U.S. applying leverage to bring South American country in line

In a wide-ranging interview on the raid of Venezuela and the arrest of that country’s President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio fielded questions on what comes next for American involvement.

Rubio engaged in the interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulas and the host put it to Rubio as to what legal authority the U.S. has to run Venezuela, as President Donald Trump claimed on Saturday.

Rubio said the Venezuelan economy is in a holding pattern for the most part now that the U.S. removed Maduro, who is now being held in a New York City jail.

“We have a quarantine on their oil,” Rubio said on the Sunday morning program. “That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions, that are in the national interests of the United States and in the interests of the Venezuelan people, are met and that’s what we intend to do.

“That leverage remains. That leverage is ongoing and we expect that it’s going to lead to results here. We hope so and we’re hopeful that it does lead to positive results for the people of Venezuela, but most importantly, for us and the national interests for the United States…,” Rubio said.

Saturday’s dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on the South American nation and its autocratic leader and months of secret planning resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Legal experts immediately raised questions about whether the operation was lawful. Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodríguez demanded in a speech that the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader, before Venezuela’s high court ordered her to assume the role of interim president.

Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.

Rubio emphasized U.S. courts and an indictment against Maduro gave the U.S. the authority to conduct the raid and removal of Maduo and his wife. Still, Stephanopoulos asked the Rubio if the U.S. is currently running the country of Venezuela.

“What we are running is the direction that this is going to move, moving forward,” Rubio said in the exchange. “… In  a few weeks they’re going to have to start pumping oil, unless they make changes. And that leverage that we have with the armada of (U.S.) boats that are currently positioned allow us to seize any sanctioned boas coming into or out of Venezuela loaded with oil or on its way in to pick up oil,” Rubio said.

“We can pick and choose which ones we go after and we have court orders for each one. That will continue to be in place until the people who have the control over the levers of power in that country make changes that are not just in the interests of Venezuela, but in the interests of the United States and the things that we care about.”

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Material from The Associated Press was used in this report with permission.