The Scoop
The White House has asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to bring “order” to talks with Venezuela over its approach to US deportation flights, a senior administration official told Semafor.
The escalating skirmish over the flights comes as the Trump administration fights in court over its weekend deportation of hundreds of migrants to El Salvador. The vast majority of those deportees were Venezuelans, according to the Trump administration, which also described about half as alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Rubio warned in an X post on Tuesday night that the US would begin imposing “new, severe, and escalating sanctions” if the Venezuelan regime, led by Nicholas Maduro, doesn’t begin to accept “a consistent flow of deportation flights, without further excuses or delays.” Just days earlier, Trump’s special missions envoy, Ric Grenell, announced that the country had “agreed to resume flights.”
But that promise hasn’t yet materialized in full, according to the senior administration official, who told Semafor that Maduro’s government is “lying” about the flights, which it had initially promised would happen weekly — but which have only occurred once in the last 45 days.
“We are approaching Week 10” since the initial Maduro promise on deportation flights, the official added, “and they have only done it once as originally and purportedly committed.”
Asked if Rubio has personally confirmed the agreement that Grenell claimed was made by Venezuela, the administration official replied that “if it was said, we’re not seeing the results.”
Grenell did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Asked about Grenell’s recent announcement that Venezuela had agreed to resume deportation flights, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters Tuesday: “Well, that’s nice. It’s nice to say so and doing it, doing it will be an important gesture.”
When pressed on whether Venezuela might be reneging on its agreement, Bruce referred reporters to Rubio’s post on X. The State Department, asked about Rubio and Grenell’s comments, referred Semafor to Bruce’s comments. The White House referred Semafor to the State Department.
Rubio’s post is another example of the Trump administration’s ramp-up against Venezuela and Maduro, whose leadership is not recognized as legitimate by the US government. Rubio said during an interview with Fox Noticias that the administration “would like to see” Maduro relinquish power within the next four years. And Trump last month announced his plan to end the Biden-era license to export Venezuela oil.
But Grenell’s role has prompted occasional confusion when it comes to Venezuela. At the start of Trump’s second term, the envoy visited the country and brought back six American detainees. Maduro used the visit to tout what he claimed was “a new beginning of historical relations.”
Grenell later commented on a podcast that Trump “doesn’t want to do regime change” in Venezuela, which raised questions about a potential shift in US policy. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt corrected the record with Semafor, saying that Trump “stands in opposition to the Maduro regime.”
Leavitt pointed to remarks made by Rubio about a call with 2024 Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. Rubio described the former as “Venezuela’s rightful president.”
Notable
- Trump’s proclamation last week invoking the Alien Enemies Act included sharp language accusing the Tren de Aragua gang of “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare” against the US — in part at the direction of the Maduro regime.
- After Trump cancelled the oil license, Venezuela’s leader suggested future scheduled migrant flights were affected, without directly naming the company at the center of that license, Reuters reported.
- The Trump administration does want regime change in Venezuela, Axios reported in January.