{"id":8883,"date":"2026-01-04T18:13:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/01\/04\/a-picture-is-emerging-of-how-us-sees-its-role-running-venezuela-cnn\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T18:13:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:13:52","slug":"a-picture-is-emerging-of-how-us-sees-its-role-running-venezuela-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/01\/04\/a-picture-is-emerging-of-how-us-sees-its-role-running-venezuela-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"A picture is emerging of how US sees its role \u2018running\u2019 Venezuela – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

West Palm Beach, Florida<\/span> \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 <\/cite> <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> administration is working quickly to establish a pliant interim government in Venezuela following the dramatic capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, according to US officials, prioritizing administrative stability and repairing the country\u2019s oil infrastructure<\/a> over an immediate turn to democracy. <\/p>\n

Officials described a multifold effort using American military and economic leverage to influence the remnants of Maduro\u2019s regime left inside Venezuela. In particular, US officials have focused squarely on the country\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, who Trump advisers identified weeks ago as a viable, if nonpermanent, alternative to Maduro. <\/p>\n

Senior-level US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, top aide Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have been working to develop a structure for Venezuela\u2019s government in the wake of Maduro\u2019s ouster, according to a senior US official. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright have been tasked with convincing American energy companies to return to Venezuela and its aging oil infrastructure. <\/p>\n

The clearer picture that began emerging Sunday of what Trump meant when he claimed during an extraordinary news conference the United States would \u201crun\u201d Venezuela was essentially one in which the US relies on the massive armada floating offshore to ensure whoever is in charge does what the Trump administration wants. <\/p>\n

Many questions remained about how, precisely, the US plans to establish what amounts to a temporary protectorate in a country of 31 million people that is roughly twice the size of California. There has been no official American presence in Venezuela since the US Embassy closed in Caracas in 2019. <\/p>\n

\"US<\/picture> <\/div>\n

And the risks for Trump appeared significant, even as he brushed off concerns he was repeating the mistakes of American adventurism abroad and threatened more military action if Rodr\u00edguez did not submit to his demands. Even his most immediate goal \u2014 gaining US access to Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves \u2014 could potentially put US troops in harm\u2019s way if, as Trump suggested, they are deployed to protect those assets. <\/p>\n

Speaking Sunday, Rubio \u2014 a chief architect of Trump\u2019s Venezuela policy who the president said would be included in the group \u201crunning\u201d the country \u2014 offered a broad portrait of what that meant. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward,\u201d he said on ABC News. \u201cAnd that is, we have leverage. This leverage we are using.\u201d <\/p>\n

That leverage, he said, includes the blockade of oil tankers<\/a> intended to cut off Caracas\u2019 main economic lifeline and the continued American military presence around Venezuela. An administration source also said the oil sanctions would remain in place for now. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the president said the United States is going to be running Venezuela, it means that the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands,\u201d including ceasing drugs and weapons trafficking, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton told CNN on Sunday morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want them to expel the Cubans and the Iranians and the Islamic radicals, and we want them to return to the civilized world and be a good neighbor that contributes to stability, order and prosperity,\u201d the Arkansas Republican said. <\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, US officials have zeroed in on Rodr\u00edguez, who they believed could provide a stable transition, offer a more professional relationship than Maduro \u2014 and, perhaps most importantly, ensure future American energy investments were protected. <\/p>\n

In doing so, they appear to have written off<\/a> the opposition leader, Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, who won this year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize. Some advisers have warned Trump for months that Machado was not a guaranteed bet and was untested in power. One source told CNN that Trump was never fully sold on Machado, though there were early conversations discussing what the country might look like with her at the helm. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/picture> <\/div>\n

Despite Machado\u2019s previous attempts to appeal to Trump, he claimed Saturday she lacked the \u201crespect\u201d needed to lead Venezuela. Instead, Trump said Rodr\u00edguez \u2014 a member of a regime the US previously said was illegitimate \u2014 would hold power in Caracas as long as she \u201cdoes what we want,\u201d vowing to launch a second round of strikes if she didn\u2019t accede. <\/p>\n

Later in the day, Rodr\u00edguez showed few signs of submission, declaring Maduro was still the head of state and describing the US operation to capture him as \u201cbarbarity.\u201d <\/p>\n

American officials viewed the comments as targeted toward an internal audience, and appeared nonplussed that she appeared to be publicly rebuffing Trump\u2019s claims that she was now in charge. On Sunday, Rubio said the US would judge Rodr\u00edguez on what she does moving forward, rather than her past statements. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make an assessment on the basis of what they do, not what they say publicly in the interim, not what we know what they\u2019ve done in the past in many cases, but what they do moving forward,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"Venezuelan<\/picture> <\/div>\n

Rubio declined to provide details about his conversations with Rodr\u00edguez, but told NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that \u201cwe expect to see more compliance and cooperation than we were previously receiving.\u201d <\/p>\n

Two former senior State Department officials said Saturday that Rodr\u00edguez would likely only have made or would make a deal with the Trump administration if it offered protection for leadership. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor Delcy, she\u2019s not going to put her head on the block and say, \u2018Hack away,\u2019\u201d said one former official who knows her. \u201cAny deal that\u2019s going to be done has to be done in a way that is going to offer some degree of protection to the leadership.\u201d This official described Rodr\u00edguez as a \u201cvery committed leftist,\u201d and told CNN they do not think the officials who committed their lives to the cause would so easily give it up to become \u201clackeys.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI would think that they\u2019re going to ask for a lot of guarantees,\u201d said the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. <\/p>\n

Todd Robinson, who served as acting US ambassador to Venezuela during Trump\u2019s first term, said Rodr\u00edguez may agree to a deal with the administration on \u201cthe hope that she can stay and somehow stay in charge of the political apparatus that is there.\u201d If she is not able to stay in power, Robinson said, she may agree a deal if it allows her \u201cto leave under her own auspices with whatever they\u2019ve socked away in whatever bank accounts they have outside of Venezuela.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll see whether the vice president of Venezuela, who is sanctioned by the United States and many other countries, who was in league and hand-chosen by Maduro, wants to turn over a new leaf,\u201d Cotton said. <\/p>\n

\"View<\/picture> <\/div>\n

Unmentioned, at least by Trump this weekend, was whether he sought a return to democracy in Venezuela, which for years has been run by authoritarians. Rubio on Sunday said the US wants to see a democratic transition in Venezuela, but argued the administration \u201cneeds to deal with the immediately reality.\u201d He said discussing a potential timeline for elections in Venezuela was \u201cpremature.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have short-term things that have to be addressed right away. We all wish to see a bright future for Venezuela, transition to democracy,\u201d he said on NBC. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Palm Beach, Florida \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 President Donald Trump\u2019s administration is working quickly to establish a pliant interim government in Venezuela following the dramatic capture of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, according to US officials, prioritizing administrative stability and repairing the country\u2019s oil infrastructure over an immediate turn to democracy. Officials described a multifold effort using American military and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}