THE GUARDIAN: Washington keeping 15,000-strong military presence in Caribbean in case interim president hinders US objectives
The prospect of the United States seizing direct control of Venezuela appeared to recede on Sunday after the shocking seizure of President Nicolás Maduro – but US officials said Washington was keeping a 15,000-strong force in the Caribbean and might make a fresh military intervention if Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, did not accommodate their demands.
While Rodríguez kept up a defiant tone in public, the substance of conversations she had had in private with US officials was not clear.
In the aftermath of Maduro’s abduction on Saturday, Donald Trump said the US would “run” the South American country of 30 million people. On Sunday he warned Rodríguez to heed US wishes. “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” he told the Atlantic.
Rodríguez, 56, had on Saturday pledged fealty to Maduro and condemned his capture as an “atrocity” but the New York Times reported that Trump officials several weeks ago identified the technocrat as a potential successor and business partner partly on the basis of her relationship with Wall Street and oil companies.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, spoke to Rodríguez, who told him “‘we’ll do whatever you need’”, Trump told reporters. “She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn’t have a choice.”
In the capital, Caracas, senior government and military figures demanded the return of Maduro but pledged support for Rodríguez as a stand-in leader and called for a return to normality. » | Patricia Torres in Caracas, Tom Phillips in Bogotá and Rory Carroll | Sunday, January 4, 2026
