US secretary of state Marco Rubio appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to explain US President Donald Trump’s policy toward Venezuela following the US military raid that ousted then-president Nicolas Maduro, at the Capitol in Washington DC (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
US secretary of state Marco Rubio gave a full-throated defence of President Donald Trump’s military operation to capture then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, while explaining to US legislators the administration’s approach to Greenland, Nato, Iran and China.
As Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered starkly different readings of the administration’s foreign policy, Mr Rubio addressed Mr Trump’s intentions and his often bellicose rhetoric that has alarmed US allies in Europe and elsewhere, including demands to take over Greenland.
In the first public hearing since the January 3 raid to depose Maduro, Mr Rubio said Mr Trump had acted to take out a major US national security threat in the Western Hemisphere.
Mr Trump’s top diplomat said America was safer and more secure as a result and that the administration would work with interim authorities to stabilize the South American country.
“We’re not going to have this thing turn around overnight, but I think we’re making good and decent progress,” Mr Rubio said.
“We are certainly better off today in Venezuela than we were four weeks ago, and I think and hope and expect that we’ll be better off in three months and six months and nine months than we would have been had Maduro still been there.”
The former Florida senator said Venezuela’s current leaders are co-operating and would soon begin to see benefits.
But he backed away from remarks prepared for the hearing that Washington DC would not hesitate to take further military action should those leaders not fully accept Mr Trump’s demands.
“I can tell you right now with full certainty, we are not postured to nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time,” Mr Rubio said.