President Donald Trump’s former special envoy to Venezuela said he has little confidence in the president’s plans to “run” the country.
“You know, nobody else used that word ‘run’ until he did,” Elliott Abrams, who served as the special representative for Venezuela during Trump’s first term, said of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago speech following the capture of Nicolás Maduro on Saturday.
Speaking to host Manu Raju on Inside Politics Sunday, he continued: “And my thought is that that didn’t appear in some, you know, paper done through a long inter-agency process, that it just came out of the president, and that nobody else expected to run Venezuela. It would be extremely difficult.”
Abrams, whose former post has been empty since 2021, continued: “You know, it‘s it’s a very big country. It’s twice the size of California. 25 million people, roughly. It’s too complex for us to run.”
The lawyer suggested that instead of “running” Venezuela, the U.S. should focus on supporting democratic elections to find new leadership from within the country.
“What we should be looking for is a popular government, a democratic, elected government that can begin to rehabilitate the country with our support and the support of the other democracies that surround Venezuela,” he said.
“That’s possible. But the notion that we’re going to run it from Washington I think is implausible, and it’s just not going to work.”
The CNN host then brought up the “significant manpower and resources” needed during a sudden transition period, and asked both what the potential financial cost could be and how many troops might be needed.
Abrams, however, was adamant that U.S. troops shouldn’t be on Venezuelan soil.
“Well, I don’t think any U.S. troops are needed if there is a popular government. That is what we should be doing, is helping the people who are elected take over, helping them negotiate with the army,” Abrams said.
“This has happened all over South America. There are lots of transitions to democracy. There’s always an amnesty. There’s always a deal with the military. That’s what they need in Venezuela. And they need to pay the army. So we should be helping them find the money from the world bank, the inter-American bank, to pay the military so that we they retain the loyalty.”
The former Trump envoy concluded: “But I don’t think any American troops should go into Venezuela and certainly not to help this regime, this terrible regime—the Maduro regime—stay in power through the other indicted criminals who are still there.”
While Abrams was certain that sending U.S. troops into Venezuela wasn’t the answer, Trump is not as firmly opposed. “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said during the press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
