As the death toll climbs from the U.S. military raid to capture Nicolás Maduro, one thing is clear: Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s new leader, faces an immense challenge. As she tries to solidify control over her own government, she must also field the demands of President Trump.
Much of Venezuela appeared to be in a state of shock on Sunday following the U.S. military action. The streets of major cities were largely quiet as people tried to absorb what the United States had done and the sudden absence of Mr. Maduro, who as the country’s authoritarian leader for over a decade had been an inescapable part of their lives.
Some people combed through the debris at the sites of American airstrikes. In Caracas, the capital, families quietly gathered at the Bello Monte morgue to identify loved ones killed by the U.S. military. Some waited patiently for authorization to see the corpses. Others departed for Miraflores Palace, the office of the Venezuelan president, to collect the victims’ belongings.
Ms. Rodríguez’s top military official, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, declared on state television that U.S. forces had killed a “large part” of Mr. Maduro’s security detail during the raid to seize him. Altogether, the death count is at least 80, a combination of civilians and military personnel, and could climb higher, according to a senior Venezuelan official.
Mr. Padrino López rejected any notion that the United States would now run Venezuela, as Mr. Trump has claimed, reflecting the pushback that is already building within Venezuela’s government to the idea that the country could turn into a U.S. client state.
The tensions in Venezuela over the capture of its head of state lay bare the struggle Ms. Rodríguez, who was Mr. Maduro’s vice president, faces. She inherits the leadership of a revolution whose mission-critical belief amounts to opposing American imperialism. At the same time, U.S. warships remain in the Caribbean prepared, as the Trump administration has made clear, to coerce her into bending to Mr. Trump’s will.
Echoing the gunboat diplomacy common a century ago, Mr. Trump threatened on Sunday that Ms. Rodríguez could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than” that of her captured predecessor, if she continued to refuse to cooperate, The Atlantic reported.
That was a sharp contrast to Mr. Trump’s remarks on Saturday morning, when he said she would act as a partner in letting the United States run Venezuela. Hours after Mr. Trump said that, Ms. Rodríguez berated the United States for its intervention and called the U seizure of Mr. Maduro a “barbarity.”
Ms. Rodríguez was clearly appealing to constituencies within her own Bolivarian political movement, which is imbued with a deep hostility not only of the United States but also of a close American ally: Israel.
Venezuela’s tensions with Israel date back to the time of the former President Hugo Chávez, who in 2009 broke off diplomatic ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli ambassador.
On Saturday, Ms. Rodríguez described the U.S. intervention as being “without a doubt, Zionist in character,” a provocative comment likely to draw backlash.
Such positioning suggests that Ms. Rodríguez might not be the dispassionate technocrat some in the Trump administration see as willing to strike pragmatic business deals. She is now, after all, thetorchbearer of a movement forged nearly 30 years by Mr. Chávez, the leader who sought to use oil revenues to fuel socialist-inspired change.
“People in Washington tend to think there’s no other political motivation, no ideological motivation, or that there’s nothing left of the Chávez project,” said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who lives in Caracas. “I don’t think that’s true. They still see themselves as leading a revolution. They can’t afford to be seen to be turning Venezuela into a simple satellite of the U.S.”
Ms. Rodríguez is viewed as relatively competent in terms of economic management, which is largely why the Trump administration did not stand in the way of her ascending to the presidency.
But she must still find ways to appease powerful figures like Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister, and Mr. Padrino López, the defense minister, who between them control the armed forces, the police, paramilitary cells and most of the intelligence services, Mr. Gunson said.
Marco Rubio, the American secretary of state, signaled on Sunday that the Trump administration might be willing to overlook some of Ms. Rodríguez’s bombastic comments, particularly given that U.S. forces just carried out an operation that humiliated Venezuela’s armed forces.
“There’s a lot of different reasons why people go on T.V. and say certain things in these countries, especially 15 hours or 12 hours after the person who used to be in charge of the regime is now in handcuffs and on his way to New York,” Mr. Rubio told ABC News.
But Mr. Rubio, in another television appearance on “Meet the Press,” said the United States would maintain its blockade on sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela until Ms. Rodríguez shows progress in responding to the Trump administration’s demands. He also said the U.S. would keep striking boats suspected of carrying drugs
Adding to the tumult, Edmundo González, the exiled former diplomat who is widely viewed as the legitimate winner of the 2024 presidential election in Venezuela, released a video statement on Sunday referring to himself as the president of Venezuela and commander in chief of the country’s military.
For many people in Venezuela, the abrupt changes are fueling confusion.
“No one can explain this business about Delcy becoming president or for how long, or even what the gringos are supposedly coming to do in this country,” said Efrén Rojas, 45, a bus driver in Naguanagua, a city in central Venezuela. “In my neighborhood I heard all kinds of rumors, but in the end, the truth is that nobody knows.”
In Caracas, some people on Sunday were still picking up the pieces, literally, in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes.
A homeowner in El Volcán, in the southern part of the city, said his family property on a tall peak had been hit twice. The strikes were presumably targeting antennas, including some belonging to the government and one belonging to the mobile phone company Movistar.
The property owner said he had spoken by phone to his caretaker, Johana Sierra, after hearing from her that there had been a strike. She was then killed in a second strike when the explosion sent pieces of the antennas hurling in her direction, he said.
“After the first explosion she was fine,” said the property owner, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the government. “She died from the pieces — they struck her.”
Mikel Bracho, 14, a neighbor of Ms. Sierra, said the blasts from the first strike woke him up. That was when he went outside and witnessed the second strike take place.
“All of a sudden, I just felt the impact and saw how the shrapnel hit her across the chest,” Mr. Bracho said. “All I could do was run because things looked like fireworks. Her daughter clung to me and we ran down. She kept telling me, ‘My mom, my mom. Help.’”
Eventually, he said, a civil defense vehicle arrived, and Ms. Sierra was taken away on a stretcher.
“I’m in shock,” Mr. Bracho said. “Now I just have this constant fear.”
Mariana Martínez contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela; Annie Correal and Genevieve Glatsky from Bogotá, Colombia; Frances Robles from South Florida; Jack Nicas from Mexico City; and Patricia Sulbarán from New York.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
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