Secretary of State Marco Rubio was said to have listed the Trump administration’s demands to Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodríguez, in a classified meeting Monday with senior congressional leaders.
The secretary of state helped steer President Trump to attacking Venezuela and seizing Nicolás Maduro, and now aims to force the country to give U.S. companies access to its oil.
U.S. intelligence suggested María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader, would struggle to lead the government. But her relationship with Trump officials had been souring for months.
The opposition leader María Corina Machado and her surrogate presidential candidate, Edmundo González, at a rally in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, in 2024.
The tactically precise operation successfully extracted Mr. Maduro with no loss of American life, a result heralded by President Trump amid larger questions about the legality and rationale for the U.S. actions in Venezuela.