US plays down quick return to democracy in Venezuela

One thing that wasn’t mentioned: a desire to restore democracy in Venezuela. Instead, Trump said the U.S. would run the country indefinitely until a “safe, proper and judicious transition" could be arranged. He didn’t raise the prospect of elections.

The president said “it would be tough" for the country’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, to play a major role, saying she lacked popularity. Instead, he expressed a willingness to work with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, a hard-line socialist and regime stalwart.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down expectations of a quick return to democracy, saying it was unrealistic. “They’ve had this system of Chavismo in place for 15 or 16 years, and everyone’s asking, why 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro was arrested, there isn’t an election scheduled for tomorrow? That’s absurd," he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation." Chavismo, the political movement founded by the late Hugo Chávez, has actually run Venezuela now for 27 years.

Rubio outlined the more immediate goals for the U.S. in dealing with the Venezuelan regime under Rodríguez, who is now the new interim president, and said Washington would use an effective blockade on Venezuelan oil exports, as well as the threat of further military force, as leverage to force the government to change its behavior.

“We want drug trafficking to stop. We want no more gang members to come our way. We don’t want to see the Iranian and, by the way, Cuban presence in the past. We want the oil industry in that country not to go to the benefit of pirates and adversaries of the United States, but for the benefit of the people. We want to see all of that happen," he said.

For many Venezuelans, including millions of those who have fled the country to places like the U.S., the initial glee at hearing of Maduro’s capture has given way to growing angst that while Maduro is gone, the rest of his regime remains intact, and appears set to stay in power for the foreseeable future.

“Venezuelans are alternating between euphoria that Maduro is out, but disappointment that the guys with guns and the structure of guns and corruption is still running the show," said Moisés Naím, a former Venezuelan trade minister and analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Even if the regime softens and changes policies to please the Trump administration, that feels more like “colonial submission" and doesn’t give ordinary Venezuelans a say in their future, said Rafael Banega, a community activist in Caracas. “This isn’t what we expected in any way, and it seems to frustrate our expectations. I can’t see most people supporting this," he said.

Larry Gumbiner, a former senior U.S. diplomat who served in half a dozen Latin American countries during a 31-year career, said the Trump administration is clearly giving priority to stability over democracy.

Trump’s plan, Gumbiner said, appears to be to keep the Maduro government in power minus Maduro, with the condition that the new president carries out Trump’s program of allowing U.S. oil companies to rebuild the oil sector, stopping drug trafficking and stopping support for Colombian guerrillas active in Venezuelan territory. If not, the presence of the U.S. fleet keeps alive the threat of a second round of attacks and captures.

There are good reasons why the Trump administration might not be able to impose a fast transition to democracy. Venezuela’s army and other security forces remain loyal to the regime, and have benefited from widespread corruption under Maduro and his predecessor, Chávez. Absent a much larger U.S. military operation, they might be unwilling to cooperate.

The interim president, Rodríguez, will also have to keep the support of Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, hard-liners who face U.S. criminal charges similar to those of Maduro and may balk at seeking an accommodation with Washington.

So far, Rodríguez’s government has struck a defiant tone, telling its people it will oppose what it describes as Washington’s imperialist ambition to undermine Venezuelan sovereignty and take its oil.

Venezuela’s constitution says that Rodríguez, who was sworn in as acting president Saturday, must call for a new presidential election in 30 days if the president’s absence is permanent. But Venezuela’s Supreme Court, stacked with regime supporters, has ruled that, given the extraordinary circumstances of Maduro’s absence, it needs to study the question. That puts, at the moment, no time frame for Rodríguez’s rule.

Some in Venezuela’s opposition reacted angrily after Trump’s comments failed to mention holding new elections or forcing the regime to accept the result of the 2024 presidential election, which the U.S. and other Western governments say was won by opposition candidate Edmundo González but ignored by Maduro, who stayed in power.

Pedro Mario Burelli, an outspoken opposition member, praised the U.S. military operation that seized Maduro but called the plan for running Venezuela from Washington via regime members “bizarre" and “unacceptable."

Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino, who has strongly opposed Maduro, urged Trump to ensure a democratic transition in Venezuela and criticized Trump’s backing of Rodríguez, who he called one of the people most committed to Maduro’s “nefarious" dictatorship. “With what moral authority can she come to lead a transition to democracy?" Mulino said.

María Corina Machado, the Nobel Prize winner who is widely seen as the country’s leading opposition leader, has remained quiet. Other opposition figures say she likely feels she doesn’t have much choice but to put her faith in Rubio and Trump and hope a transition eventually comes.

“We all know democracy won’t happen from one day to the next, but this creates a huge opportunity and we want to help push this to a successful conclusion, which is elections," said Freddy Guevara, a former lawmaker who was a political prisoner for more than three years and now teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Guevara said he trusts the Trump administration will do the right thing and pressure the regime to start the process of negotiations that will eventually lead to a transition. The key, he said, is whether Rodríguez, Cabello and Padrino realize things have changed and no longer feel untouchable.

“Maduro felt invincible. And look where that got him. If these guys feel invincible, it will end badly for them, too," he said.

Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com and José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com