Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s de facto leader, that she must meet US demands after Nicolás Maduro’s capture, as Washington signalled its intent to dictate policy in Caracas rather than physically govern the country.
The US president’s message to Rodríguez on Sunday came after Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, laid out conditions that Washington expects Venezuela’s remaining rulers to accept if they wish to avoid a new US attack.
“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.
Speaking to CBS on Sunday, Rubio suggested the US did not intend to occupy or administer Venezuela but would dictate policy to Caracas — and suggested people had become “fixated” on Trump’s comment on Saturday that the US would “run” the country.
“It’s not running — it’s running policy, the policy with regards to this,” Rubio said.
Rubio said US control and leverage over Venezuela was currently being exercised though its embargo on sanctioned oil exports from the country but all options remained on the table for Trump.
On Saturday, after capturing Maduro in a night-time raid on Caracas and transporting him to the US to face criminal charges, Trump had said the US would “run” Venezuela until further notice but indicated that Rodríguez was “essentially willing” to heed Washington’s diktats.
The US president also did not rule out the possibility of further military intervention including sending American troops into Venezuela.
Trump’s more aggressive tone towards Rodríguez came as his administration offered little additional detail on Washington’s next plans for the Latin American country after toppling Maduro.
Rubio said the US expected to see “changes” in Venezuela, including that the oil industry needed to be “run for the benefit of the people”, a halt to “drug trafficking” and “gang problems”, the removal of Colombian militant groups Farc and the ELN, and that its rulers should “no longer cozy up to Hizbollah and Iran in our own hemisphere”.
“We are going to judge whoever we’re interacting with moving forward by whether or not those conditions are met,” Rubio said.
The US secretary of state spoke to Rodríguez on Saturday but did not describe the nature of their conversation.
“We’re going to make an assessment on the basis of what they do, not what they say publicly in the interim, not what they’ve done in the past in many cases, but what they do moving forward,” Rubio said of the remaining leadership in Venezuela. “So we’re going to find out.”
Speaking to NBC later on Sunday, Rubio also launched new threats against Cuba, saying its government was a “huge problem”, in a sign that Trump’s plans to remake the western hemisphere were not confined to Venezuela.
“I think they’re in a lot of trouble. I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be . . . But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro,” he said.
Speaking to The Atlantic, Trump also reiterated his desire for US control over Greenland, the Danish territory in the Arctic. “We do need Greenland, absolutely,” he said.
On Saturday, Trump dismissed the possibility that the US could rapidly back Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition figure and Nobel peace prize winner, as the next leader of the country, or Edmundo González, who is widely considered to have won the 2024 election.
Rubio said he had “admiration” for both Machado and González but there had to be a “little realism” about Venezuela holding new elections and becoming a democracy.
“They’ve had this system of Chavismo for 15 or 16 years, and everyone’s asking why 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro was arrested, there isn’t an election schedule for tomorrow?” Rubio said.
“Of course we want to see Venezuela transition to a place completely different than what it looks like today. But obviously we don’t have the expectation that’s going to happen in the next 15 hours,” he said. “What we do have is an expectation is that it moves in that direction. We think it’s in our national interest, and frankly, in the interest of the people of Venezuela.”
Venezuelan defence minister Vladimir Padrino López said on 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 a large number of those killed were of Cuban nationality.
Havana has long provided Caracas with counter-intelligence personnel and support, alongside brigades of doctors, in exchange for heavily discounted oil.
Padrino López also said Venezuela’s armed forces had been activated nationwide.
“Yesterday, the entire Venezuelan people bore witness to a brutal military assault on our sovereignty,” Padrino López said in a speech on state television, flanked by top military brass.
Though Rodríguez, who was granted acting presidential powers by the supreme court on Saturday night, was not present, the minister said he recognised 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 be imposed through the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine over Latin America and the Caribbean,” Padrino López said.