In Senate Hearing, Rubio Defends Trump on Venezuela

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a full-throated defense Wednesday of President Trump's military operation to seize then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, while explaining to US lawmakers the administration's approach to Greenland, NATO, Iran, and China. As Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered starkly different readings of the administration's foreign policy, Rubio addressed Trump's intentions and his often bellicose rhetoric that has alarmed US allies in Europe and elsewhere, including demands to take over Greenland, the AP reports.

• In the first public hearing since the Jan. 3 raid to depose Maduro, Rubio said Trump had acted to take out a major US national security threat in the Western Hemisphere. Trump's top diplomat said that America was safer and more secure as a result and that the administration would work with interim authorities to stabilize the South American country.

• "We're not going to have this thing turn around overnight, but I think we're making good and decent progress," Rubio said. "We are certainly better off today in Venezuela than we were four weeks ago, and I think and hope and expect that we'll be better off in three months and six months and nine months than we would have been had Maduro still been there."
• He said Venezuela's current leaders are cooperating and would soon begin to see benefits. But he backed away from remarks prepared for the hearing that Washington would not hesitate to take further military action should those leaders not fully accept Trump's demands. "I can tell you right now with full certainty, we are not postured to nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time," Rubio said. "I think it would require the emergence of an imminent threat of the kind that we do not anticipate at this time."
• He said Venezuela soon will be allowed to sell oil that is now subject to US sanctions, and the revenue would be set aside to pay for basic government services such as policing and health care. Oil proceeds will be deposited in a US Treasury-controlled account and released after the US approves monthly budgets to be submitted by Venezuela, he said.

• Republican senators, with few exceptions, praised the operation in Venezuela. Among Democrats, there was deep skepticism. They questioned Trump's policies in Venezuela and their potential for encouraging moves by China against Taiwan and Russia even more so in Ukraine, as well as his threats to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark and his insults about the alliance's contributions to US security.
• Rubio played them all down. He said the uproar over Greenland within NATO is calming and that talks are underway about how to deal with Trump's demands. He said China's stated goal to reunify Taiwan with the mainland would not be affected by any other world event, including the Maduro operation. "The situation on Taiwan is a legacy project" that Chinese President Xi Jinping has made "very clear that that's what he intends to do and that's going to be irrespective anything that happens in the world," Rubio said.

• As Trump once more threatens Iran with military action, Rubio said there was no current plan to attack. Asked about the potential for a change of government in Tehran, Rubio said that would require "a lot of careful thinking" because it would be "far more complex" than ousting Maduro. He noted that the increased military presence in the Middle East—an aircraft carrier and accompanying warships arrived this week—is "to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel."
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the committee's top Democrat, questioned whether the Venezuela operation was worth it, considering most of Maduro's top aides and lieutenants still run the Venezuela and the economic situation there remains bleak. "We've traded one dictator for another, so it's no wonder that so many of my constituents are asking, why is the president spending so much time focused on Venezuela instead of the cost of living and their kitchen table economic concerns?" she said. "From Venezuela to Europe, the United States is spending more, risking more, and achieving less."