Venezuela’s newly appointed interim socialist leader has launched a verbal attack on the Trump administration today, just as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined a list of expectations for the country’s new leadership.
Rubio emphasized that while the United States is not in a state of war with Venezuela, it anticipates significant changes in the management of Venezuela’s oil industry. He expressed concerns about the industry being under the influence of nations considered adversaries of the U.S.
Targeting specific countries, Rubio pointed to Iran, urging Venezuela to distance itself from Iran and Hezbollah within the region. Additionally, he called for the removal of the Colombian militant group FARC from Venezuelan territory.
Rubio did not rule out the possibility of military actions, indicating that future U.S. relations with Venezuela would depend on whether these conditions are met.
The Supreme Court of Venezuela has appointed Delcy Rodriguez, previously Vice President under Nicolás Maduro, as the acting president, following Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces yesterday.
Despite President Trump’s positive remarks about Rodriguez’s ascent to power, describing her as ‘quite gracious’ and open to reforms aimed at improving Venezuela, Rodriguez did not reciprocate the warmth.
She slammed Maduro’s arrest as ‘an atrocity that violates international law’ and called for his ‘immediate release’.
Rodriguez, who also serves as minister for finance and oil, continued: ‘We call on the peoples of the great homeland to remain united, because what was done to Venezuela can be done to anyone,’ she asserted during a National Defense Council session after the US military operation.
‘That brutal use of force to bend the will of the people can be carried out against any country.’
She also insinuated that she would not go along with Trump’s plan to ‘run the country until we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.’
Meanwhile, Rubio also expanded on his expectations of what should happen to the country’s oil reserves, which are the biggest in the world.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been announced as the interim leader of Venezuela
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro is seen being taken into custody by US law enforcement officials
He told NBC’s Meet the Press: ‘What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States.
‘Why does China need Venezuelan oil? Why does Russia? Why does Iran?’
He continued: ‘This is the western hemisphere…we’re not going to allow the western hemisphere to be a base for adversaries of the US.’
‘The first steps are securing what’s in the national interest of the United States and also beneficial to the people of Venezuela… No more drug trafficking. No more Iran/Hezbollah presence there. No more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries.’
He was pressed about whether the US was ‘running Venezuela’ now that their president Maduro is languishing in a New York prison cell but dodged the question.
He said the US was running ‘the direction that this is going to move moving forward’, adding that the have ‘leverage’ that they intend to and have ‘started using already’.
This leverage comes in the form of an ‘armada of boats’ the US military has currently in position off Venezuela shores which will allow America to ‘seize any sanctioned boats coming into or out of Venezuela loaded with oil or on its way to pick up oil and we can pick and choose which ones we go after.’
He mentioned that Venezuela has been running into an oil storage capacity shortage, with only 20 million of its 35 million barrels of storage currently being usable. It produces 850,000 barrels a day, Reuters reported.
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How should Venezuela balance its independence with pressure from powerful countries like the US?
US secretary of state Marco Rubio set out the US demands on Venezuelan oil in the wake of their arrest of Maduro
President Donald Trump is seen next to CIO Director John Ratcliffe watching the US military operation to capture Maduro and his wife
Trump announced that the US had carried out the operation on Saturday, sharing it on Truth Social
Rubio said that this means the country must start moving oil before they run out of space.
Despite this, Rodriguez made a strong statement for Venezuelan independence in the face of the American ‘armada’.
‘Never again will we be slaves, never again will we be a colony of any empire,’ she said on Saturday.
‘We’re ready to defend Venezuela.’
Given her unapologetic allegiance to Maduro, Trump’s preference for working with her over opposition party figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, has sparked fears among many Venezuelans.
For more than two decades, she has been a significant figure of the Chavismo political movement, which President Hugo Chávez founded.
Chávez died in 2013, and Maduro came into power and became the party’s leader.
Constitutional lawyer and political analyst José Manuel Romano told CNN that Rodriguez has evolved into a ‘very prominent’ figure in the Latin American country’s government with ‘full trust’ from Maduro.
Rodriguez is seen alongside Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in 2018. Flores was arrested alongside her husband this weekend
Rodriguez, seen in September 2025, has been a significant figure of the Chavismo political movement, which has been led by Maduro
‘The executive vice president of the republic is a highly effective operator, a woman with strong leadership skills for managing teams,’ Romano explained.
‘She is very results-oriented and has significant influence over the entire government apparatus, including the Ministry of Defense. That is very important to note in the current circumstances.’
Rodriguez is from Caracas, the nation’s capital, and earned a law degree from the Central University of Venezuela.
Her father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, was a Marxist guerrilla who co-founded a militant leftist movement called the Socialist League, which was active in the 1960s and 1970s, according to The Wall Street Journal.
She has held many government positions since Chavez was the country’s leader.
From 2013 to 2014, she was the minister of communication and information. She was the foreign minister from 2014 to 2017.
As the foreign minister, she fiercely defended far-left Maduro’s image amid international scrutiny for violating human rights and threatening democracy.
She also accused governments of the United Nations of trying to undermine Venezuela in this role.
Maduro is seen being transported to the US following his detainment, as shared by Trump on Truth Social
Maduro, pictured with his wife Flores in 2019, was serving his third presidential term when the pair was captured by US forces
In 2017, Rodriguez became the president of the Constituent National Assembly, which expanded the government’s powers following the opposition party’s 2015 victory in the legislative elections.
Maduro made her vice president for his second term in 2018. He chose her to assume the position once again for his third term, following the highly divisive July 2024 elections.
The opposition party has claimed that this election was rigged and that Maduro was not legitimately elected as the nation’s president.
They said that the actual winner was Urrutia.
Throughout the alleged scandals and the criticism Maduro has faced, Rodriguez has demonstrated unwavering support for his authoritarian power.
Her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, has also climbed the political ranks and is currently the president of the National Assembly.
‘They are very, very manipulative,’ Andrés Izarra, a former minister under Maduro who was exiled after breaking with the regime, told The WSJ.
‘I think they will maneuver to stay in power as long as they can.’
Despite her historic loyalty to Maduro, Colombia’s former vice-president, Francisco Santos, said he is ‘absolutely certain’ that Rodriguez betrayed him.
‘They didn’t remove him, they handed him over,’ Santos, who was Colombia’s vice president from 2002 to 2010 and later became the nation’s ambassador to the US, told news channel NTN24.
‘I’m absolutely certain Delcy Rodriguez handed him over…She’s very clear about the role she’s going to play and she’s going to try to earn a little bit of independence.’
Trump announced that the US had carried out a military strike after several explosions rocked the capital of Caracas in the early hours of Saturday.
The overnight mission to capture Maduro and Flores from their Caracas compound took about two hours and 20 minutes.
It involved 150 aircraft targeting Venezuelan air defenses so that military troops could arrive in Caracas in helicopters, The New York Times reported.
An anonymous Venezuelan official told the outlet that 40 people, including military personnel and civilians, were killed during the operation.
Trump confirmed that no Americans died, but two anonymous US officials said about half a dozen soldiers were injured, per the NYT.
Maduro and his wife were captured and flown to America to stand trial. They are being held in Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center.
The US has no troops on the ground in Venezuela, according to the Pentagon.
