The administration of United States President Donald Trump  has reaffirmed that it plans to dictate terms to the interim government of Venezuela, following the abduction of leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend.

On Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the US attack on Venezuela for the first time in a news briefing, and she faced a volley of questions about the extent of Trump’s role in the South American country’s governance.

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“We’re continuing to be in close coordination with the interim authorities,” Leavitt responded. “Their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.”

Vice President JD Vance also weighed in during an appearance on Fox News, saying that the US would apply economic pressure to ensure compliance with Trump’s priorities.

“People always ask: How do you control Venezuela? And we’re actually seeing it play out in real time,” Vance said.

“The way that we control Venezuela is we control the purse strings, we control the energy resources, and we tell the regime, ‘You’re allowed to sell the oil, so long as you serve America’s interest.’”

But the question of who is in charge in Venezuela remains a volatile one.

Before dawn on Saturday, the Trump administration launched a military offensive in Venezuela to capture and remove President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, describing the couple’s abduction as a law enforcement operation.

Maduro and Flores have since been transported to New York City, where they face charges that they oversaw the shipment of “tons of cocaine into the United States”.

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In the hours immediately after the attack, it was unclear whether the Trump administration would seek to expel the remnants of the Maduro government.

Trump delivered a news conference from his residence in Palm Beach, Florida, claiming that the country was under US control.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country.”

Rodriguez maintains ‘no foreign agent’ in charge

Since then, however, the Trump administration has signalled it would prioritise stability in Venezuela over quickly installing new leadership. It has declined to set a timeline for new elections.

“ It’s too premature and too early to dictate a timetable for elections in Venezuela right now,” Leavitt said on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, was officially sworn in as Venezuela’s interim leader, and the Trump administration has indicated it would work with her as it pursues the extraction and sale of Venezuelan oil.

Still, Rodriguez’s government and the Trump administration have described their relationship in starkly different terms.

According to the Trump White House, Rodriguez is answerable to US demands. “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.

On Wednesday, Leavitt echoed that position, saying that the US would wield influence over Venezuela’s decisions.

“We obviously have maximum leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela right now,” she said.

Already, in a Tuesday night post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Venezuela would be surrendering 30 to 50 million barrels of oil, so that the US could sell it on the international market.

“That money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump wrote.

The Rodriguez government, meanwhile, has repeatedly denied that the US is puppeteering its decisions.

Though Rodriguez has, at times, struck a conciliatory posture towards the Trump administration, she has rejected the idea that foreign powers are leading the country.

“We are here governing together with the people,” Rodriguez said in remarks broadcast on state television.

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“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela.”

A continuation of Maduro-era policies?

Like Maduro before her, Rodriguez is part of a political movement founded by the late socialist President Hugo Chavez, known as “chavismo”.

As a “chavista”, Rodriguez has spoken out against US imperialism in Latin America, and she denounced the recent abduction of Maduro — Chavez’s handpicked successor — and his wife as an unwarranted “kidnapping” and a “brutal attack”.

Chavez is also seen as a key figure in the nationalisation of Venezuelan oil, expanding state control over the country’s rich petroleum reserves during his time as president.

Trump and his officials have called such efforts, including the 2007 expropriation of foreign oil assets, as an act of theft against the US.

Still, the Trump administration has described Rodriguez’s government as cooperative so far.

It remains to be seen whether behind-the-scenes demands — including reports that Trump has asked Rodriguez to sever ties with key allies, including Russia, China, Cuba and Iran — will lead to public discord.

“The president has made it very clear that this is a country within the Western Hemisphere, close by the United States, that is no longer going to be sending illegal drugs to the United States of America,” Leavitt said.

“The president is fully deploying his ‘peace through strength’ foreign policy agenda.”

Meanwhile, the Rodriguez government has continued Maduro’s campaign of stifling internal dissent, according to human rights monitors.

As part of an emergency declaration, the interim president authorised Venezuelan law enforcement to detain those who supported Maduro’s abduction.

The nonprofit Foro Penal has reported that, on January 5, in the wake of the US attacks, Venezuelan authorities arrested 14 journalists, all of whom were eventually released. One was deported.

Another human rights group, Caleidoscopio Humano, has announced that two elderly men from the state of Merida were also arrested for celebrating Maduro’s capture by firing guns into the air.

The international community has long denounced the human rights abuses in Venezuela. But the US has also faced broad criticism for its attack to remove Maduro, which has been denounced as a violation of sovereignty.

On Wednesday, a group of United Nations experts warned that Trump’s actions constitute an “international crime of aggression”.

“These actions represent a grave, manifest and deliberate violation of the most fundamental principles of international law, set a dangerous precedent, and risk destabilising the entire region and the world,” they wrote.