Trump: New Venezuelan leader to pay ‘big price’ if she doesn’t ‘do what’s right’

Interim President Rodriguez vows to defend natural resources, backs Maduro; Rubio says US not seeking regime change in Caracas, will enforce oil blockade for ‘tremendous leverage’

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Donald Trump threatened Sunday that Venezuela’s new leader will pay a “big price” if she does not cooperate with the United States, after US forces seized and jailed her former boss, Nicolas Maduro.

If Interim President Delcy Rodriguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a telephone interview.

US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours of Saturday, bombing military targets and spiriting away Maduro and his wife to face federal narcotrafficking charges in New York. The deposed leader is due to appear in a Manhattan court on Monday.

The Trump administration says it is willing to work with the remainder of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals, particularly opening access to US investment in Venezuela’s enormous crude oil reserves, are met.

The streets of Caracas were calm in the wake of the stunning raid, in which US commandos swooped into Caracas on helicopters, backed by attack jets and naval forces, to capture Maduro.

Residents queued up to buy food in grocery stores, and the masked and heavily armed police visible the previous day were gone, AFP correspondents said.

The Venezuelan military announced it recognized Rodriguez — previously Maduro’s vice president — as acting president, and urged people to resume normal life.

Who will run Venezuela?

Despite the success of the initial US operation, questions mounted over Trump’s strategy.

The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, told ABC News that Americans were left “scratching their heads in wonderment and in fear.”

Trump said Saturday that the US will “run” Venezuela.

And he told The Atlantic that “rebuilding there and regime change — anything you want to call it — is better than what you have right now.”

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed Sunday that Washington is not seeking complete regime change in the South American country of about 30 million people, or elections to restore democracy there.

Rather than seek to topple the entire Maduro government, “we’re going to make an assessment on the basis of what they do,” he told CBS News.

The US is fighting drug traffickers, “not a war against Venezuela,” Rubio told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

However, he said a large US naval presence would remain in the Caribbean to enforce a blockade of Venezuelan oil exports for “tremendous leverage.”

Trump has made clear that Washington intends to call the shots in Venezuela, with a focus on securing access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

“We’re going to run the country” until a transition can be made, he said Saturday, also insisting that military “boots on the ground” remained a possibility.

In her first remarks since the US attack, Rodriguez struck a defiant note, saying Maduro was the country’s sole legitimate leader and that “we’re ready to defend our natural resources.”

‘Good night’

The deposed Venezuelan leader was in a New York detention center ahead of his court hearing.

Handcuffed and in sandals, Maduro was escorted by federal agents through a Manhattan US Drug Enforcement Administration facility late Saturday, a video posted by the White House on social media showed.

“Good night, happy new year,” the 63-year-old leftist was heard saying in English.

Earlier, he was photographed aboard a US naval ship, blindfolded and handcuffed, with noise-canceling ear protectors.

Maduro, a self-described socialist, led Venezuela with an iron fist for more than a decade through a series of elections widely considered rigged. He came to power after the death of his charismatic mentor, Hugo Chavez.

As news of Maduro’s capture rippled out, exiled Venezuelans waved flags and celebrated in plazas from Madrid to Santiago. About eight million Venezuelans have fled the grinding poverty and political suppression of their homeland.

Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Spain, in a joint statement, expressed their “rejection” of the US operation and “concern about any attempt at governmental control or administration or outside appropriation of natural or strategic resources.”

The UN Security Council was to meet on Monday on the crisis.