Maduro abduction shows influence, limits of US Secretary of State Rubio

Washington, DC – United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not been shy astir his tendency to spot the toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Infamously, the erstwhile Florida legislator adjacent posted a bid of photos of slain deposed leaders, including a bloodied erstwhile Libyan person Muammar Gaddafi, arsenic tensions with the US and Maduro’s authorities spiked successful 2019.

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But it wasn’t until the 2nd medication of US President Donald Trump that Rubio’s imaginativeness of a hardline attack to Latin America and his longtime unit run against leftist leaders was realised – culminating connected Saturday with the amerciable abduction of longtime Venezuelan person Maduro.

Experts accidental Rubio has relied connected an quality to capitalise connected the overlapping interests of competing actors wrong the Trump medication to execute this, adjacent arsenic his broader ideological goals, including the ousting of Cuba’s communist government, volition apt stay constrained by the administration’s competing ambitions.

“It took a tremendous magnitude of governmental accomplishment connected his portion to marginalise different voices successful the medication and elsewhere who were saying: ‘This is not our conflict. This is not what we basal for. This is going to upset our base,'” Alejandro Velasco, an subordinate prof of past astatine New York University, told Al Jazeera.

Those agendas included US President Donald Trump’s preoccupation with opening Venezuela’s nationalised lipid industry, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s tendency for a much pugilistic subject attack abroad, and advisor Stephen Miller’s fixation connected migration and wide deportation.

“So that’s the mode that Rubio was capable to bring into enactment not rather competing, but truly divergent agendas, each of them to absorption connected Venezuela arsenic a mode to beforehand a peculiar end,” Velasco said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers successful the receptor of President Donald Trump during a roundtable treatment astir antifa successful the State Dining Room of the White House successful Washington, DC, connected October 8, 2025 [File: Jim Watson/AFP]

A hawk successful ‘America First’

A traditionalist hawk who has regularly supported US subject involution successful the sanction of spreading Western ideology and quality rights abroad, Rubio initially appeared to beryllium an awkward acceptable to beryllium Trump’s apical diplomat successful his 2nd term.

His enactment followed a run play defined by Trump’s vow to extremity overseas wars, eschew US-backed authorities change, and prosecute a wider “America First” pivot.

But the existent signifier of Trump’s overseas argumentation has borne small resemblance to that vision, with the medication adopting a alleged “Peace Through Strength” doctrine that observers accidental has resulted successful much country for subject adventurism. That has, to date, seen the Trump medication motorboat bombing campaigns against Yemen and Iran, onslaught equipped groups successful Nigeria and Somalia, and onslaught alleged cause smuggling boats successful the Caribbean.

The attack of Trump 2.0 has much intimately aligned with Rubio’s imaginativeness of Washington’s relation abroad, which has agelong supported maximum-pressure sanctions campaigns and assorted forms of US involution to topple governments.

The US caput of state’s idiosyncratic ideology traces to his South Florida roots, wherever his household settled successful the 1960s aft leaving Cuba 3 years earlier the emergence of Fidel Castro, successful what Velasco described arsenic an “acerbically anti-communist” governmental environment.

“I deliberation for him, it started arsenic a question of yet making existent the hopes and dreams of Cubans successful Florida and elsewhere to instrumentality to their homeland nether a capitalist government,” Velasco explained.

“It went from that to what this could represent, if we deliberation astir it much hemispherically – a bigger displacement that would not lone increase, but successful information ensure, US hegemony successful the portion for the 21st century.”

‘Vacuum was his to fill’

After tangling with Trump successful the 2016 statesmanlike election, successful which the aboriginal president deridingly dubbed his hostile “Little Marco” portion Rubio decried him arsenic a “con man”, the brace forged a pragmatic moving relationship.

Rubio yet endorsed Trump up of the 2016 vote, helping to present Florida. In Trump’s archetypal term, Rubio came to beryllium seen arsenic the president’s “shadow secretary” connected Latin America, an atypical relation that saw the lawmaker power Trump’s eventual designation of Juan Guaido arsenic interim president successful absorption to Maduro.

Analysts enactment Rubio’s attack to Venezuela has ever been straight aimed astatine undermining the economical enactment it provides to Cuba, with the extremity end of toppling the island’s 67-year-old Communist government. Following Maduro’s abduction connected Saturday, Rubio rapidly pivoted to the land nation, telling reporters: “If I lived successful Havana and I was successful the government, I’d beryllium concerned”.

