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By Jordan King
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Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has spoken out about the president’s plan for who will run Venezuela after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, telling Newsweek: “He doesn't care. For Trump, he wants to make a deal. He's got to make a deal, everything is a deal."
After Maduro was captured in a U.S. military operation last week, Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. would “run" Venezuela and threatened a second wave of strikes if the regime in Caracas, including acting President Delcy Rodríguez, did not cooperate, wanting “total access" to the country’s vast oil reserves.
Over the weekend, during a press conference about the capture, Trump dismissed the idea of working with Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado saying "she doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country."
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Bolton said this “marks a 180° degree turn from the policy in the first Trump term, which was to work with the Venezuelan opposition," saying that being invited in by the opposition of a foreign country “legitimizes our action."
Newsweek has contacted the White House, via email, for comment.
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On Friday morning, Trump said he had canceled a second wave of strikes because of the Caracas regime’s cooperation with the release of Venezuelan political prisoners.
"The U.S.A. and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
"Because of this cooperation, I have canceled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will not be needed, however, all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes."
Bolton told Newsweek Trump is “coercing Delci Rodriguez so he can make a deal and therefore declare success: to Trump success is a deal and it doesn't matter who he deals with."
“We've captured Maduro but the same regime is in power," Bolton said, adding that its “principal objective is regime survival."
“So are they engaging in conversations with Trump now? Are they making vague promises about oil investment, oil shipments, things like that? Sure," Bolton said. “They're buying time."
“They need time to get over the shock of the loss of Maduro to reassure that they're in control, which is what I think they're doing now," he continued. “But they're not going to abandon roughly 30 years of Maduro rule and transition their own passage out of office into obscurity just because they want to be amenable to Trump."
Maduro came to power in 2013, continuing the socialist regime established in 1999 by Hugo Chávez who chose Maduro as his successor.
Trump has “a lot of ability to pressure Venezuela and he ought to use it to get rid of the remainder of the regime," Bolton said, adding that there is a “real possibility" Trump could “waste this opportunity."
Bolton said he thinks Trump’s approach to Venezuela is based on him being “under enormous time pressure," especially as the Republicans could lose the House in November midterms.
“Trump knows that if that happens, it just gets very hard to do anything, even in foreign policy," Bolton said, so he is “double-timing" to “push, push, push."
“He feels a real sense of urgency," Bolton said, “I think the regime in Venezuela can see that as clearly as anybody else. So they're going to drag their feet and see how long they can get away without making any real concessions."
Bolton, 77, who served as Trump's national security adviser, between April 2018 and September 2019, added: “You know, this is the moment for Trump, although I don't think he sees it, to maximize the economic pressure—he could bring the rest of the regime down and yet, as far as I can tell, there's just no effort to do that."
On Wednesday, Machado told CBS her coalition, which claims it won the widely disputed 2024 election, should “absolutely" lead Venezuela.
"We are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been mandated," she said, praising Trump for the “leadership and courage (that) has brought Nicolás Maduro to face justice."
Spokesman for the Venezuelan opposition, David Smolansky, seemed to suggest that they are still hopeful possibly gaining power when he told the told BBC Radio 4's Today program: "Every transition, when it begins, is not perfect, it's messy."
Rodríguez, who has previously faced U.S. sanctions for her ministerial roles in the Maduro administration, pushed back on Trump’s comments about the U.S. running Venezuela.
"The Venezuelan government rules our country, and no one else does," she said in a speech on Tuesday, a day after she was sworn in. "There is no external agent governing Venezuela."
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