Marco Rubio revealed that Donald Trump plans to implement an “oil quarantine” to ensure Venezuela adheres to U.S. directives following the ousting of leader Nicolas Maduro.
The Secretary of State shared with CBS News that this quarantine would prevent sanctioned oil tankers from entering or leaving, aiming to hold the Venezuelan government accountable.
Rubio clarified that the U.S. does not intend to govern Venezuela like an occupied Iraq, as Trump mentioned in a press briefing after Maduro’s removal.
“That’s the kind of control the president refers to,” the Secretary explained, following Trump’s announcement that Rubio and Pete Hegseth would oversee Venezuela’s situation.
“We will maintain this quarantine, expecting it to bring about changes not only in the oil industry’s operations for the people’s benefit but also to curb drug trafficking,” he added.
He further stated that Naval officers would enforce this quarantine, ensuring it hampers the regime’s revenue generation from these activities.
Trump’s initial comments earned Rubio the nickname ‘the Viceroy of Venezuela’ from the Washington Post.
The move also suggested he would take on yet another role, as he’s already serving as the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, the head of the dismantled USAID and the Archivist of the United States.
Rubio suggested to NBC News that the press was ‘fixating’ too much on his endorsement of himself and Hegseth.
Marco Rubio (pictured left) said the US was not going to ‘run’ Venezuela after deposing leader Nicolas Maduro (pictured right), rather that Donald Trump would use an ‘oil quarantine’ to assure compliance
Captured Venezuelan leader Maduro was deposed to New York over the weekend
Their job in Venezuela is ‘not running — it’s running policy, the policy with regards to this.’
The secretary instead has promised that the US merely remains in control of the situation.
‘What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward,’ the Secretary of State said when pressed on ABC’s This Week by host George Stephanopoulos.
Rubio added: ‘That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interest of the Venezuelan people are me. And that’s what we intend to do.’
‘So that leverage remains, that leverage is ongoing, and we expect that it’s going to lead to results here.’
He said the United States would ‘set the conditions’ so that Venezuela would no longer be a narco-state.
Stephanopoulos, a veteran of Democratic President Bill Clinton’s White House, repeatedly pressed Rubio on what legal authority the United States had to remove Maduro from his country and who the U.S. viewed as the country’s current leader.
‘So is the United States running Venezuela right now?’ he asked.
‘When the president was asked yesterday who will be running Venezuela, he said it was you, he said it was the Defense Secretary, he said it was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Are you running Venezuela right now?’ Stephanopoulos asked.
In the aftermath of Saturday’s dramatic overnight apprehension of Maduro, President Trumpsaid that Rubio – and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth – would be charged with controlling the country
Rubio, who made the rounds on all three major network morning news shows Sunday, told ABC News that the US remains in control of the situation
Rubio didn’t explicitly answer the question.
‘George, I’ve explained again that the leverage that we have here is the leverage of the quarantine. So that is a Department of War operation conducting, in some cases, law enforcement functions with the Coast Guard on the seizure of these boats,’ the Secretary of State said.
Rubio said he was ‘intricately involved in these policies’ as well as ‘intricately involved in moving forward.’
‘Unfortunately, the person that was there before, who was not the legitimate president of the country, was someone we could not work with,’ he added.
In the aftermath of Saturday’s dramatic overnight apprehension of leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump said that Rubio – and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth – would be charged with controlling the country.
‘Well, it’s largely going to be run for a period of time by the people standing right behind me,’ Trump said at the press conference at Mar-a-Lago. ‘We’re gonna be running it.’
In November 2024, under the Biden Administration, the U.S. recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González as the ‘president-elect’ of the South American nation, despite Maduro’s claims he had won the July ballot.
González fled for asylum in Spain as part of a deal with Maduro’s government.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro onboard the USS Iwo Jima after the US military captured him on January 3
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, watching a remote feed of the US military’s mission to capture Maduro
Since Saturday’s capture of Maduro, Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in.
Trump initially heralded her as Maduro’s replacement.
‘He just had a conversation with her,’ Trump said of Rubio. ‘And she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.’
However, in public statements, she called Maduro the country’s ‘only president’ and attacked the U.S. for its ‘barbarity.’
Rubio was prodded on whether Rodríguez was running Venezuela in the U.S.’s eyes.
‘Well, this is not about the legitimate president. We don’t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,’ Rubio answered.
‘But we understand there are people in Venezuela today who are the ones that can actually make changes,’ he continued. ‘Ultimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had.’
At the same time, Rubio downplayed Rodríguez’s negative comments about the United States.
‘Well, we’re not going to judge moving forward based simply on what’s said in press conferences,’ Rubio said. ‘There’s a lot of different reasons why people go on TV and say certain things in these countries, especially 15 hours or 12 hours after the person who used to be in charge of the regime is now in handcuffs and on his way to New York.’
