A test for Venezuela’s new leader: Solidifying power, but pleasing Trump
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By SIMON ROMERO, ISAYEN HERRERA and MARÍA VICTORIA FERMÍN
As the death toll climbs from the U.S. military raid to capture Nicolás Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s new leader, faces an immense challenge. As she tries to solidify control over her government, she must also field the demands of President Donald Trump.
Much of Venezuela appeared to be in a state of shock Sunday following the U.S. military action. The streets of major cities were largely quiet as people tried to absorb what the United States had done and the sudden absence of Maduro, who as the country’s authoritarian leader for more than a decade had been an inescapable part of their lives.
Some people combed through the debris at the sites of U.S. airstrikes. In Caracas, the capital, families quietly gathered at the Bello Monte morgue to identify loved ones killed by the U.S. military. Some waited patiently for authorization to see the corpses. Others departed for Miraflores Palace, the office of the Venezuelan president, to collect the victims’ belongings.
Rodríguez’s top military official, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, declared on state television that U.S. forces had killed a “large part” of Maduro’s security detail during the raid to seize him. Altogether, the death count is at least 80, a combination of civilians and military personnel, and could climb higher, according to a senior Venezuelan official. Cuban state media reported that 32 Cubans, among them members of the armed forces on a mission at the request of Venezuela, were also killed in the attacks.
Padrino López rejected any notion that the United States would now run Venezuela, as Trump has claimed, reflecting the pushback that is building within Venezuela’s government to the idea that the country could turn into a U.S. client state.
Tensions in Venezuela over the capture of its head of state lay bare the struggle Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, faces. She inherits the leadership of a revolution whose mission-critical belief amounts to opposing U.S. imperialism. At the same time, U.S. warships remain in the Caribbean prepared, as the Trump administration has made clear, to coerce her into bending to Trump’s will.
Echoing the gunboat diplomacy common a century ago, Trump threatened Sunday that Rodríguez could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than” that of her captured predecessor, if she continued to refuse to cooperate, The Atlantic reported.
And later in the day, asked by reporters on Air Force One who was in charge of Venezuela, he said, “Don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer, and it’ll be very controversial.”
Pressed on what that meant, he said: “We’re in charge.”
That was a sharp contrast to Trump’s remarks Saturday morning, when he said she would act as a partner in letting the United States run Venezuela. Hours after Trump said that, Rodríguez berated the United States for its intervention and called the seizure of Maduro a “barbarity.”
Rodríguez was clearly appealing to constituencies within her Bolivarian political movement, which is imbued with a deep hostility not only of the United States but also of a close American ally: Israel.
Venezuela’s tensions with Israel date back to the time of the former President Hugo Chávez, who in 2009 broke off diplomatic ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli ambassador.
On Saturday, Rodríguez described the U.S. intervention as being “without a doubt, Zionist in character,” a provocative comment likely to draw backlash.
Such positioning suggests that Rodríguez might not be the dispassionate technocrat some in the Trump administration see as willing to strike pragmatic business deals. She is now, after all, the torchbearer of a movement forged nearly 30 years by Chávez, the leader who sought to use oil revenue to fuel socialist-inspired change.
“People in Washington tend to think there’s no other political motivation, no ideological motivation, or that there’s nothing left of the Chávez project,” said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who lives in Caracas. “I don’t think that’s true. They still see themselves as leading a revolution. They can’t afford to be seen to be turning Venezuela into a simple satellite of the U.S.”
Rodríguez is viewed as relatively competent in terms of economic management, which is largely why the Trump administration did not stand in the way of her ascending to the presidency.
But she must still find ways to appease powerful figures including Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister, and Padrino López, the defense minister, who between them control the armed forces, police, paramilitary cells and most of the intelligence services, Gunson said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled Sunday that the Trump administration might be willing to overlook some of Rodríguez’s bombastic comments, particularly given that U.S. forces just carried out an operation that humiliated Venezuela’s armed forces.
“There’s a lot of different reasons why people go on TV and say certain things in these countries, especially 15 hours or 12 hours after the person who used to be in charge of the regime is now in handcuffs and on his way to New York,” Rubio told ABC News.
But Rubio, in another television appearance on “Meet the Press,” said the United States would maintain its blockade on sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela until Rodríguez shows progress in responding to the Trump administration’s demands. He also said the U.S. would keep striking boats suspected of carrying drugs.
Late Sunday, Rodríguez issued a statement that appeared an attempt to adopt a less antagonistic approach. “We extend an invitation to the U.S. government to work together on a cooperation agenda, oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” she said.
Adding to the tumult in Venezuela, Edmundo González, an exiled former diplomat who is widely viewed as the legitimate winner of the 2024 presidential election there, released a video statement Sunday referring to himself as the president of Venezuela and commander in chief of the country’s military.
For many people in Venezuela, the abrupt changes are fueling confusion.
“No one can explain this business about Delcy becoming president or for how long, or even what the gringos are supposedly coming to do in this country,” said Efrén Rojas, 45, a bus driver in Naguanagua, a city in central Venezuela. “In my neighborhood I heard all kinds of rumors, but in the end, the truth is that nobody knows.”