A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, President Trump was asked, who's in charge of Venezuela?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Don't ask me who's in charge because I'll give you an answer, and it'll be very controversial.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What does that mean?
TRUMP: It means we're in charge.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We still don't know what that means. Federal authorities bring President Nicolas Maduro into court in the United States today. The U.S. has otherwise left the Venezuelan government in place, expecting it to obey orders.
MARTÍNEZ: For more, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. So, Greg, what does it mean for President Trump to be in charge of Venezuela?
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Well, A, it's absolutely not clear. The U.S. forces that seized Maduro dashed in and out of the country in less than three hours before dawn on Saturday morning. There are no U.S. troops there now. Also, the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela was shut down back in 2019, so there's no U.S. diplomatic presence. The large U.S. military contingent is still nearby. Many are on ships in the Caribbean. And Trump says he's prepared for further military action if he feels it's needed. But the president doesn't appear to want a full-scale, open-ended U.S. military occupation. So if Trump and his team are simply trying to run the place from afar, they may have limited influence.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on a lot of TV shows yesterday. How did he frame what the administration plans to do?
MYRE: Well, a little bit differently than Trump. Rubio said the U.S. goal is to shape policies in Venezuela. The U.S. would be assessing what steps the government there takes. He cited issues like stopping drug trafficking and migration in a country where millions have fled in recent years, many heading to the U.S. Now, he noted the U.S. is still blocking oil tankers on a U.S. sanctions list from coming to or leaving from Venezuela, and this gives the U.S. huge leverage over the country's most valuable resource. Trump also wants U.S. oil companies to make billion-dollar investments to upgrade that oil industry, but we'll have to see how eager these oil companies might be to go into a country and make a big commitment when the place is in such an uncertain state.
MARTÍNEZ: Delcy Rodriguez was Venezuela's vice president. She's now become the interim president. How does she fit into all this?
MYRE: Yeah. So Trump seems to be setting the terms of how he'll cooperate with her and the government that's sort of left in place in Venezuela. Trump gave an interview to The Atlantic magazine on Sunday, and speaking of Rodriguez, he said, quote, "if she doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro." Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump repeated his threat of more military action in Venezuela.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: If they don't behave, we will do a second strike.
MYRE: That may be a bit hard to hear. He's saying, if they don't behave, we will do a second strike. And Maduro's top aides - his loyalists in the military and security forces - remain in place, and they simply may not adopt the policies that Trump would like to see.
MARTÍNEZ: Trump has long been opposed to getting involved in foreign entanglements, especially long-standing ones. So how does all that fit into what he has said in the past?
MYRE: So this is very much at odds with one of Trump's more consistent positions over the years - no foreign wars. But now he's talking about his own updated version of the Monroe Doctrine, first stated by President James Monroe 200 years ago. It's been interpreted variously by different presidents, but it's come to mean the U.S. should play the dominant role in this hemisphere. We should also note some more recent history. When the U.S. has ousted or helped oust notorious leaders of oil-rich countries - Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gadhafi in Libya - in both cases, the U.S. believed oil would lead to a swift rebuilding of those countries. But what followed was chaos.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thanks.
MYRE: Sure thing, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
