Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said the US will maintain an oil “quarantine” on Venezuela to pressure the government to do what the Trump administration wants.
Before launching an attack on Venezuela to abduct President Nicolas Maduro, President Trump declared a “total and complete embargo” on “sanctioned” oil tankers leaving and entering Venezuelan ports.
“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 in an interview with CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
So far, the US oil blockade on Venezuela has involved seizing two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil. Just one of the tankers was under US sanctions, which still doesn’t give the US the legal right to seize the vessel in international waters.
Rubio made the comments about the oil “quarantine” when asked about President Trump’s comments that the US will now “run” Venezuela to ensure US companies get access to Venezuela’s oil. Rubio said the US could achieve Trump’s goals through the blockade and other pressure.
“And so that’s the sort of control the President is pointing to when he says that. We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes,” he said.
In another interview, Rubio said that multiple US agencies will be involved in “running” Venezuela, including the State Department, Pentagon, and Department of Justice. “This is a team effort by the entire national security apparatus of our country. But it is running this policy. And the goal of the policy is to see changes in Venezuela that are beneficial to the United States first and foremost,” he said.
President Trump has suggested the US could send troops to Venezuela to achieve his goals, saying he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.” Rubio said the president didn’t want to rule out any options.
“I think what he’s pointing to is that this obsession people have about boots and this or that. He does not feel like he is going to publicly, you know, rule out options that are available for the United States,” Rubio said.
While Maduro was removed from Venezuela, his government and military remain intact. President Trump has threatened Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who is now the acting president of the country, saying that if she doesn’t do the bidding of the US, she faces a fate worse than Maduro, who is currently in a jail cell in Brooklyn.