Still, successful the aboriginal months of Trump’s 2nd term, Rubio appeared mostly sidelined, with the president alternatively favouring adjacent friends and household members to spearhead marquee negotiations connected ceasefires successful Gaza and Ukraine.

During this time, Rubio was dilatory amassing a sizeable portfolio. Beyond serving arsenic caput of state, Rubio became the acting head of the Trump-dismantled US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the acting archivist of the US National Archives. Most notably, helium became the acting manager of National Security, making him the archetypal apical US diplomat to besides inhabit the impactful White House relation since Henry Kissinger.

A Venezuelan successful Miami holds a representation of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a rally successful effect to US subject strikes successful Venezuela; successful Miami, Florida, the US, January 3, 2026 [Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA]

Rubio yet recovered himself successful a White House powerfulness vacuum, according to Adam Isacson, the manager of defence oversight astatine the Washington Office connected Latin America (WOLA).

“Rubio’s idiosyncratic who understands Washington amended than the Grenells and Witkoffs of the world,” Isacson told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s peculiar envoys Richard Grenell and Steve Witkoff.

“At the aforesaid time, different almighty figures wrong the White House, similar Stephen Miller and [Director of the Office of Management and Budget] Russ Vought haven’t cared arsenic overmuch astir overseas policy,” helium said, “so the vacuum was his to fill.”

Meanwhile, Rubio showed his quality to beryllium an “ideological upwind vane”, pivoting regularly to enactment successful Trump’s bully graces, Isacson said. The National Security Strategy released by the White House successful December exemplified that approach.

The document, which is drafted by the National Security advisor with last support from the president, offered small successful pugnacious connection towards Russia, contempt Rubio’s erstwhile hard lines connected the warfare successful Ukraine. It supported the gutting of US overseas aid, contempt Rubio’s years-long enactment for the system. It offered small of the human-rights connection with which Rubio had earlier successful his vocation styled himself arsenic a champion.

It did, however, see a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which dovetailed with Rubio’s worldview by calling for the restoration of US “preeminence” implicit the Western Hemisphere.

A pyrrhic victory?

To beryllium sure, the toppling of Maduro has truthful acold proved a partial, if not pyrrhic triumph for Rubio, acold abbreviated of the broad alteration helium has agelong supported.

In a quality league instantly pursuing Maduro’s abduction, Trump doused enactment for exiled absorption person Maria Corina Machado, who has hewed adjacent to Rubio’s imaginativeness for a aboriginal Venezuela. Several quality agencies person since reported that US quality assessed that installing an absorption fig would pb to wide chaos successful the country.

Rubio has truthful acold been the constituent antheral successful dealing with Maduro’s erstwhile lawman and replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, who has been a staunch protagonist of the Hugo Chavez-founded Chavismo question that Rubio has agelong railed against. Elections stay a far-off prospect, with Trump emphasising moving with the authorities to unfastened the lipid manufacture to the US.

The caput of authorities has not been officially fixed a relation connected to the country, but has earned the less-than-sincere rubric successful immoderate US media of “viceroy of Venezuela”.

On quality shows, Rubio has been tasked with walking backmost Trump’s assertion that the US would “run” the South American country, portion selling the administration’s oft-contradicted connection that the abduction of Maduro was a instrumentality enforcement action, not authorities change, an enactment of war, oregon a bid for the country’s oil.

“I deliberation he’s benignant of lying done his teeth,” Lee Schlenker, a probe subordinate astatine the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Al Jazeera.

“Even helium doesn’t look to judge a batch of the benignant of rhetorical and discursive pretexts that person been deployed astir drugs, astir narco-terrorism, astir a instrumentality enforcement-only operation, astir conscionable benignant of enforcing a Department of Justice indictment,” helium said.

Having to enactment with Rodriguez, and reportedly, Venezuela’s information czar and Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello, has been a “bucket of acold h2o connected Rubio’s broader illusions”, Schlenker added, noting that Rubio’s extremity end inactive remains “the extremity of the Chavista project”.

Rubio is besides apt to look further world checks erstwhile it comes to his expected attempts to transportation the overthrow of what helium volition apt reason is simply a weakened Cuba.

The island, without the economical resources of Venezuela and nary known cause trade, is seen arsenic acold little appealing to Trump and galore of his allies.

“Compared to Venezuela,” Schlenker said, “there are a batch much reasons wherefore Trump would person little involvement successful going aft Cuba.”