Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez signaled frustrations with the Trump administration are bubbling up in Caracas after the White House toppled former dictator Nicolas Maduro.
On Sunday, Rodriguez said she has had “enough” of “Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela.” Her comments follow a public trail of statements that at times have appeared to seek to appease and cooperate with the Trump administration, and at others, she has condemned what she’s called a “complete brutal aggression against our people.”
Rodriguez is a leftover from the Maduro regime and replaced the ousted leader in January after he was removed from power by President Donald Trump in an overnight military operation. The Trump administration has allowed her to stay in the role while pushing for reforms in the country, most notably to revive Venezuela’s once-renowned oil industry and release it from state control.
“Enough already,” Rodriguez told oil workers in Puerto La Cruz city, according to state-run channel Venezolana de Televisión. “Let Venezuelan politics resolve our differences and internal conflicts. Enough of foreign powers.”
The Trump administration continues to wield sweeping influence in Venezuela, particularly its oil industry, after special military forces raided Maduro’s home and accompanied him to New York to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges overnight on Jan. 3.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the national security adviser, is set to appear before lawmakers on Wednesday to discuss Venezuela’s future, giving his first public testimony on the matter since Maduro’s capture. Rubio is expected to detail the Trump administration’s three-phase plan for Venezuela, which he first revealed shortly after the military operation.
Step one is stabilization and not allowing the country to devolve into chaos, which the Trump administration believes must involve essentially a takeover of Venezuelan oil from state forces viewed as deeply corrupt. The second phase moves to recovery, ensuring U.S. and other international companies have “fair” access to the Venezuelan market. And the phase pushes to “create the process of reconciliation nationally within Venezuela,” including through efforts to “rebuild civil society” by seeking the release of political prisoners under the Maduro regime and allowing for exiled opposition figures to return. The third phase is transition, though Rubio has thus far offered few details on how such an effort would take place, saying that some phases would overlap.
“This is not just winging it. … We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil,” Rubio told reporters following a classified briefing to members of Congress about the plan. “We’re going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is disbursed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime.”
Since Trump ousted Maduro, Venezuela’s government, led by Rodriguez, has already advanced reforms to open its state-controlled oil sector to foreign and private investors. And the country has released dozens of political prisoners, including five detained Americans. Venezuela most recently released over 100 such prisoners on Sunday, according to human rights groups.
GENERAL ‘RAZIN’ CAINE DIVULGES DETAILS ON TRUMP VENEZUELA OPERATION THAT CAPTURED MADURO
Trump said last week that he would like to see Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was exiled to Europe under the Maduro regime, “involved” in the country’s leadership.
“I’d love to be able to do that; Maria, maybe we can do that,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Jan. 20. “I felt so strongly against Venezuela, now I’m loving Venezuela. They’ve been working with us so well. It’s been so nice.”
