspects of their software reprogramming activities in the past. However, the work still occurs in the United States under the auspices of the U.S. military and Lockheed Martin.

As TWZ has written in the past:

“It’s this mission planning data package that is a major factor to the F-35’s survivability. The ‘blue line’ (the aircraft’s route into an enemy area) that is projected by the system is based on the fusion of a huge number of factors, from enemy air defense bubbles to the stealth and electronic warfare capabilities of the aircraft, as well as onboard sensor and weapons employment envelopes and integrated tactics between F-35s and other assets. To say the least, it is one of the F-35’s most potent weapons. Without it, the aircraft and its pilot are far less capable of maximizing their potential and, as a result, are more vulnerable to detection and being shot down.“

So, while jailbreaking F-35’s onboard computers, as well as other aspects of the ALIS/ODIN network, may technically be feasible, there are immediate questions about the ability to independently recreate the critical mission planning and other support it provides. This is also just one aspect of what is necessary to keep the jets flying, let alone operationally relevant.

TWZ previously explored many of these same issues in detail last year, amid a flurry of reports about the possibility that F-35s have some type of discreet ‘kill switch’ built in that U.S. authorities could use to remotely disable the jets. Rumors of this capability are not new and remain completely unsubstantiated.

At that time, we stressed that a ‘kill switch’ would not even be necessary to hobble F-35s in foreign service. At present, the jets are heavily dependent on U.S.-centric maintenance and logistics chains that are subject to American export controls and agreements with manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Just reliably sourcing spare parts has been a huge challenge for the U.S. military itself, as you can learn more about in this past in-depthTWZ feature. F-35s would be quickly grounded without this sustainment support.

Altogether, any kind of jailbreaking of the F-35’s systems would come with a serious risk of legal action by Lockheed Martin and additional friction with the U.S. government. What would have to happen for a country like the Netherlands to pursue that course of action would also likely be just one symptom of a much more serious breakdown in relations with Washington. Doing this could easily prompt a cutoff in spare parts and other support, if that had not already occurred, which would leave jailbroken jets quickly bricked on the ground. To be clear, cracking the software would do nothing to mitigate the downstream impacts of being shut out from critical sustainment pipelines.

Spats between President Donald Trump’s administration and certain U.S. allies have already created a degree of additional turbulence for the F-35 program, as evidenced by the ‘kill switch’ reporting last year. Most recently, trade disputes and other recent rifts in relations between Ottawa and Washington have led Canadian authorities to launch a review of their F-35 acquisition plans. There are broader questions now about the future of U.S. defense exports, especially in Europe, in light of other diplomatic rifts with Washington.

At the same time, despite his comments about the possibility of needing to crack the jet’s computer systems, Dutch Defense Minister Tuinman remained broadly supportive of the F-35 during the BNR Nieuwsradio podcast.

“Even if this mutual dependency doesn’t result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighter jets,” Tuinman stressed, according to a machine translation of an accompanying story about the podcast from BNR.

Altgoether, questions very much remain about just what ‘jailbreaking an F-35’ might look like in practical terms, and how that might impact the operational utility of the jets in the absence of support from the U.S. government and Lockheed Martin. At the same time, Tuinman’s comments do underscore larger issues surrounding the F-35 program, especially for foreign operators, many of which are not new.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com