Regina Garcia Cano, Matthew Lee, Will Weissert and Eric Tucker
Washington: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested the United States will not take a day-to-day role in governing Venezuela after its ouster of leader Nicolás Maduro, even as Trump warned that Maduro’s deputy may pay the price “if she doesn’t do what’s right”.
Trump made his latest comments, directed at Venezuelan vice president and interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, in an interview with The Atlantic magazine, in which he also said other countries – including Greenland – may be subject to American intervention.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” he said of the island that is part of Denmark, a NATO country.
Trump also defended his decision to take Maduro and his wife by force from their house in Caracas on Saturday, during an operation run by an elite US military unit.
“You know, rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse.”
Trump initially praised Rodriguez on Saturday after the operation to seize Maduro but Rodriguez said later that her country would defend its natural resources and demanded the US free Maduro. She called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.
But Trump told The Atlantic he expected Rodriguez to toe the line.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” he said.
A large part of Maduro’s security team was killed in the US raid, Venezuelan Defence Minister General Vladimir Padrino said, adding that armed forces have been activated across the country to guarantee sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Rubio appeared on US TV talk shows to seemingly temper concerns about whether the striking action to achieve regime change in Venezuela might again produce a prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building.
His remarks stood in contrast to Trump’s broad but vague claims made earlier that the US would at least temporarily “run” the oil-rich nation, comments that suggested some sort of governing structure under which Caracas would be controlled by Washington.
Rubio offered a more nuanced take, saying the US would continue to enforce an oil quarantine on sanctioned tankers that was in place before Maduro was removed from power on Saturday and using that leverage as a means to press policy changes in Venezuela.
“And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
“We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes, not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”
The blockade on sanctioned oil tankers – some of which have been seized by the US – “remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is No. 1, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela,” he added.
Trump repeated vow US would ‘run’ Venezuela
Trump’s vow to “run” Venezuela, repeated more than half a dozen times at a news conference in Florida on Saturday, sparked concerns among some Democrats.
It also drew unease from parts of his own Republican coalition, including an “America First” base that is opposed to foreign interventions, and also from observers who recalled past nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rubio dismissed such criticism, saying that Trump’s intent had been misunderstood by a “foreign policy establishment” that was fixated on the Middle East.
“The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan,” Rubio said. “This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere.”
Rubio also suggested that the US would give Maduro’s subordinates who are now in charge time to govern, saying, “We’re going to judge everything by what they do, and we’re going to see what they do.”
And though he did not rule out a US military presence in Venezuela, Rubio said the current US “force posture” was capable of stopping drug boats and sanctioned tankers.
A day earlier, Trump told reporters, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
He later pointed to his national security team with him, including Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, and said it would be done for a period of time by “the people that are standing right behind me. We’re gonna be running it we’re gonna be bringing it back.”
The White House declined to comment beyond what Trump said on Saturday.
Maduro’s arrival
Maduro landed late on Saturday afternoon (Sunday AEDT) at a small airport in New York City’s northern suburbs following the middle-of-the-night operation that extracted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in Caracas – an act that Maduro’s government called “imperialist”. The couple faces US charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic seizure of the Maduros capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval.
After arriving at the airport, Maduro was flown by helicopter to Manhattan, where a convoy of law enforcement vehicles, including an armoured car, was waiting to whisk him to a nearby US Drug Enforcement Administration office.
A video posted on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through that office by two DEA agents grasping his arms.
He is due to make his first appearance in Manhattan’s federal court on Monday.
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment on Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with cocaine. The US government does not recognise Maduro as the country’s leader.
The Trump administration spent months building up American forces in the region and carrying out attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean for allegedly ferrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels – the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the US campaign began in September.
Quiet falls in Venezuela after US operation
Venezuela’s capital remained unusually quiet on Sunday, with few vehicles moving around and convenience stores, petrol stations and other businesses closed. A road typically filled with runners, cyclists and other fitness enthusiasts on Sundays only had a handful of people working out the day after Maduro was deposed.
The presidential palace was guarded by armed civilians and members of the military. At a nearby plaza, only a street sweeper and a soldier stood, and across the street, a church remained close for a second day in a row.
Caracas resident David Leal arrived to the car park where he works only to quickly realise that he would likely not see any clients for a second day.
“People are still shaken,” Leal said.
AP, Reuters
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