What does it mean when Trump says U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela? Northwest lawmakers split after classified briefings

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s plan to “run” Venezuela after capturing the South American nation’s president Jan. 3 came into slightly clearer focus over the past week, but Northwest lawmakers still have questions about his administration’s intentions.

After briefing a select group of 16 congressional leaders on Monday and all lawmakers on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly laid out a three-part plan: First, a “stabilization” phase that will see the United States sell Venezuelan oil and distribute the profits; second, a “recovery” phase when U.S. and other “western” companies get access to the Venezuelan market, along with national reconciliation; and third, a “transition” to a new, democratically elected government.

“The strategy, as I can understand it, is that we are going to run Venezuela by coercion,” Rep. Adam Smith of Bellevue, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee who was among the 16 leaders briefed on Monday, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The overnight operation involved more than 150 U.S. aircraft and left scores of Venezuelan and Cuban troops dead, according to both Venezuelan and U.S. estimates. But unlike past “regime change” operations such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, it left Venezuela’s current government in power, with the exception of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, National Assembly member Cilia Flores.

That leaves numerous unanswered questions about the next steps for Venezuela, Smith said, such as how the United States will address drug trafficking, criminal gangs operating in the country and the economic malaise that has driven so millions of Venezuelans to flee. Most unclear of all, he said, is how to conduct a political transition to remove the current regime – which the U.S. and other governments see as illegitimate – in favor of a new, democratically elected government.

“No. 1, we snatched your president once; we can do it again,” Smith said, describing the Trump administration’s message to new Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president. “No. 2, we’ve blockaded the oil. So the thinking is, the way we will ‘run’ Venezuela is by threat. We won’t actually be in there. We’ll just say, ‘Do this,’ and they’ll have to do this because of that threat.”

Republicans emerged from the same briefings far more sanguine, expressing confidence in the administration’s plan for involvement in Venezuela that could last years, as Trump told the New York Times in an interview on Wednesday.

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Spokane Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Rubio and other administration officials laid out “a clear-eyed and competent plan for what comes next” in Venezuela.

“Big picture, I think what the administration is doing is absolutely in the national security interests of America, and I think they have a demonstrated degree of competence and strategy in terms of what they’re engaging in,” Baumgartner said in an interview on Wednesday. “Not that there aren’t going to be numerous challenges to face, but I certainly think the people in the 5th District that I represent can feel confident that the administration has taken the right steps in Venezuela and that they have a good plan moving forward.”

The Trump administration has described the attack as a law enforcement operation, with Delta Force commandos merely accompanying FBI agents who brought Maduro and Flores to New York City, where they will stand trial on federal drug-trafficking and other charges. But Baumgartner said the administration would be better served by letting Rubio, who he called “the most talented member of the administration,” make a case to the American public that controlling Venezuela is in the United States’ interest.

“This is more than just a law enforcement action,” he said. “This is a national security action.”

Baumgartner, who worked as a Foreign Service officer at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq War, said Trump’s approach to Venezuela seems to be avoiding some of the mistakes past American presidents have made.

“What you see from the administration, I think, is learning some of the important lessons from Iraq: that you need to have a sober understanding of the most important U.S. interests, and then go in a step-by-step process,” he said, adding that another lesson from Iraq is that the U.S. government should expect armed resistance, even if that doesn’t end up happening.

In the months leading up to the Jan. 3 operation, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress described Venezuela as a clear threat to the United States. Trump himself has repeatedly claimed without providing evidence that the Maduro regime was emptying its prisons and sending criminals to the United States, but the central claim of his administration is that boats off the Venezuelan coast were trafficking drugs that were killing Americans.

According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, cocaine is the predominant drug trafficked through Venezuela. Fentanyl and other opioids, which are responsible for more deadly overdoses in the United States, come mainly from Mexico and China.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, was also in the Monday briefing as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a brief interview on Tuesday, he affirmed his past statement that trafficking drugs by boat in the Caribbean constitutes an act of war against the United States. In contrast, Risch said the military operation that captured Maduro, left scores dead in Venezuela and involved strikes to destroy the country’s air defenses was not an act of war.

On Wednesday, Smith said that if the Trump administration can call putting cocaine on a boat an act of war, there’s essentially no limit to that definition.

“If everything is an act of war, and the president is allowed to use maximum force in response to it, then we have dramatically expanded the power of our presidency at the expense of our constitutional republic,” Smith said.

Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL commander who represents Western Montana as a Republican, said in an interview Wednesday that drug trafficking in the Caribbean represents “a clear and present danger” to the United States. He said he would support the same kind of operation under a Democratic president to oust a foreign leader as long as it meets two criteria: that the leader “wasn’t duly elected” and is trafficking drugs that affect Americans or U.S. allies, “especially in our southern hemisphere.”

While Democrats have generally criticized the Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela, they have also criticized Maduro, who lost Venezuela’s 2024 election but claimed he won. In some cases, they have even borrowed labels for the deposed Venezuelan leader from Trump, who lost the U.S. presidential election in 2020 but claimed he won.

“There’s no doubt that Maduro is a narco-terrorist who stole two elections,” said Rep. Marilyn Strickland, a Democrat from Tacoma. “I’m not defending him, but the process by which this happened is what’s questionable.”

Strickland represents Joint Base Lewis-McCord and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. She said she was in South America on an official committee trip in 2025 and pointed out that most Venezuelan refugees are in Latin America, not the United States.

Much of the Trump administration’s rationale – the claims that Venezuela is responsible for fentanyl trafficking and that its government has sent criminals to the United States – are false, she said.

“Whether or not it’s an act of war, this still is something that should be discussed with leadership in Congress,” Strickland said.

Baumgartner argued that it isn’t practical for every military operation, like the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites in June, to be subject to approval by Congress. Likewise, briefing lawmakers ahead of the operation in Venezuela likely would have resulted in leaked information that could have jeopardized the U.S. troops involved, he said.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents southwestern Washington, said she doesn’t want to see long-term U.S. military involvement in Venezuela. The former auto repair shop owner, an advocate of making gas more affordable, added that “importing more oil without addressing our own refining capacity, I think it’s shortsighted.”

“Nobody likes Maduro,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in a brief interview Wednesday, but she also doesn’t want “an American government that accepts the kind of unitary action where it’s just one dude running the country. That makes us weaker. Congress needs to reassert its authority.”

On Tuesday, Risch said he wouldn’t be comfortable sending U.S. troops into Venezuela “under present circumstances,” but he would reconsider “if things change.” He said the U.S. operation was careful not to hit Venezuela’s law enforcement infrastructure and added that controlling the armed groups that are reportedly roaming the streets of Caracas is the responsibility of the Venezuelan government, not the U.S. military.

In a statement on Thursday, Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Sunnyside, called the operation “a decisive action” by the Trump administration.

“Secretary Rubio and other intelligence officials briefed us on every detail of the operation to capture Maduro, and it appears to me this was done by the book and for good reason,” Newhouse said. “Maduro is an illegitimate, narco-terrorist Communist dictator, and his capture is a huge step in stopping the flow of deadly drugs into our country. As for the future of Venezuela, I am confident after today’s briefing that the people of Venezuela will have the power to shape their own future, and that the U.S. will support them in the efforts to democratically elect new leadership.”