Marco Rubio Claims 'This Is Our Hemisphere' And U.S. Won't Allow It To Be a 'Base Of Operation For Adversaries'

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration won't allow the Western Hemisphere "to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States" following the capture of Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro.

The White House's website posted several quotes from Rubio throughout the day in which the official defended the actions conducted by the Trump administration, adding that the "first steps" following the operation are "securing what's in the national interest of the United States and also beneficial to the people of Venezuela, and those are the things that we're focused on right now."

"No more drug trafficking. No more Iran, Hezbollah presence there. No more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world," he added.

Rubio also said the administration wants Caracas to "move in a certain direction because not only do we think it's good for the people of Venezuela, it's in our national interest." In this context, he said the administration retains "all the options we had before this raid and this capture and this arrest... until such time as changes are made."

Speaking to CBS News, Rubio also rejected the notion that elections will take place immediately in Venezuela. "Everyone's asking why, 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro was arrested, there isn't an election scheduled for tomorrow? That's absurd," Rubio said "These things take time, there's a process," he added.

He went on to say that "of course we want to see Venezuela transition to be a place completely different than what it looks like today," but the expectation can't be that it will "happen in the next 15 hours."

"What we do have an expectation is that it move in that direction. We think it's in our national interest, and frankly, in the interest of people of Venezuela," he claimed.

Rodriguez, on her end, has called on the United States to "work jointly on a cooperation agenda" and appealed for peace and dialogue in a public statements after taking office.

In a message published Sunday on her official social media channels, Rodríguez said Venezuela's priority was to pursue "balanced and respectful international relations" with the United States and other countries in the region, based on "sovereign equality and non-interference." She said the government was prepared to collaborate with Washington on an agenda "oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law."

"President Donald Trump: our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war," Rodríguez wrote, adding that Venezuela "has the right to peace, development, sovereignty and a future." She described peace as essential not only for Venezuela but for regional and global stability," she added.

However, the regime also issued a decree ordering police to "immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack" carried out by the U.S.