Trump: New Venezuela leader Rodriguez to pay ‘big price’ if she doesn’t ‘do what’s right’

US President Donald Trump threatens that Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez will pay a “very big price” if she doesn’t cooperate with the United States, after US forces seized and jailed the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, yesterday.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump tells The Atlantic in a brief telephone interview.

US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours yesterday, bombing military targets and spiriting away Maduro and his wife to face federal narco-trafficking charges in New York City.

The Trump administration says it is willing to work with the rest of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals, including opening access to US investment in the enormous Venezuelan crude oil reserves, are met.

Trump’s warning comes as Rodriguez was confirmed as interim president by Venezuela’s Supreme Court and military officials.

She sounded a defiant note yesterday after the US raid on Caracas, saying that Maduro was the country’s sole legitimate leader and that “we’re ready to defend our natural resources.”

Trump, who long campaigned against US nation-building and regime change in foreign countries, said yesterday that the United States will “run” Venezuela.

He tells The Atlantic that “rebuilding there and regime change — anything you want to call it — is better than what you have right now.”

“Rebuilding is not a bad thing in Venezuela’s case,” he says. “The country’s gone to hell. It’s a failed country. It’s a totally failed country. It’s a country that’s a disaster in every way.”