President Donald Trump on Sunday shared a doctored image on Truth Social showing a Wikipedia article calling him the “acting president of Venezuela.” Trump is likely to downplay the imperialistic vulgarity as a “joke.” But his sharing the post highlights something serious: His administration has not given a consistent answer on the role the U.S. plays in Venezuela’s governance — and instead exhibits flippancy about what could easily slide into a full-on nation-building project.
In the same way an emperor might claim an independent country as his own, Trump has repeatedly suggested that the U.S. is effectively taking over Venezuela. After the Jan. 3 military operation he conducted — in violation of international law — to detain Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the U.S. for trial, Trump said the U.S. “will run” Venezuela and is “in charge” of the country. He has said the U.S. ought to have “total access” to the country’s resources, and he vowed to “keep the oil” in Venezuela. He has declined to specify how long he expects the U.S. to be Venezuela’s political overlord, but he has suggested it could last for years.
Venezuelans need a clear sense of what is transpiring in their country and where authority lies.
In contrast, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has mostly portrayed the administration’s policy as exercising more restraint. He has described the removal of Maduro to the U.S. as a “law enforcement operation,” and has said that “there is no war against Venezuela or its people, we are not occupying a country.”
Rubio has said instead of dictating Venezuelan day-to-day life, the U.S. would keep a military “quarantine” to use as leverage on Venezuela’s new leadership and to secure its oil. He has complained that the press was “fixating” on Trump’s comments on running Venezuela and said, “it’s not running — it’s running policy, the policy with regards to this.”
What is “this?” That’s unclear.
Even though Rubio has emphasized a lighter touch in Venezuela, last week, he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a “threefold process” involving “stabilization,” “recovery” and “transition” in Venezuela — and the plan he described included trying to “rebuild civil society,” which certainly sounds like nation-building. According to NPR, “Rubio did not offer details of how step three — ‘transition’ — will work.” The Trump administration’s inability or refusal to give a straight and consistent answer on what the Trump administration is doing in Venezuela is appalling. First, the U.S. had no right to infringe on Venezuela’s sovereignty. But now that it has, Venezuelans need a clear sense of what is transpiring in their country and where authority lies. Americans and American policymakers need to know as well, for they cannot properly understand or lobby against Trump’s imperialistic mission — or its potential expansion — unless they understand its goals and contours. Trump’s post on Truth Social sums up the whole mess. It makes light of an assault on another country’s freedom, signals his constant interest in appearing powerful, and further complicates what kind of authority the current government in Venezuela has. Venezuela deserves better. So do the people of the United States.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer for MS NOW. Sign up for his newsletter. 
