The Daily Journal.- U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined on Friday the roadmap the U.S. administration envisions for Venezuela’s near future. After four months of management focused on economic stabilization and the protection of assets, the head of American diplomacy emphasized that the country’s definitive normalization depends on a process of institutional political change.
“Ultimately, as we move forward in this process, we will have to reach a transition stage in which the government will have to be normalized,” Rubio said during a conversation with journalists aboard the presidential aircraft.
The secretary insisted that the final objective is the establishment of an authority enjoying full recognition: “There has to be a process that people can look at and say, ‘this is a legitimate permanent government’ — presidency, elections, things of that nature. That moment has to arrive.”
Rubio stressed that, although there is urgency to see these changes, managing the timing is critical for regional stability. “We don’t want to wait too long. We want to see it happen, but you also don’t want to move too quickly because the whole system can break. It’s something difficult to manage,” he admitted, emphasizing that caution is necessary in order not to jeopardize the progress achieved in recent months. Economic Transparency as a Prelude to Politics
For the secretary of state, political legitimacy must be preceded by administrative transparency that has already begun to be implemented. Rubio explained that the U.S. strategy has been to create mechanisms ensuring that oil wealth directly benefits citizens rather than private interests.
“We have created mechanisms: all the money they earn from oil now goes into a bank account in New York and is audited by KPMG. And it is being used to pay the salaries of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and university professors,” Rubio explained.
In his view, this cleanup of public finances is a fundamental step, ensuring that “for the first time in more than a decade, the country’s wealth is truly benefiting the people of Venezuela.”
As the first four months of this new stage in relations and policies toward Caracas come to a close, Rubio expressed satisfaction with the indicators of improvement, although he reiterated that the path toward transition must become irreversible.
“I think we should be pleased. Venezuela is a better place today than it was four months ago, but it needs to continue staying on that path,” the secretary of state concluded.
