- “Rubio is on the edge politically,” said a White House source familiar with his thinking. “Venezuela is this administration’s greatest foreign policy achievement, and if the progress we’ve made is reversed and Machado is a troublemaker, no one will win.”
- A spokesperson for Machado did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Zoom: Machado and U.S. officials agree that Venezuela must hold elections. But she demanded they take place in 2027, even though U.S. officials aren’t sure. They want three things to happen first:
- Reforming the Supreme Court of Venezuela. It is filled with loyalists of Nicolás Maduro, who was arrested on January 3 by the United States and taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges. The State Department hopes a new court will be chosen by the end of the year.
- Reform the National Electoral Council of Venezuela. It’s also full of Maduro people, and the Supreme Court helped him steal his last two presidential elections. The State Department hopes to have a new council in place early next year.
- Repair Venezuela’s debt. Venezuela has one of the largest sovereign debt problems in the world: $300 billion, more than its gross domestic product. The hoped-for timeline for that hurdle is less clear, and Rubio did not explicitly discuss it Monday.
Between the lines: As Axios first reported in September, Trump discussed all three of these issues with Rodriguez when he also privately told him that an election had to happen one day.
- In a transcript of Rubio’s briefing, a senior State Department official added another possible issue: security service reform, which could also take time.
- “If you want a democratically elected government to succeed, you don’t want them to inherit an economic apocalypse that will bring them down,” the official said, according to the transcript.
- “What happens when security forces who are not loyal to the system decide that they will not follow the orders of… no matter who was elected? They will not follow their orders; they will not follow through on them. Now Caracas is once again becoming the murder capital of the Western Hemisphere, maybe even the world.”
Rubio did not specify a timetable. He told reporters he would not allow Venezuela’s current government, led by former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, to block the Trump administration, which ends in January 2029.
- “What if they just try to wait on us for two years? That’s not going to happen,” Rubio said. “I mean, we agreed to deadlines and so far they’ve met every one of the deadlines.”
- To call new elections, Rodriguez would have to declare a presidential vacancy. That would trigger an election six months later, State Department officials said.
- Thus, according to the most optimistic timetable, Rodriguez could call elections for next June. Trump administration officials stressed to Axios that no election date is clear and that it could take place next year or in 2028.
Rubio also said he wants to stay in his job as long as possible: “Best case scenario, I’m in this job for another two years and two months. So I clearly intend to see this well before I leave,” he said. administration.
The plot: Rodriguez and Machado (whom Maduro has banned from running in 2024) have made their mutual opposition clear.
- Without naming her rival, Rodriguez told reporters Monday that Machado should feel remorse or regret for supporting “the external assault, this military-type external aggression against Venezuela.”
- That’s code for the U.S. capturing Maduro, but Rubio told reporters he was paying attention to Rodriguez’s actions, not his words. So far, he said, she has succeeded in eliminating Iranian and Cuban influence in the country and extraditing Maduro’s former ally Alex Saab, a witness cooperating against him.
- “If at the end of the day we have a new (Supreme Court), a new (Board of Elections), new elections and a new… system of government, that’s what we want,” Rubio said. “And no matter what people say along the way, as long as it happens, it’s a results-driven process.”
The bottom line: Rubio said Venezuela “must change the infrastructure of elections. Not in 10 years. Not in five years. Not in two years. It must happen quickly according to the timelines that we have established.”
- “But if anyone tries to derail this process, they will cause great harm to Venezuela.”
Gn usa
