US seizes six Venezuelan tankers in the Caribbean
The U.S. military has seized six Venezuelan tankers in the Caribbean “without incident.”
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators during a Jan. 28 hearing that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was an “obstacle to progress” and had refused to reach an agreement with the Trump administration until the Trump administration captured him in a surprise military operation on Jan. 3.
“This was one of the options available to the president after exhausting all other options,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee less than a month after Maduro’s ouster.
Rubio said Maduro had broken so many agreements that “not even the Vatican” wanted to do business with him.
“What he wanted to do was get us to cooperate and buy him three years until he could deal with a new government that seemed more favorable,” he added.
Since President Maduro was detained, the Trump administration announced a $2 billion deal to sell Venezuelan oil. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who took over after Maduro’s capture, has since introduced legal changes to comply with his administration’s plan to sell off the country’s oil.
Rodriguez has made increasingly belligerent statements toward the United States in recent days, even as he moves to cooperate with the Trump administration’s plan to sell Venezuelan oil for billions of dollars. “We’ve had enough of Washington’s orders to Venezuelan politicians,” she told oil workers on January 25.
Mr. Rubio said Mr. Rodriguez and the United States had a “respectful and productive line of communication.” But he added that the Trump administration “will judge actions, not words.”
The committee’s top Democrat questioned why the Trump administration removed President Maduro just to keep him in power.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said in her opening remarks that Rodriguez’s “cooperation appears to be tactical and temporary.”
“We traded one dictator for another,” she said.
Rubio told a Senate committee that the United States wants “free and fair elections” to be held in Venezuela, but that “it will take time.”
“You can hold elections all day long, but if the opposition doesn’t have access to the media and opposition candidates are routinely removed from office and unable to participate in the vote, it’s not a free and fair election,” he said.
“It won’t arrive in three weeks.”
President Trump has praised Rodriguez as “fantastic,” and Venezuela’s interim leader met with CIA Director John Ratcliffe earlier this month.
Rubio told senators on January 28 that Ratcliffe “discussed important items of potential cooperation” during his visit.
But reports in recent days have cast doubt on the Trump administration’s confidence in her. Reuters reported on January 27 that US intelligence agencies were raising questions about her cooperation. CNN reported the same day that the CIA would maintain a foothold in the country.
