Félix Ramón Plasencia

Félix Ramón Plasencia González is a Venezuelan diplomat and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and Venezuelan Representative to the United States since 2026. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela between 2021 and 2022. He also held the positions of Vice Minister for Multilateral Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Vice Minister for Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania, respectively, and at the Ministry of Tourism and Foreign Trade.

Biography He graduated from the Central University of Venezuela, where he studied International Studies. He also holds a master's degree in European Studies from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and a postgraduate degree in Diplomatic Studies from New College, Oxford University, in the United Kingdom.

Diplomatic career Plasencia joined the Venezuelan diplomatic corps in 1991 through a public competition, under the administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez. He met the current acting President, Delcy Rodríguez, then part of the diplomatic corps, when they worked at the Venezuelan embassy in London in 1994, during the presidency of Rafael Caldera. In 2012, he was appointed Director of International Relations of the Mayor's Office of the Libertador Municipality of Caracas, and president of Fundapatrimonio, under the mandate of the mayor at the time, Jorge Rodríguez. In 2014, he was appointed by then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez as Director of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to Infobae, when Plasencia was in charge of the administration of the Foreign Ministry, he ordered the early retirement of all career diplomats, including those in his own class, "because they were not sympathetic to the regime". Plasencia was appointed Deputy Minister for Asia, the Middle East and Oceania in 2016 and Deputy Minister for Multilateral Issues. He hosted the Venezuelan government during the visit of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, in June 2019. He was also part of the Chavista delegation at the failed negotiation table in Norway in July of that year.

In August 2019, he was appointed by President Nicolás Maduro as Minister of Tourism and Foreign Trade. A few months later, in December, he became head of government of the Insular Territory Francisco de Miranda.

Between 2020 and 2021, he served as Venezuela's ambassador to China. On August 19, 2021, Nicolás Maduro appointed Plasencia as Foreign Minister of the Republic, replacing Jorge Arreaza. On July 14, 2026, Rodríguez announced that the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade would be merged into a single post, appointing Plasencia as its head.