WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Jan 6 (Reuters) – The Trump administration has put Venezuela’s hardline interior minister on notice that he could be at the top of its target list unless he helps Interim President Delcy Rodriguez meet U.S. demands and keep order following the toppling of Nicolas Maduro, according to three people familiar with the matter. Diosdado Cabello, who controls security forces accused of widespread human rights abuses, is one of a handful of Maduro loyalists that President Donald Trump has decided to rely on as temporary rulers to maintain stability during a transition period, said one source briefed on the administration’s thinking.

U.S. officials are especially concerned that Cabello, given his record of repression and history of rivalry with Rodriguez, could play the spoiler and are seeking to force his cooperation even as they look for ways to eventually push him out of power and into exile, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the meantime, they have communicated to Cabello via intermediaries that if he is defiant, he could face a similar fate to Maduro, the authoritarian leader captured in a U.S. raid on Saturday and whisked away to New York to face prosecution on “narco-terrorism” charges, or could see his life in danger, the source said.

But taking out Cabello could be risky, possibly motivating pro-government motorcycle groups, known as colectivos, to take to the streets, unleashing the chaos Washington wants to avoid. Their reaction may depend on whether they feel protected by other officials, however.

Also on the list of potential targets is Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who, like Cabello, is under a U.S. drug trafficking indictment and has a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head, according to two sources.

“This remains a law enforcement operation, and we are not done yet,” said a U.S. Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. officials see Padrino’s collaboration as crucial for avoiding a power vacuum due to his command of the armed forces. They believe he is less dogmatic than Cabello and more likely to toe the U.S. line while seeking his own safe exit, the source briefed on administration thinking said.

A senior Trump administration official declined to answer Reuters’ specific questions but said in a statement: “The President is speaking about exerting maximum leverage with the remaining elements in Venezuela and ensuring they cooperate with the United States by halting illegal migration, stopping drug flows, revitalizing oil infrastructure, and doing what is right for the Venezuelan people.”

Venezuela’s communications ministry, which handles all press requests for the government, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The administration has decided Venezuela’s opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, would be unable to keep the peace at a time when Trump wants enough calm on the ground to jump-start access for U.S. oil companies to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and to avoid having to put U.S. forces on the ground, the source said.

Trump instead has embraced a classified CIA assessment that concluded Maduro’s top aides would be best situated to run the country on an interim basis, according to sources briefed on the matter.

U.S. officials also decided to work with Maduro’s allies for now out of concern that the country could descend into chaos if they tried to force a democratic handover, and that an excluded member of the inner circle might foment a coup, according to one of the sources.

But the administration wants to eventually see a move toward new elections, U.S. officials have said, though the timeframe remains uncertain.

Trump has offered no clear explanation of how Washington would oversee Venezuela after the biggest U.S. intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. Critics have condemned it as neocolonialism and a violation of international law.

For now, Washington sees Rodriguez as its best bet to temporarily hold power while it continues developing plans for governing post-Maduro Venezuela, a strategy one source described as “very much still a work in progress.”

Among the U.S. demands for Venezuela’s leaders are a demonstration of willingness to open up Venezuela’s oil industry on terms favorable to U.S. companies, a crackdown on the narcotics trade, the expulsion of Cuban security personnel and an end to Venezuelan cooperation with Iran, the source briefed on administration thinking said.

The U.S. wants to see progress toward meeting U.S. objectives in a matter of weeks, the source said.

Beyond threats of further military action, the U.S. could use Rodriguez’s finances as leverage. The U.S. has identified those assets, sheltered in Qatar, and could seize them, the source said.

U.S. authorities and their intermediaries are also seeking to co-opt other senior Venezuelan officials and those at levels below them to open the way for a government that will acquiesce to Washington’s interests, the source said.

Trump’s vow to “run” Venezuela appears for now to be more an aspiration to exert outside control – or at least heavy influence – over the OPEC nation without deploying U.S. ground forces, a move that would be unpopular at home.

Trump’s advisers see Rodriguez as the linchpin: a technocrat who they believe is amenable to working with the U.S. on a transition and oil-related issues, according to people briefed on the U.S. strategy.

Though she and Maduro’s other top loyalists have projected a mostly united front, it is unclear whether that will last.

Rodriguez and Cabello have both operated at the heart of the government, legislature and ruling socialist party for years, but have never been considered close allies.

A former military officer, Cabello, seen as the main enforcer of repression within Maduro’s government, exerts influence over the country’s military and civilian counterintelligence agencies, which conduct widespread domestic espionage.

“Maduro brought him in to crack heads together in the aftermath of the stolen election,” said Geoff Ramsey, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think-tank.

The United Nations found both SEBIN, the civilian agency, and DGCIM, the military intelligence service, had committed crimes against humanity as part of a state plan to crush dissent.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick, Sarah Kinosian, Jana Winter, Humeyra Pamuk; writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who’s next?

“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”

Trump, in his administration’s National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he’s made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.

Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president’s foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”

Saturday’s dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has “no right to annex” the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON.”

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.

The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.

The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, concern is simmering in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”

The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.

Trump said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

Trump, as he made his way back to Washington on Sunday evening, also put Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia, and its leftist president, Gustavo Petro, on notice.

Trump in a back-and-forth with reporters said Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

The Trump administration imposed sanctions in October on Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade. Colombia is considered the epicenter of the world’s cocaine trade.

Trump began his monthslong pressure campaign on Maduro by ordering dozens of lethal strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats launched from Venezuela in the Caribbean. He eventually expanded the operations to also target suspected vessels in the eastern Pacific that came from Colombia.

The U.S. in September also added Colombia, the top recipient of American assistance in the region, to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years. The designation led to a slashing of U.S. assistance to the country.

“He’s not going to be doing it for very long,” Trump said of Petro on Sunday. “He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He’s not going to be doing it.”

Asked whether he might order the U.S. to conduct an operation against Colombia, Trump replied, “It sounds good to me.”

AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.