NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- Delcy Rodriguez stood at the same podium her predecessor once used to denounce American empire and thanked Donald Trump for his "readiness" to resume relations with Venezuela. Outside UN headquarters, Venezuelans held signs calling her government illegitimate and demanding the world not normalize what she was, at that moment, being warmly received for.

Rodriguez took power in January after a US military raid captured then-president Nicolas Maduro and flew him to New York to face narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges. Wednesday marked her first address to the General Assembly as Venezuela's acting president, and she used it to promise that elections would happen. She would not say when. "The Venezuelan people w...