Extracting oil or implementing democracy: How the White House is managing what's next in Venezuela

WASHINGTON — In a private meeting in the Oval Office last week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham laid out a blueprint for what should happen next in Venezuela.

“You’re in charge,” Graham, R-S.C., recalled telling President Donald Trump. “We are going to rebuild the place, but eventually transition to an election.”

“I think that’s where we’re going,” Graham later told NBC News in an interview.

If and when they get there remains to be seen.

Trump has left no doubt that when it comes to Venezuela, he’s in command. But he says the holdovers from Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime are now cooperating with him, and he appears in no rush to hold elections that would let Venezuelans choose their new leaders.

“We’re getting along extremely well with the people of Venezuela — both the people and the people that are running Venezuela,” he said at a news conference Friday at the White House, surrounded by oil executives who had come to discuss drilling opportunities in the country.

Asked by NBC News on Friday if his preference in Venezuela was stability or democracy, Trump said: “To me, it’s almost the same thing. We want stability, but we do want democracy. Ultimately, it will be democracy.”

Inside the Trump administration, different officials are saying different things at different times about Venezuela’s future, reflecting the competing priorities that are under discussion. One camp is stressing the need for a stable Venezuela that acquiesces to Trump’s vision of renewed American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Another is attuned to ushering in a democracy that reflects the broader will of Venezuela’s people.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sat next to Trump at the meeting Friday, made clear in his remarks that the aim is for Venezuela to evolve in ways that align with American interests, but also “for the people.”

Stephen Miller, a senior White House aide who is helping shape policy in Venezuela, struck a more nationalistic chord in a recent interview. He told CNN that it is not the “United States’ job … to go around the world and demanding immediate elections be held everywhere, immediately, all the time, right away.”

“The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower,” he added.

In the days since ordering the military raid resulting in Maduro’s capture, Trump has said little about restoring Venezuela’s democratic traditions.

On Jan. 3, he said that the U.S. would be in charge of Venezuela “until such time as a proper transition can take place.”

Speaking to NBC News two days later, on Jan. 5, Trump said: “You can’t have an election” until you “fix the country.” There was no more clarity on Jan. 7 in an interview with The New York Times, which reported that Trump did not specify when elections might be held in Venezuela and that America’s control of the country could last for years.

A central focus of Trump’s is the untapped potential lying in Venezuela’s dormant oil fields. After listening to closed-door briefings from Trump Cabinet members following the raid, some lawmakers came away saying the administration hadn’t seemed to game out what comes next for Venezuela.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who attended one of the administration’s briefings last week, said in an interview, “It’s unclear to me who really is driving this train. Is it Rubio? Is it Stephen Miller? I don’t see a unified message about Venezuela’s future coming from different members of the administration.”

Trump, she said, “has been very clear what this is about. And this is about oil.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who also attended a briefing last week on Venezuela, said in an interview, “My impression is that they intend to use some version of strong-arm tactics to basically get at the country’s natural resources and its oil.” (Krishnamoorthi is sponsoring a bill that would bar the use of taxpayer money to administer Venezuela or subsidize companies that go in to extract the country’s oil.)

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Rubio denied that the post-Maduro planning was a slapdash affair. He pointed to progress that has already been made, mentioning a deal struck with Venezuela’s state-owned energy company on oil that had been sanctioned.

“In fact, it’s not just winging it, it’s not just saying or speculating it’s going to happen — it’s already happening,” Rubio said.

A coterie of Trump administration officials is now directing events in Venezuela.

Who is effectively running the country now? “Me,” Trump said in his interview with NBC News.

Vice President JD Vance presides over a regular meeting of key officials to discuss “next steps” and to ensure that Venezuela’s government “actually listens to the United States and does what the United States needs it to do under our country’s best interests,” he said at a recent White House press briefing.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright oversees oil development and speaks regularly both to industry executives and to his counterparts in Venezuela, a department spokesman said.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plays a lead role in military matters; the large naval fleet deployed in the Caribbean gives Trump considerable sway in his dealings with Venezuela’s current leadership.

A key point person is Rubio. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio has spoken repeatedly to Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, since the U.S. military action last weekend, a person familiar with his thinking said. They talk to one another in Spanish.

When Trump says he’s running Venezuela, he means that his team is directing Rodríguez, making sure her government is delivering needed services on time, said a former U.S. government official familiar with the situation.

Trump, for now, is hammering the point that the U.S. is in charge so that Venezuela remains stable, Graham said. But Rubio and others, he added, want to see elections take place eventually and understand that “there is no other way.”

Rubio is indeed working toward an endgame in which Venezuela holds democratic elections, the person familiar with his thinking said. But the Trump administration’s priority at this point is stabilizing the country now that Maduro has been deposed.

That means keeping intact the remnants of the Maduro regime to run the country day to day. An immediate purge of Maduro’s government could produce chaos, with displaced officials driven to drug cartels or other criminal enterprises to make a living, the person familiar with Rubio’s thinking said. That was one of the bitter lessons gleaned from the U.S. invasion of Iraq in George W. Bush’s administration more than 20 years ago, the person added.

Still, veteran diplomats questioned the wisdom of leaving Rodríguez in place, as opposed to elevating a member of the opposition, possibly María Corina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Trump indicated in a Fox News interview Thursday that Machado is coming to Washington in the coming days and that he will meet with her.

Asked about the reason for Machado’s visit, the person close to Rubio said: “Everyone recognizes what Machado has done for the country and the level of support she had. Her ability to keep the opposition movement alive was very impressive.”

“The expectation is that as we move forward in this process, there’s going to have to be a national reconciliation [in Venezuela] and that has to include the opposition.”

Elliott Abrams, who was Trump’s special representative for Venezuela during the first term, voiced incredulity over the decision to retain Rodríguez in a leadership position. There is no incentive for her to steer the country toward democracy, given that an election could result in her ouster and possible imprisonment, Abrams said in an interview.

“We’re undermining the democratic forces” in Venezuela, Abrams said.

“I don’t like the way this is being done at all — leaving the regime in place and relying on Delcy Rodríguez in charge of the country and believing that she will bring change,” he added.

John Bolton, who was White House national security adviser in Trump’s first term, said: “Trump made a real mistake in throwing the opposition under the bus and saying we’re going to govern through the Maduro regime, missing only Maduro.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com