Table Stakes - January 5th

Good morning everyone,

I’m Atlas, and welcome to Table Stakes!

Here’s a look at today’s topics:

• Rubio: ‘Oil Quarantine’ Will Be Enforced In Venezuela To Enact Change

• Kim Jong Un Authorizes Ballistic Missile Test Ahead Of South Korean Summit With China

• Prime Minister Of Denmark Urges Trump To Stop Threatening The Seizure Of Greenland

Rubio: ‘Oil Quarantine’ Will Be Enforced In Venezuela To Enact Change

_{By: Atlas}

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the United States will maintain an oil blockade around Venezuela to pressure the country's remaining leadership following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, seeking to clarify President Donald Trump's remarks that the U.S. would "run" the South American nation.

In a series of Sunday morning television appearances, Rubio framed the U.S. strategy as one of economic leverage rather than direct governance, emphasizing that American forces are not on the ground in Venezuela and that the quarantine on oil shipments provides Washington with significant influence over Caracas.

"There's a quarantine right now in which sanctioned oil shipments — there's a boat, and that boat is under US sanctions, we go get a court order — we will seize it," Rubio said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "That's a tremendous amount of leverage that we have and will continue to be in place until we see changes."

On ABC's "This Week," Rubio addressed Trump's statement more directly, saying "What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward. And that is we have leverage."

Demands on remaining Venezuelan leadership

Rubio outlined a series of conditions that Venezuela's remaining government must meet before the United States considers lifting the oil quarantine.

Venezuela must sever ties with Iran, Hezbollah and Cuba, stop drug trafficking and ensure that its oil industry does not benefit U.S. adversaries, the secretary of state said.

"We have a country, potentially a very rich country, under the control of the regime that has cozied up to Iran, has cozied up to Hezbollah, has allowed narco-trafficking gangs to operate with impunity from their own territory, allows boats with drugs to traffic from their territory," Rubio said on CBS. "We are addressing that."

Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who also served as oil minister under Maduro, has been ordered by Venezuela's high court to assume control as interim president. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who was also indicted for narcotics trafficking by the United States, remains in power as well.

Trump said Saturday that Rodríguez had spoken to Rubio by phone, telling him "We'll do whatever you need."

"I think she was quite gracious," Trump said. "We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind."

However, shortly before being ordered to assume control, Rodríguez strongly condemned the United States for arresting Maduro and his wife.

"There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro," Rodríguez said in televised remarks.

Oil industry as source of leverage

Rubio cited Venezuela's dilapidated energy industry as both the source of the regime's corruption and the key to its future prosperity.

"None of the money from the oil gets to the people. It's all stolen by the people that are on the top there. That's why we have a quarantine," Rubio said on CBS.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Rubio said the United States does not need Venezuelan oil for its own energy needs.

"We have plenty of oil in the United States. What we're not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States," he said.

Rubio predicted "dramatic" interest from Western oil companies following Maduro's ouster.

"I haven't spoken to US oil companies in the last few days but we're pretty certain that there will be dramatic interest from Western companies," Rubio said on ABC. "Non-Russian, non-Chinese companies will be very interested. Our refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States are the best in terms of refining this heavy crude."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said on Fox News that "many of our refineries were designed specifically" to handle Venezuelan crude.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for the fuel savings platform GasBuddy, agreed that U.S. refineries "are some of the most complex, well-positioned refineries in the world" to process Venezuelan crude.

"There's even a possibility that if things move very favorable, that you could see some interest in Gulf Coast refinery expansions should crude exports increase and become more reliable," De Haan said.

Despite having the world's largest proven reserves, Venezuela's oil infrastructure has deteriorated after decades of underinvestment. State oil company PDVSA has been plagued by mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions have further reduced production.

Administration denies U.S. is at war with Venezuela

Rubio maintained that the United States is not at war with Venezuela despite Saturday's military operation that captured Maduro.

"We don't have U.S. forces on the ground in Venezuela," Rubio said on NBC, adding that the U.S. is "at war against drug trafficking organizations," not the country itself.

He pushed back on criticism from lawmakers who said the administration should have sought congressional approval for the strikes.

"You can't congressionally notify something like this for two reasons," Rubio said on ABC. "Number one, it will leak. It's as simple as that. And number two, it's an exigent circumstance. It's an emergent thing."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries disputed Rubio's characterization, saying Saturday's operation "was not simply a counternarcotics operation."

"It was an act of war," Jeffries said on "Meet the Press."

Jeffries said there has been "no evidence that the administration has presented to justify the actions that were taken in terms of there being an imminent threat to the health, the safety, the well-being, the national security of the American people."

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Saturday he plans to force a vote on a bipartisan resolution declaring the United States "should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization."

Elections called 'premature' as U.S. assesses next steps

Rubio sidestepped questions about when Venezuela might hold elections as part of a transition to democracy.

"These things take time — there's a process," he said on CBS without elaborating. "We're going to make an assessment of what they do, not what they say publicly in the interim ... but what they do moving forward."

Rubio said he views opposition candidate Edmundo González as the true winner of Venezuela's 2024 election but called immediate elections unrealistic.

"They've had this system of Chavismo in place for 15 or 16 years, and everyone's asking, why 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro was arrested, there isn't an election scheduled for tomorrow?" Rubio told CBS. "That's absurd."

On the difficulty of capturing Maduro alone, Rubio defended the operation's scope.

"It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter, and leave the country without losing any Americans or American assets. That's not an easy mission," he said. "You're asking me why we didn't do that in five other places at the same time? That's absurd."

Rubio said the Trump administration will assess the remaining members of the Venezuelan government before making decisions about their status.

"The United States will retain multiple levers of leverage to ensure that our interests are protected," Rubio said. "We're going to judge everything by what they do, and we're going to see what they do."

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