President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday ordered the expulsion of two most senior diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, giving them 48 hours to leave the country, in a sharp escalation of bilateral tensions. The statement by Maduro came two days after his re-election victory in a vote that was condemned as illegitimate by the United States and nations across the hemisphere.
One of the two diplomats — the U.S. chief of mission, Todd Robinson — also had vigorously taken the Maduro government to task over the case of Joshua Holt, an American imprisoned in Venezuela.
Maduro also appeared to be responding to escalating U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and being branded a “dictator” by the Trump administration.
“The empire won’t dominate us here,” Maduro said Tuesday in a televised event at an electoral commission meeting. “Venezuela is free, sovereign and independent. And using my faculties as president of the republic, I’ve declared persona non grata and announce the removal in 48 hours of the charge d’affairs of the United States of America, Todd Robinson, and the chief of the political section, Brian Naranjo.”
Maduro accused Robinson and the U.S. Embassy of leading a “military, economic and political conspiracy” to overthrow him. “They’ve abused and violated international law,” he said.
Maduro’s government has routinely accused the U.S. Embassy of conspiring against him. The embassy has denied the charges.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said American officials had seen reports of the impending expulsions, and added, “We completely reject the false allegations that have made by the Maduro regime against our two colleagues.”
Robinson had issued statements recently denouncing Sunday’s election as a power grab by Maduro.
