Rubio warns Venezuelas rebelling acting leader | Political News

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is slated to warn on Wednesday that the Trump administration is prepared to take extra army motion against Venezuela ought to the nation’s interim leaders stray from U.S. objectives.

Rubio, in ready testimony in entrance of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will say that the U.S. is not at battle with Venezuela and that its interim leaders are cooperating — but he’ll word that the Trump administration will not rule out utilizing extra drive if needed after a raid earlier this month to seize then-President Nicolás Maduro.

“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.”

Rubio is often called to promote Trump’s more contentious priorities to Congress in entrance of his former colleagues. (He was once a senator from Florida.)

The Republican administration’s overseas coverage is gyrating among the Western Hemisphere, with Europe and the Middle East, and Rubio could also be called to easy alarm that’s emerged from within his own get together these days about Trump’s efforts to annex Greenland.

In the listening to centered on Venezuela, Rubio will defend Trump’s selections to take away Maduro to face drug trafficking prices in the U.S., continue lethal army strikes on boats suspected of smuggling medicine and seize sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, according to the ready 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’ll say, according to the ready remarks. “There are no U.S. troops on the ground. This was an operation to aid law enforcement.”

Maduro, who has pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking prices in a U.S. court, has defiantly declared himself “the president of my country” and protested his seize.

The US takes steps to normalize ties while still issuing warnings

While protecting stress on those the Trump administration dubs “narcotraffickers” without offering evidence, U.S. officers also are working to normalize ties with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez. Nonetheless, Rubio will make clear in his testimony that she has little alternative but to comply with Trump’s calls for.

“Rodríguez 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 U.S. companies, providing preferential access to production, using oil revenue to purchase American goods, and ending subsidized oil exports to Cuba.

Rodríguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, on Tuesday said her government and the Trump administration “have established respectful and courteous channels of communication.” During televised remarks, Rodríguez 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, Hugo Chávez. On 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 U.S. Embassy there.

It was the first formal notice of the administration’s intent to reopen the embassy, which shuttered in 2019. Fully normalizing ties, however, would require the U.S. to revoke its decision recognizing the Venezuelan parliament elected in 2015 as the country’s legitimate government.

Rubio also planned to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María 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 opposite. She reemerged in December to choose up her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. After Maduro was ousted, she traveled to Washington. In a assembly with Trump, she introduced him with her Peace Prize medal, an extraordinary gesture given that Trump has successfully sidelined her.