The United States calls it diplomacy. The arrangement looks like empire.

"Insane. Derelict. Unconscionable. And impeachable."

— Elizabeth Saunders, Columbia University political science professor, on Rubio's role as Venezuela's de facto ruler

President Donald Trump was sitting in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year when the idea struck him. Maybe Rubio should move to Caracas permanently. He could govern Venezuela from there, Trump suggested. Aides say the president was joking. He often teases Rubio about an overseas assignment.

But Rubio does not need to relocate to Caracas. He already runs Venezuela from Washington.

According to a July 11 report in The New York Times, Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, controlling the country's finances, natural resources, and government in a way that no American official has wielded since L. Paul Bremer III administered Iraq in 2003. The Times interviewed more than a dozen officials in Washington and Caracas to reconstruct Rubio's grip on a sovereign nation.

The system is simple in structure and extraordinary in scope: the U.S. Treasury Department collects revenue from Venezuela's oil exports, then disburses funds back to the Venezuelan government through private banks. Rubio holds the key. He decides how much money flows through, when it arrives, and on what conditions. The Treasury returns the oil revenue the same way parents hand an allowance to a child: in installments, with strings attached.

Translation: Venezuela's acting president cannot access her country's own oil income without approval from the American secretary of state.

The chain of events that produced this arrangement began on January 3, when U.S. commandos carried out Operation Absolute Resolve. Delta Force, the CIA, the FBI, and 150 aircraft struck northern Venezuela in the dead of night. In two hours and 28 minutes, Nicolás Maduro was extracted from his compound and flown to New York to face narco-terrorism charges in Manhattan federal court.

Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as acting president five days later. The Maduro government's inner circle remained largely intact, minus the figurehead. Political prisoners were released, sanctions were lifted, diplomatic relations were reestablished. The United States declared victory.

But victory produced a governance vacuum. The Trump administration had no plan for democratic transition, no timeline for elections, and no mechanism to vet who controlled a country it had just militarily intervened in. So it improvised: Rubio would oversee everything.

He communicates with Rodríguez through WhatsApp, exchanging messages in Spanish. They trade gossip, birthday greetings, and selfies, according to the Times. He has not visited Venezuela in person since the operation. He does not need to. His authority operates through financial pressure, not military presence.

The financial architecture of American control is built on opacity.

A June report from the Council on Foreign Relations found that almost 100 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, worth an estimated $8 billion, have flowed through this system in six months. The Trump administration has not publicly disclosed how much revenue it collected, how it was used, or what safeguards prevent corruption.

The commodities traders handling Venezuelan oil are Trafigura and Vitol, two companies with documented histories of bribery schemes. A third trader, GE Warren, joined in April. The State Department called them a "short-term fix" in January. They are still there.

The written agreements governing U.S. control of Venezuelan oil have never been made public. Both Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent separately told Congress they would share copies. There is no evidence the copies were ever delivered.

An accounting firm, KPMG, was supposedly tasked with quarterly audits of how the money is spent. The State Department witness who announced this in April said he did not know when the reports would be available.

The system extends beyond oil. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum led a delegation to Venezuela in March and secured a deal for the country to sell up to 1,000 kilograms of gold through Trafigura. Mineral export revenue also flows through U.S. Treasury accounts, under the same opaque structure.

The human dimension of this arrangement is captured in a single incident. Fox News anchor Bret Baier requested an interview with Rodríguez. She reportedly told him that President Trump would have to approve it first. Trump later recounted the story publicly, clearly pleased with the power dynamic it revealed.

The acting president of a sovereign nation cannot grant a television interview without clearance from the American president. Rodríguez said she understood the arrangement when she took power. She wanted diplomatic recognition and sanctions relief, and she got them. In return, she accepted that Washington would hold the purse strings.

Critics are not persuaded that this is temporary oversight rather than permanent occupation. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote that "Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective U.S. colony." He portrayed Rubio as a modern imperial administrator.

Historian Bradley Simpson at the University of Connecticut drew a more specific comparison. He said the arrangement returned the United States to the era of "Dollar Diplomacy" in the early 20th century, when Washington intervened in Latin American countries and took direct control of their financial systems. "We are literally back," Simpson said. He called the structure illegal and corrupt.

Orlando Pérez, a political science professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas, noted the irony. Rubio spent years positioning himself as an advocate for democracy in Venezuela. Now, according to Pérez, he has transformed from a democracy promoter into a practitioner of "transactional realpolitik." Democratic ideals have been replaced by direct financial control.

The Venezuelan opposition has been excluded from every negotiation. María Corina Machado, the opposition leader, published a "Panama Manifesto" in May that endorsed the administration's framework while explicitly calling for presidential elections, political negotiations, and broader national dialogue. Washington has not responded with a concrete plan.

The ruling elite remains in power. The Chavista factions that sustained Maduro's government are still there, minus Maduro himself. The state-owned oil company, PDVSA, has not published revenue figures since 2016. More than 400 political prisoners remain detained. There is no independent legislature, no independent judiciary, and no independent electoral authority.

Executive Order 14373 established Foreign Government Deposit Funds as Venezuelan property held in custody by the Treasury. But the order also gave the secretary of state authority to instruct the Treasury on disbursements. That is Rubio.

Democratic lawmakers have requested a Government Accountability Office audit of the system. They introduced legislation requiring an independent review. Some Republican lawmakers have pressed for an election date in Venezuela and pushed back on Trump's claims that Machado lacks popular support.

Most Republican lawmakers have remained silent.

The window for translating American influence into genuine democratic progress is narrowing. The United States controls $8 billion in Venezuelan oil revenue and the ability to grant Venezuela access to $5 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights. It could condition that access on concrete political concessions, free elections, and opposition inclusion. It has not.

Rubio once built his political career on one of the loudest voices in Washington for freedom in Latin America. Now he holds more direct power over Venezuela than any unelected American official in modern history.

The question is not whether this arrangement serves Venezuela's interests. The question is whether anyone still believes the word "temporary."