"I acknowledge that we are dealing with, I told you, with individuals that have been involved in things that in our system would not be acceptable."

"By no means is our policy to leave in place permanently something that [is] as corrupt as you've described."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, testifies before the Senate foreign relations committee on 28 January 2026. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

 

Standing before a hearing, Mr. Rubio was responding to a question from U.S. lawmakers wanting to know why it is that their Republican-led Trump government had decided to cooperate with and permit the ascension of Venezuela's vice-President to act as president in the absence of Nicolas Maduro, removed by U.S. Special Forces in early January through a lightning raid against the Venezuelan regime. He hastened to assure his interlocutors that it is not the Trump administration's intention to leave acting President Delcy Rodriguez permanently in place. 

 

Soon afterward at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Venezuela in response to a query over how long Delcy Rodriguez would be left to retain power as a continuation of the Maduro regime, Mr. Rubio's response was "No one here is telling you that this is what we want to see in the long term". The Venezuela raid to remove Mr. Maduro and bring him to the United States to stand trial on drug and gun trafficking charges appeared to mask President Trump's eagerness to control Venezuela's oil deposits.

 

Barely 48 hours after US forces took Nicolás Maduro and his wife from a compound in Caracas, the Venezuelan leader stood in a New York court and pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges brought by the US government.  Reuters

 

Perhaps a more fitting question to be put to the Secretary of State might be the logic inherent in allowing the Maduro regime to carry on under its former vice-president, when the whole rationale of the invasion was to effect regime change. In which case it should have been the opposition, ready and willing to take charge of the Venezuelan government that should have been installed with U.S. cooperation. That might have happened, perhaps, if the Nobel Committee had decided to honour Mr. Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize, rather than their selection of Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader in exile.

 

Ms. Machado's effort to 'make amends' in the hope of forestalling just such a snub by offering her Prize to Trump aside. Its soothing effect as a placating gift of appreciation from this courageous woman to honour a man that she recognized as having involved his country and his prestige to rescue Venezuela from the grip of its socialist corruption appears to have had a best-before date. Rather than leave the government rudderless and usher Ms. Machado into the governing post she deserved with the legitimacy of the last election having been won by her stand-in Edmundo Gonzalez in 2024, he waved her off.

 

 

 

In her place, in his great wisdom, President Trump announced his intention to permit the handover of government to Delcy Rodriguez. Mr. Rubio testified that the Trump government's intention is to see Venezuela return in good time to a democratically elected government. The raid removing Maduro, he asserted was a "law enforcement" operation targeting an indicted drug trafficker, despite the complicating issue that targeting "the  de facto head of a regime is not as simple as going after some fugitive hiding in the closet". 

 

Indicted in very point of fact, by the U.S. Justice Department for charges of narcoterrorism to which Mr. Maduro pleaded not guilty. Acting President Rodriguez, wrote Mr. Rubio, has committed to opening Venezuela's energy sector to American companies, with preferential access to oil production. Three U.S. oil companies that had invested in Venezuela, lost their investment with the nationalization of its oil industry by two of Mr. Maduro's predecessors, including Hugo Chavez, his mentor.

 

Now, given the current situation with the U.S. standing over Venezuela with the cudgel of guidance toward democracy and a turn away from the massive neglect and corruption that enriched the government cabal, leaving Venezuelans in a dictatorship of enforcement in a steadily declining freedom index and economic failure, the U.S. has extracted several conditions from the country. 

 

The provision of preferential access to oil production for U.S. companies. Profit from oil sales must be used to purchase goods from the United States. And a pledge agreed to evidently by the acting president to no longer support Cuba through oil exports. Perhaps the sole worthwhile goal for Venezuela and its population; a promise to pursue "national reconciliation with Venezuelans at home and abroad". 

 

"I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize [as] a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom."

"[The -- 1825 gift of a likeness of George Washington given by the Marquis de Lafayette to Simon Bolivar, one of the founding fathers of modern Venezuela -- was] a sign of the brotherhood [between her country and the U.S.] in their fight for freedom against tyranny."

"And 200 years in history, the people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal -- in this case a medal of the Nobel Peace Prize -- as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom."

Nobel Laureate Maria Corina Machado