US won't govern Venezuela, will enforce oil quarantine: Rubio

A day after President Donald Trump said the United States would be “running” Venezuela following the removal of Nicolas Maduro, secretary of state Marco Rubio on Sunday sought to dial back those remarks, suggesting that the US would not take a day-to-day role in governing Caracas and would instead rely on the oil blockade to push for changes. Rubio said the US would continue enforcing an oil "quarantine" already imposed on sanctioned tankers linked to Venezuela and use that pressure to extract policy changes from those now in charge in Caracas.

He added that the blockade on sanctioned oil tankers -- some of which have been seized by the US -- "remains in place, and that's a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela". In an interview with CBS News, Rubio also indicated that the US would give the current leadership in Caracas time to act, saying, “We're going to judge everything by what they do, and we're going to see what they do.”

Meanwhile, Trump also reportedly issued a fresh warning to Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez. “If she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a brief telephone interview, after US forces seized and jailed former president Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country's rightful leader as her nation's high court named her interim president.