A senior Venezuelan official declared on Sunday that the country’s government would remain united in support of President Nicolás Maduro, whose capture by the United States has generated deep uncertainty about what comes next for the oil-rich South American nation.
Maduro is in a New York detention center awaiting a court appearance on Monday on drug trafficking charges. US President Donald Trump, who went golfing on Sunday, ordered Venezuela to withdraw on Saturday and said the US would take control of the country.
But in Caracas, top Maduro government officials, who called the detentions of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores a kidnapping, were still in charge.
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“Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolás Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said in an audio recording released by the ruling socialist party PSUV.
Images of Maduro, 63, blindfolded and handcuffed on Saturday left Venezuelans stunned. The operation was Washington’s most controversial intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago.
Without providing specific details, Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino said on state television that the U.S. strike killed soldiers, civilians and a “large part” of Maduro’s security team “in cold blood.” The Venezuelan Armed Forces were activated to guarantee sovereignty, according to him.
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Vice President Delcy Rodríguez — who also serves as oil minister — took over as interim leader with the blessing of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, although she said Maduro remains president.
Because of her connections to the private sector and her deep knowledge of oil, the country’s main source of revenue, Rodríguez has been considered the most pragmatic member of Maduro’s inner circle. But she publicly contradicted Trump’s claim that she would be willing to work with the US.
Trump declared that Rodríguez could pay a higher price than Maduro “if she doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do,” according to an interview with The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.
Venezuela’s Communications Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this remark.
Quarantine in oil
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Venezuela’s next leader must be aligned with US interests. These interests include keeping Venezuela’s oil sector out of the hands of U.S. adversaries and ending drug trafficking. He cited a U.S. blockade of tankers under sanctions as leverage.
“We have a quarantine on their oil,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week.”
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“This means that its economy will not be able to move forward until conditions that are in the U.S. national interest and in the interest of the Venezuelan people are met.”
The Venezuelan government has said for months that Trump was trying to seize the country’s vast natural resources, especially oil, and officials highlighted his comment on Saturday that major U.S. oil companies would move there.
“We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed — it was revealed that they just want our oil,” Cabello added.
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Venezuela’s economy, once one of Latin America’s most prosperous nations, tanked in the 2000s under President Hugo Chávez and plummeted further under Maduro, causing about one in five Venezuelans to go abroad in one of the world’s largest exoduses.
