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The administration of United States President Donald Trump \u200ahas reaffirmed that it plans to dictate terms to the interim government of Venezuela, following the abduction of leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the US attack on Venezuela for the first time in a news briefing, and she faced a volley of questions about the extent of Trump\u2019s role in the South American country\u2019s governance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities,\u201d Leavitt responded. \u201cTheir decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice President JD Vance also weighed in during an\u00a0appearance<\/a>\u00a0on Fox News, saying that the US would apply economic pressure to ensure compliance with Trump\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople always ask: How do you control Venezuela? And we\u2019re actually seeing it play out in real time,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way that we control Venezuela is we control the purse strings, we control the energy resources, and we tell the regime, \u2018You\u2019re allowed to sell the oil, so long as you serve America\u2019s national interest.’\u201d<\/p>\n But the question of who is in charge in Venezuela remains a volatile one.<\/p>\n Before dawn on Saturday, the Trump administration launched a military offensive in Venezuela to capture and remove President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, describing the couple\u2019s abduction as a law enforcement operation.<\/p>\n Maduro and Flores have since been transported to New York City, where they face charges that they oversaw the shipment of \u201ctons of cocaine into the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n In the hours immediately after the attack, it was unclear whether the Trump administration would seek to expel the remnants of the Maduro government.<\/p>\n Trump delivered a news conference from his residence in Palm Beach, Florida, claiming that the country was under US control.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,\u201d Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago resort.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, however, the Trump administration has signalled it would prioritise stability in Venezuela over quickly installing new leadership. It has declined to set a timeline for new elections.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s too premature and too early to dictate a timetable for elections in Venezuela right now,\u201d Leavitt said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro\u2019s former vice president, was officially sworn in as Venezuela\u2019s interim leader, and the Trump administration has indicated it would work with her as it pursues the extraction and sale of Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n Still, Rodriguez\u2019s government and the Trump administration have described their relationship in starkly different terms.<\/p>\n According to the Trump White House, Rodriguez is answerable to US demands. \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,\u201d Trump told The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Leavitt echoed that position, saying that the US would wield influence over Venezuela\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\nRodriguez maintains \u2018no foreign agent\u2019 in charge<\/h2>\n