President Donald Trump touted U.S. access to Venezuelan oil after ousting Nicolas Maduro, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed to other foreign policy priorities.
Trump said U.S. oil companies will invest billions of dollars to rebuild the country’s energy infrastructure after years of mismanagement that has slashed production despite Venezuela having the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
“We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil,” he told reporters on Saturday. “We’re going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
In an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Rubio was asked why the U.S. needs to take over Venezuela’s oil industry.
“We don’t need Venezuela’s oil. We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we’re not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States,” he replied, naming Russia, China and Iran.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live. And we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operations for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States, simple as that.”
Rubio also said the U.S. wants to see Venezuela’s oil wealth benefiting the people. During Maduro’s rule, the regime and its cronies enriched themselves with oil, contributing to the an economic collapse and the mass exodus of people out of the country, he added.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has left Maduro’s top lieutenants in place, and Trump suggested Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, will take orders from the U.S.
But if the country’s current leaders don’t cooperate, Trump has left open the possibility that he could send U.S. ground troops into Venezuela.
When asked in a separate interview on CBS’s Face the Nation if there is no plan for a U.S. occupation of Venezuela, Rubio declined to rule that out.
“Well, I think first of all, the president always retains optionality on anything and on all these matters,” he said. “He certainly has the ability and the right under the Constitution of the United States to act against imminent and urgent threats against the country.”
For now, U.S. forces remain in the region at a high state of readiness, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said Saturday. Trump also said U.S. sanctions will stay in place on Venezuelan oil.
Rubio explained that the sanctions are aimed at “paralyzing that portion of how the regime generates revenue.” He also dismissed fears about boots on the ground as an “obsession.”
Trump “does not feel like he is going to publicly rule out options that are available for the United States, even though that’s not what you’re seeing right now,” Rubio added. “What you’re seeing right now is an oil quarantine that allows us to exert tremendous leverage over what happens next.”