Why Venezuela has Marco Rubio’s handprints all over it
CBC
When Marco Rubio took the lectern at Mar-a-Lago shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the country had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, it was the culmination of a decade of effort from the secretary of state and a clear sign that he had emerged as a leading voice within the Trump administration.
The daring — and potentially illegal — nighttime operation saw more than 150 U.S. aircraft buzz through Venezuelan airspace as Delta Force commandos stormed Maduro’s home, seizing the leader and his wife before exfiltrating the couple eventually to New York City. They’re facing multiple charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of weapons. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
At Mar-a-Lago, Rubio said the message was clear: "Don't play games with this president in office, because it's not going to turn out well.”
But his deferential comments belie the outsized role he likely had in calling for action in Venezuela.
Rubio, 54, the son of Cuban immigrants, grew up in Miami, steeped in Cuban culture and anti-communist sentiments that many in the community shared.
He has “lived experience,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and State Department appointee during Trump’s first term.
As a senator representing Florida, Rubio took a keen interest in the affairs of Latin and South America.
In 2017, he took to the Senate floor and called Maduro a dictator, urging companies and foreign governments not to do business with Venezuela.
It was just one of several instances in which he used his pulpit as senator to rail against what he saw as Maduro’s regime of “repression.”
During Trump’s first term, Rubio became a key figure, helping steer U.S. policy in the region. It was a surprising turn after what was a sometimes testy relationship on the campaign trail, when both men sought the 2016 Republican nomination.
In 2019, he co-sponsored a bill that sought to restore democracy in Venezuela and fast-track planning for the country’s financial institutions post-Maduro.
Six years later, it's unclear if that planning will be necessary. Rather than seek full regime change, the U.S. appears content to get rid of Maduro and work with his vice-president-turned-president, Delcy Rodríguez — though Trump made it clear that Rodríguez would have to fall in line or face “a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” he told the Atlantic.
In the early months of the second Trump administration, Rubio took a more reserved role, allowing the president’s longtime friend Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to criss-cross the globe in their private planes, serving as Trump’s key interlocutors with the Israelis, Russians and Ukrainians.
But as the administration settled in, so too did Rubio. In May, he became acting national security adviser, replacing Mike Waltz following Signalgate, when Waltz accidentally added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a government messaging chain on the app Signal, in the lead-up to U.S. strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
