Image Credit: Handout / Getty Images 
The US military will maintain its Caribbean blockade on Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says. The Latin American nation is now being run its vice president Delcy Rodriguez, after US special forces captured President Nicholas Maduro on Saturday morning.
Rubio told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that the US will keep an oil “quarantine” in place around Venezuela’s coast.
“There’s a quarantine right now in which sanctioned oil shipments, there’s a boat, and that boat is under US sanctions. We go get a court order, we will seize it,” Rubio said.
“That remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela.”
Rubio said that’s what President Donald Trump meant when he said the US will not rule out further military options, including “boots on the ground,” until the Venezuelan regime meets his demands.
The Secretary of State had nothing further to say about how the Venezuela will be administered in the interim, saying only that the US will maintain its “force posture” in the Caribbean in the foreseeable future.
President Trump said the United States would work with Rodriguez and the interim regime. Trump said the vice president spoke to Rubio on the phone, telling him, “We’ll do whatever you need.”
“I think she was quite gracious,” Trump said.
“We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.”
When CBS asked Rubio about the phone call, he didn’t reveal what was discussed, but he did say US interests with regard to Venezuela “have not changed.”
“We want drug trafficking to stop. We want no more gang members to come our way. We don’t want to see the Iranian and, by the way, Cuban presence in the past.”
Rubio said Venezuela’s oil interests need to benefit its people instead of “pirates and adversaries of the United States.”
“We want to see all of that happen. We insist on seeing that happen,” he said.
As well as the “quarantine” around Venezuela, Rubio said the US has “multiple levers of leverage to ensure that our interests are protected.”
“But we are going to judge moving forward. We’re going to judge everything by what they do, and we’re going to see what they do.”
On an eventual transition to democracy, Rubio said he views opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez as the true winner of Venezuela’s 2024 election. He sounded a note of caution, however, saying it’s unrealistic to expect a election straight away after years of authoritarian rule.
“They’ve had this system of Chavismo in place for 15 or 16 years, and everyone’s asking, why 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro was arrested, there isn’t an election scheduled for tomorrow? That’s absurd.”
