Venezuelan interim leader tones down criticism, ready to ‘work with the US’

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez calls for a ‘balanced and respectful’ relationship with Washington during transition.

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez has said she is willing to cooperate with the United States on the future of Venezuela, in a significant shift in tone from the immediate aftermath of a military operation leading to the abduction of leader Nicolas Maduro by US special forces.

“We consider it a priority to move towards a balanced and respectful relationship between the US and Venezuela,” Rodriguez wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

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“We extend an invitation to the US government to work together on an agenda for cooperation that is aimed towards shared development,” she continued.

Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s deputy since 2018, was made interim leader by Venezuela’s Supreme Court on Saturday after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were detained in the most high-profile and riskiest US military operation since the US Navy’s SEAL team killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011.

In a televised address on Saturday, Rodriguez denounced the US actions as “an atrocity that violates international law”, insisting that “the only president of Venezuela [is] President Nicolas Maduro.”

Rodriguez’s televised remarks created a rift with Trump, who had suggested in the immediate aftermath of Maduro’s capture that US officials were in communication with her, and she was willing to cooperate.

After Rodriguez called his administration a group of “extremists” on television, Trump quickly shifted his tone from calling Rodriguez “gracious” to threatening her directly.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an interview early on Sunday.

The US president also said further strikes on Venezuela could take place, and he would not rule out putting “boots on the ground” in Venezuela, reiterating that the US was now “in charge”.

The belligerent actions and stance, which have prompted protests in the US and around the world, fly in the face of Trump’s election “America First” stance and keeping the country out of endless wars, as well as his previous criticism of regime change in the Iraq War.

Rodriguez separately said on Sunday that she had launched a commission to seek the release of Maduro and Flores from US detention, where the Venezuelan leader is facing charges of “narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices”.

The commission will be cochaired by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil and her brother Jorge, who is president of Venezuela’s National Assembly.

Maduro may face a similar future as Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, who was taken by US forces in 1990 after hiding out in his country’s Vatican embassy in the aftermath of the US invasion of Panama.

Noriega, formerly a staunch US ally, also faced similar charges of “racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering” and was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment. His sentence was commuted to 17 years for good behaviour, but he was later extradited to France on separate charges, then back to Panama, where he served out more prison time until he died in 2017.

Maduro is due ‍to appear in a New York federal court ‍on Monday.

Trump administration officials have portrayed the seizure as a law enforcement action to hold Maduro accountable for criminal charges filed in 2020 that accuse him of narco-terrorism conspiracy.

But Trump has said other factors were at play, saying the raid was prompted in part by an influx of Venezuelan immigrants to the US and the country’s decision to nationalise US oil interests decades ago.