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Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended President Donald Trump’s Venezuela policy Wednesday, telling lawmakers that negotiations with Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro had repeatedly failed and that the administration exhausted every diplomatic option before acting to arrest him.
Rubio appeared before the Senate following the Jan. 3 operation that resulted in Maduro’s removal, a move that triggered sharp debate over presidential war powers and congressional oversight.
'For the first time in 20 years, we are having serious counter-narcotics talks with Venezuelan authorities about going after narcotics organizations,'
According to Rubio, Maduro proved incapable of honoring agreements, making continued negotiations futile.
“He’s broken so many deals, not even the Vatican has been willing to interact with Maduro in the past because he’s broken so many of these deals,” Rubio said. “He’s just simply not a guy you can make a deal with.”
Rubio said Maduro’s strategy was to stall until political conditions in Washington changed.
“What he wanted to do was tap us along and buy three years of time until he could deal with a new administration that he thought may be more favorable,” he said.
“He was an impediment to progress.”
Rubio argued that meaningful reform in Venezuela was unattainable as long as Maduro remained in control, highlighting the impossibilities of the release of political prisoners, the transition of the country's oil industry to a legitimate oil industry, and the erosion of Iranian, Russian, or Chinese influence.
“None of these things would have been possible as long as Maduro was there,” he said.
He told lawmakers that the president acted only after "exhausting" all other avenues.
Rubio emphasized that Maduro’s removal has opened doors that had been closed for decades, particularly on drug enforcement and countering foreign adversaries in the region.
“For the first time in 20 years, we are having serious counter-narcotic talks with Venezuelan authorities about going after narcotics organizations,” Rubio said.
He said similar progress is being made to push back against hostile foreign influence.
“For the first time in 20 years, we are having serious conversations about eroding and eliminating the Iranian presence, the Chinese influence, the Russian presence as well.”
Rubio added that there is growing interest within Venezuela to repair relations with Washington.
“In fact, I would tell you that there are many elements there in Venezuela that welcome a return to establishing relations to the United States on multiple fronts,” he said.
Rubio’s testimony came after Republicans narrowly blocked a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump’s ability to conduct further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval. Vice President JD Vance was forced to break a tie vote.
Several lawmakers from both parties have complained about what they describe as insufficient communication from the administration, particularly surrounding the Maduro operation and broader foreign policy shifts.
Democrats, including Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, argued that the administration failed to present evidence justifying urgent action without consulting Congress, according to Reuters. Republicans, meanwhile, remain divided between backing Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and reasserting Congress’ constitutional authority regarding military action.
Rubio said the administration is focused on stability, not escalation, and stressed that long-term goals remain in development.
He also addressed broader regional diplomacy, saying that the administration hopes to re-establish alliances that were previously impossible.
“We’re not there,” he said. “This thing still is in its infancy.”
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Venezuela was the stage. China was the target.
Last weekend’s Caribbean live-fire exercise in and around the suburbs of Caracas delivered a steady stream of tactical messages to the Western Hemisphere. We don’t like narco-terrorists, wannabe communists, bloated dictators, or people who supply oil to our adversaries.
But that wasn’t the real message.
Message to Xi: There’s a new sheriff in town. He isn’t ‘Sleepy Joe.’ And his call sign is FAFO.
The love note was addressed to China, and it read: We are awake now. Our game is FAFO.
America’s 36-year slumber on the Monroe Doctrine — “Stay out of the Western Hemisphere or else” — began after Panama in 1990. The Gulf War and the Global War on Terrorism followed, and Washington became dangerously myopic about threats in America’s own backyard.
Then came the turning point. When Bill Clinton signed off on communist China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2000, Beijing rapidly surged into a world-class economic power. Along with that rise came a succession of Chinese leaders who openly advanced the idea of global Chinese hegemony.
Oddly enough, many of those ideas came from an American — my late friend Alvin Toffler.
Toffler’s book “The Third Wave” so impressed Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang in 1984 that millions of bootleg Chinese translations were distributed — without royalties — throughout the People’s Liberation Army. The same thing happened after Toffler published “War and Anti-War.” Once again, millions of pirated copies circulated, and Beijing began integrating his ideas into military doctrine.
In the late 1990s, PLA Major General Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui wrote “Unrestricted Warfare,” borrowing heavily from Toffler while laying out a strategy to defeat the United States.
In hindsight, it should have been titled “Slow Motion War.”
The book focuses on perceived weaknesses in American character and American war-making. The United States remains a nation of quarterly earnings reports and election cycles. We change political leadership every two or four years. The Chinese think in generational time frames.
From their perspective, Americans only go to war when facing a “clear and present danger.”
The genius of “Unrestricted Warfare” lies in exploiting what happens when a threat is clear but not present — like cancer from long-term smoking — or present but not clear, like the slow poisons Lucrezia Borgia allegedly used on her enemies.
Qiao and Wang proposed a slow, steady pressure campaign against the four pillars of American national power: diplomatic, information, military, and economic — the DIME.
Examples abound. Diplomatic and economic leverage through the Belt and Road Initiative. Tight control of information inside China paired with aggressive information warfare abroad through platforms such as TikTok. A decades-long military buildup aimed at surpassing U.S. power. And a long trail of currency manipulation.
(And then there’s this gem from page 191 of “Unrestricted Warfare”: “Can special funds be set up to exert greater influence on another country’s government and legislature through lobbying?” Eric Swalwell might find that line interesting.)
RELATED: From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: America enforces its back yard again
While America fixated on the Middle East, China quietly embedded itself throughout Latin America. In Panama, Beijing gained control of port management at both ends of the Panama Canal and began upgrading the system. In Costa Rica — which has no army — China donated 3,500 police cars and built a national stadium in San José, free of charge. It also cut sweetheart deals involving hundreds of Chinese fishing trawlers. Colombia saw similar treatment.
Then came Orange Man Bad.
Donald Trump is the first president to grasp that China isn’t a Red Godzilla stomping cities with napalm breath and a scything tail. China is more like the Blob — and Trump is Steve McQueen.
Venezuela, Maduro, oil, and narco-terrorism were all subsets.
China was the target. Xi Jinping was the bullseye.
Zero hour wasn’t set by the weather. It was set by the departure of Chinese envoy Qiu Xiaoqi, who had just wrapped up discussions on future ties with Venezuela. Unfortunately for Beijing, Delta Force snagged and bagged Nicolás Maduro and his wife and had them sitting in a Brooklyn jail before the envoy even made it home.
Message to Xi: There’s a new sheriff in town. He isn’t “Sleepy Joe.” And his call sign is FAFO.
Any questions?
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