Trump says US to run Venezuela after raid captures Maduro
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CARACAS/NEW YORK – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was in a New York detention centre on Jan 4 after US President Donald Trump ordered an audacious US raid to capture the South American leader and take control of the country and its vast oil reserves.
As part of the dramatic operation early on Jan 3 that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations, US Special Forces seized Mr Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and transported them via helicopter to a US Navy ship offshore before flying them to the US.
“We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”, Mr Trump said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
For months, his administration had criticised Mr Maduro, 63, over what it called his involvement in shipping drugs to the US.
It ramped up pressure with a massive military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats
Mr Maduro has denied any involvement in drug trafficking and says Trump wants Venezuela’s oil.
Potential power vacuum in Venezuela
While many Western allies oppose Mr Maduro and say he stole Venezuela’s 2024 election, there were numerous calls for the US to respect international law and resolve the crisis diplomatically.
Mr Trump’s boasts about controlling the nation and exploiting its oil revived painful memories of past US interventions in Latin America, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some legal experts questioned the legality of an operation to seize the head of state of a foreign power, while Democrats who said they were misled during recent Congress briefings demanded a plan for what is to follow.
Mr Trump said as part of the takeover, major US oil companies would move into Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, and refurbish badly degraded oil infrastructure, a process experts said could take years.
He said he was open to sending US forces into Venezuela. “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said.
A plane carrying Mr Maduro landed near New York City on the night of Jan 3, and he was transported by helicopter to the city before being taken by a large convoy to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn under a heavy police guard.
Images released by US authorities showed the leader handcuffed and blindfolded, and later being led down a hallway at the offices of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was heard wishing a “happy New Year”.
Indicted on various federal charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, Mr Maduro is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Jan 5, according to a Justice Department official.
It is unclear how Mr Trump plans to oversee Venezuela. US forces have no control over the country itself, and Mr Maduro’s government appears not only to still be in charge but also to have no appetite for cooperating with Washington.
Mr Maduro’s vice-president, Ms Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on Venezuelan television on the afternoon of Jan 3 with other top officials to decry what she called a kidnapping.
“We demand the immediate release of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores,” Ms Rodriguez said, calling Mr Maduro “the only president of Venezuela”.
A Venezuelan court ordered Ms Rodriguez to assume the position of interim president.
Recalling past regime changes
Mr Trump did not say who will lead Venezuela when the US cedes control, but appeared to rule out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado
“She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” he said.
In Venezuela, the streets were mostly calm after a rush for groceries and fuel. Soldiers patrolled some parts and small pro-Maduro crowds gathered in Caracas.
Others expressed relief. “I’m happy, I doubted for a moment that it was happening because it’s like a movie,” said merchant Carolina Pimentel, 37, in the city of Maracay.
Many Venezuelan migrants around the world
“We are free. We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country,” said Ms Khaty Yanez, who lives in the Chilean capital Santiago. She is one of an estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans – 20 per cent of the population – who have left the country since 2014.
The UN Security Council planned to meet on Jan 5 to discuss the actions, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “a dangerous precedent”
Russia and China, both major backers of Venezuela, criticised the US.
“China firmly opposes such hegemonic behaviour by the US, which seriously violates international law, violates Venezuela’s sovereignty and threatens peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean,” China’s foreign ministry said, later calling on the US to release Mr Maduro and his wife.
Mr Trump’s comments about an open-ended military presence in Venezuela echoed the rhetoric around past invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which ended in American withdrawals after years of costly occupation and thousands of US casualties.
A US occupation “won’t cost us a penny” because the United States would be reimbursed from the “money coming out of the ground,” Mr Trump said, referring to Venezuela’s oil reserves, a subject he returned to repeatedly during Jan 3’s press conference.
Mr Trump’s focus on foreign affairs provides fuel for Democrats to criticise him ahead of midterm congressional elections in November, when control of both houses of Congress is at stake. Republicans now control both by narrow margins.
Opinion polls show the top concern for voters is high prices at home, not foreign policy.
Mr Trump also runs the risk of alienating some of his own supporters, who have backed his “America First” agenda and oppose foreign interventions. REUTERS
