Rubio says US won't govern Venezuela, clarifies Trump’s 'run the country' remarks

The United States will not take a day-to-day role in governing Venezuela, secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday, clarifying President Donald Trump’s earlier comments that US would “run” the country following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

Rubio said the US would continue to enforce an existing “oil quarantine” on sanctioned Venezuelan tankers and use that leverage to press for policy changes, reports the Associated Press.


“They will continue enforcing the oil blockade, which was already in place, and use it to press for policy changes in Venezuela,” Rubio said.


“And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio told CBS News.

Rubio claimed Trump’s intent had been misunderstood: “The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan. This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere.”

Trump had earlier said that the US would “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be ensured. He said that American oil companies would fix Venezuela’s “badly broken infrastructure” and start generating income for the country.

The comments followed an intense US operation on Saturday that led to the capture of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Maduro and Flores were removed from Caracas by US forces, flown aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean, and later transported to New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The pair face charges in the Southern District of New York, including conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess such weapons.

Maduro has consistently denied being a cartel leader and accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves, which amount to around 303 billion barrels of crude, nearly 20 per cent of the world’s total, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Despite Trump’s claims of running the country, the administration has still not decided on what form US management or any kind of regime change would take. “We’re going to be running it with a group, and we’re going to make sure it’s run properly,” he said.

Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has since been sworn in as interim president by the Venezuelan Supreme Court and said she would do “whatever the US asks.” However, Rodríguez also called Maduro the “only one president in Venezuela” on state television.

The 'Operation Absolute Resolve' involved explosions around Caracas and targeted strikes on military bases. US aircraft flew over the city for more than two hours as special forces entered Maduro’s safe house to remove him.