Donald Trump issued a stern warning to Venezuela’s de facto leader Delsey Rodriguez that she must meet US demands following Nicolas Maduro’s capture, as Washington signaled its intention to set policy in Caracas rather than physically rule the country.
The US president’s message to Rodriguez on Sunday came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out conditions that Washington expects Venezuela’s remaining rulers to accept if they want to avoid a new US attack.
“If she doesn’t do the right thing, she’s going to pay a very big price, maybe even bigger than Maduro,” Trump said. atlantic magazine On Sunday.
Speaking to CBS on Sunday, Rubio suggested that the US does not intend to occupy or administer Venezuela, but that he would set policy for Caracas – and suggested that people had become “fixated” on Trump’s comments on Saturday that the US would “run” the country.
“It’s not driving — it’s driving policy, policy in this regard,” Rubio said.
Rubio said U.S. control and leverage is currently being exercised over Venezuela, though there are restrictions on sanctioned oil exports from the country, but all options remain on the table for Trump.
On Saturday, after Maduro was captured in a nighttime raid on Caracas and taken to the US to face criminal charges, Trump said the US would “walk” Venezuela until further notice but indicated that Rodriguez was “essentially willing” to heed Washington’s orders.
The US President also did not rule out the possibility of further military intervention, including sending US troops to Venezuela.
Trump’s more aggressive tone toward Rodriguez came as his administration offered little additional detail on Washington’s next plans for the Latin American country after ousting Maduro.
Rubio said the U.S. hopes to see “change” in Venezuela, including the need to make the oil industry “run for the benefit of the people”, stop “drug trafficking” and “gang problems”, remove the Colombian terrorist groups FARC and ELN, and that its rulers “no longer cozy up to Hezbollah and Iran in our own hemisphere”.
“We will evaluate whoever we are negotiating with to move forward based on whether those conditions are met or not,” Rubio said.
The US secretary of state spoke to Rodriguez on Saturday but did not describe the nature of their conversation.
“We’re going to be evaluated based on what they do, not what they say publicly in the interim, not what they’ve done in many cases in the past, but what they do going forward,” Rubio said of the remaining leadership in Venezuela. “So we’re going to find out.”
Speaking to NBC later Sunday, Rubio also made new threats against Cuba, saying its government was a “big problem,” signaling that Trump’s plan to remake the Western Hemisphere was not limited to Venezuela.
He said, “I think they’re in a lot of trouble. I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps will be… But I don’t think it’s any secret that we’re not big fans of the Cuban regime, which, by the way, was supporting Maduro.”
Speaking to The Atlantic, Trump also reiterated his desire for US control over Greenland, the Danish territory in the Arctic. “We absolutely need Greenland,” he said.
On Saturday, Trump dismissed the possibility that the US could increasingly support Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado or Edmundo Gonzalez, who is widely believed to win the 2024 election, as the country’s next leader.
Rubio said he had “admiration” for both Machado and Gonzalez but that there should be “a little realism” about holding new elections and becoming a democracy in Venezuela.
“They have had this system of Chavismo for 15 or 16 years, and everyone is asking why, 24 hours after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, there is still no election scheduled for tomorrow?” Rubio said.
“Obviously we want to see Venezuela go to a very different place than it is today. But obviously we don’t expect that to happen in the next 15 hours,” he said. “Our expectation is that it moves in that direction. We believe it is in our national interest, and clearly in the interest of the Venezuelan people.”
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said Sunday that members of Maduro’s security detail were killed during the operation that led to his capture. A source close to the Trump administration said that a large number of those killed were people of Cuban nationality.
Havana has long provided Caracas with brigades of doctors as well as counter-intelligence personnel and aid in exchange for deeply discounted oil.
Padrino López also said that the Venezuelan Armed Forces had become active across the country.
“Yesterday, the entire Venezuelan people witnessed a brutal military attack on our sovereignty,” Padrino Lopez said in a speech on state television alongside top military officials.
Although Rodriguez, who was granted acting presidential powers by the Supreme Court on Saturday night, was not present, the minister said he recognized her mandate to execute the “duties and faculties” of the presidency.
“If today (the attack) was against Venezuela, tomorrow it could be against any state, against any country – a colonialist ambition that seeks to impose on Latin America and the Caribbean through the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine,” Padrino López said.
