The Trump administration’s bold operation to capture strongman Nicolás Maduro from his home in Venezuela was a startling tactical success. But as the smoke clears in Caracas a day after President Donald Trump said triumphantly that the United States would now “run” Venezuela, the reality of how Washington will administer that country in the weeks and months ahead appears uncertain and stubbornly complex.
Maduro’s allies in Caracas are still in power and defiantly haranguing about U.S. “imperialism.” The democratically elected opposition leaders are effectively exiled, bluntly sidelined by the Trump administration. And the United States continues to hint at more military action, not only against Venezuela but other perceived enemies in the region like Cuba and Colombia.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime hawk on Venezuela and now publicly the face of the Trump administration’s policy there, bristled when asked repeatedly Sunday to explain how the United States would ensure control of Venezuela without resorting to the sort of invasion and nation-building that led to quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“What we are ‘running’ is the direction that this is going to move moving forward,” Rubio told ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” adding that the United States would continue to apply pressure through restrictions on Venezuela’s oil trade.
The aim, Rubio said, would be to stop Venezuela from doing things that run contrary to U.S. interests. “Do the drugs stop coming? Are the changes made? Is Iran expelled? … Does the migration pattern stop?” Rubio said.
It is not clear how the United States will manage the complex diplomacy on a practical level. Trump said Saturday that a working group of top advisers was deeply engaged in planning for Venezuela’s future, but even those roles and responsibilities appear unclear.
Rubio is personally focused on the program, but his expansive portfolio as secretary of state and national security adviser mean he is unlikely to have the time to steer the day-to-day policy, multiple U.S. officials said.
Having dismantled much of the U.S. foreign policy infrastructure since he came to power, Trump depends on a small number of trusted personnel and business associates to handle core issues such as his peace plan in Gaza, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and now Venezuela.
The National Security Council staff has been gutted and the administration has yet to nominate an assistant secretary of state to handle the Western Hemisphere.
The White House is weighing giving Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff and homeland security adviser, a more elevated role in overseeing post-Maduro operations in Venezuela, according to one person with knowledge of the conversations, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive dealings.
Miller has been the architect of the administration’s anti-immigration and border policy, and took a central role in the effort to remove Maduro. He was among the handful of top administration officials flanking the president during the news conference Saturday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
In Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro until his capture, has been recognized by the armed forces as acting president. Though Rodríguez spoke to Rubio after the Delta Force operation to capture the Venezuelan president and his wife in what Trump described as a friendly conversation, she and her allies have issued defiant statements in public since then.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, in televised remarks Sunday alongside a group of military officials, described Maduro’s capture as a “cowardly kidnapping” and said a large part of Maduro’s security team was “killed in cold blood” in the operation.
He ordered the nation’s forces to unify in the “mission of confronting the imperial aggression” and to “ensure the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of the nation.”
Padrino is a powerful figure in Venezeula’s military, which had been a source of support for Maduro.
Trump administration officials have warned that Rodríguez could face more military action if she did not acquiesce to American demands, with the president himself telling the Atlantic magazine Sunday that she could pay a “bigger” price than Maduro, who is in detention awaiting trial on drug and gun trafficking charges in New York.
Though there are no longer U.S. troops on the ground in Venezuela, according to multiple U.S. officials, close to a dozen warships and scores of fighter jets, drone and surveillance aircraft — along with approximately 15,000 troops — remain in the Caribbean and are “standing by” in case a second strike is directed by the president, according to a U.S. official.
One Venezuelan business leader argued that the Trump administration was taking a pragmatic approach by working toward an “orderly” political transition. In recent months, the person said, U.S. officials appeared particularly interested in learning more about Rodríguez.
He described Rodríguez as a pragmatic leader eager to bring a new economic perspective and who has built a team of people to inject fresh ideas to the socialist state founded by former president Hugo Chávez.
Her defiant speech Saturday, the person said, was likely a message directed to her own people, and should not necessarily be read as an unwillingness to collaborate with the Trump administration.
In grabbing just Maduro and his wife and allowing most of the Venezuelan government to remain in place, the United States appears to be choosing a path, at least for the time being, that avoids the need for sustained military presence in the country and the associated legal ramifications.
“This was not an invasion. This was not an extended military operation. This was a very precise operation that involved a couple of hours of action,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” on Sunday.
The day before, Trump had effectively dismissed the prospects of Venezeula’s democratic opposition, including Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, whose stand-in candidate, Edmundo González, won more than two-thirds of the vote in an election last year that saw Maduro refuse to leave office.
“It’d be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said when asked about Machado on Saturday, adding that she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”
Associates of Machado, who covertly escaped Venezuela last month with the help of the United States to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in Norway, were caught off-guard by Trump’s comment, according to a person close to her team.
On Sunday, she and her supporters once again urged the Venezuelan diaspora to rally in the streets. But with the two most prominent leaders outside of the country — González fled to Spain last year after the election and Machado’s location is not known — there was little they could do to mobilize a response inside Venezuela.
One Venezuelan opposition leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said Trump’s remarks were difficult for many in the opposition movement to hear, but “in every transition, you have to swallow some bitter pills.”
This person said the next 48 hours could help clarify whether Rodríguez could usher in a “soft transition” by replacing hard-line ministers or rather continue Maduro’s government, with “gringo guardianship.”
Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.
Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.
U.S. officials have insisted that Venezuela’s rich oil fields provide both incentive for Rodríguez to work with the United States and leverage if she refuses to play ball. But experts have been left puzzled by Trump’s pledge to take over the Venezuelan oil industry, returning “assets” to U.S. companies whose contracts were voided when the industry was nationalized decades ago.
A number of Western energy companies are already operating in Venezuela, including Chevron, Spain’s Respol, France’s Maurel & Prom and Italy’s Eni. Despite this, most of Venezuela’s oil is purchased at a steep discount by China.
While Chevron exports to the United States under a license issued by the Trump administration, U.S. sanctions constrain how other companies pay for and ship oil, according to David Goldwyn, chairman of the energy adviser group at the Atlantic Council think tank.
“What Trump is talking about is really new entrance into the market,” Goldwyn said, but what “they’re going to want to know, before they invest billions,” is that security and stability will last in Venezuela.
“Companies will make that decision based on … whether it’s a good investment” over a timeline of a decade or more, Goldwyn added.
Tara Copp contributed to this report.
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