Washington: Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans Wednesday to warn that the Trump administration is ready to take new military action against Venezuela if the country’s interim leadership strays from US expectations.
In prepared testimony for a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio says the US is not at war with Venezuela and that its interim leaders are cooperating, but he notes that the Trump administration would not rule out using additional force if needed following a raid to capture former President Nicolas Maduro early this month.
“We are prepared to use force to ensure maximum cooperation if other methods fail,” Rubio will say, according to his prepared opening statement released Tuesday by the State Department. “It is our hope that this will not prove necessary, but we will never shy away from our duty to the American people and our mission in this hemisphere.”
As he often is called to do, Rubio, a former Florida senator, will aim to sell one of President Donald Trump’s more contentious priorities to former colleagues in Congress. With the administration’s foreign policy gyrating between the Western Hemisphere, Europe and the Middle East, Rubio also may be called to smooth alarm that has emerged in his own party lately about efforts like Trump’s demand to annex Greenland.
In the hearing focused on Venezuela, Rubio will defend Trump’s decisions to remove Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the US, continue deadly military strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs and seize sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, according to the prepared remarks. He will again reject allegations that Trump is violating the Constitution by taking such actions.
“There is no war against Venezuela, and we did not occupy a country,” he will say, according to the prepared remarks. “There are no US troops on the ground. This was an operation to aid law enforcement.”
Congress has not curtailed Trump on Venezuela.
Congressional Democrats have condemned Trump’s moves as exceeding the authority of the executive branch, while most – but not all – Republicans have supported them as a legitimate exercise of presidential power.
The House narrowly defeated a war powers act resolution that would have directed Trump to remove US troops from Venezuela. As Rubio will argue, the administration says there are no US troops on the ground in the South American nation despite a large military buildup in the region.
Democrats had argued that the resolution was necessary after the US raid to capture Maduro, and because Trump has stated plans to control the country’s oil industry for years to come.
The pushback has begun in the courts, too, as the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump administration boat strike filed what is thought to be the first wrongful death case arising from the campaign. Three dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean have killed at least 126 people since September.
The US takes steps to normalise ties, while still issuing warnings.
While keeping pressure on those whom the Trump administration dubs “narcotraffickers” without providing evidence, US officials are working to normalise ties with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez. Nonetheless, Rubio will make clear in his testimony that she has little choice but to comply with Trump’s demands.
“Rodriguez is well aware of the fate of Maduro; it is our belief that her own self-interest aligns with advancing our key objectives,” Rubio will say, noting that they include opening Venezuela’s energy sector to US companies, providing preferential access to production, using oil revenue to purchase American goods, and ending subsidised oil exports to Cuba.
Rodriguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, Tuesday said her government and the Trump administration “have established respectful and courteous channels of communication.” During televised remarks, Rodriguez said she is working with Trump and Rubio to set “a working agenda.”
So far, she has appeared to acquiesce to Trump’s demands and to release prisoners jailed by the government under Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Monday, the head of a Venezuelan human rights group said 266 political prisoners had been freed since Jan. 8.
Trump had praised the releases, saying on social media that he would “like to thank the leadership of Venezuela for agreeing to this powerful humanitarian gesture!”
In a key step to the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the State Department notified Congress just this week that it intends to begin sending additional diplomatic and support personnel to Caracas to prepare for the possible reopening of the US Embassy there.
It was the first formal notice of the administration’s intent to reopen the embassy, which shuttered in 2019. Fully normalising ties, however, would require the US to revoke its decision recognising the Venezuelan parliament elected in 2015 as the country’s legitimate government.
Rubio also planned to meet Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado later Wednesday at the State Department.
Machado went into hiding after Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. She reemerged in December to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. After Maduro was ousted, she came to Washington. In a meeting with Trump, she presented him with her Peace Prize medal, an extraordinary gesture given that Trump has effectively sidelined her.