The US will “govern” Venezuela until a “safe, orderly and sensible transition” can be ensured, Donald Trump said, after US attacks led to the capture of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
US oil companies would also repair Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country,” the US president said.
The US launched attacks on Venezuela on Saturday morning, with Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, captured by US forces and forced out of the country.
Venezuela declared a national state of emergency and condemned “military aggression,” with the country’s vice president saying Maduro was its only leader.
Maduro and Flores were flown from the capital Caracas in a U.S. helicopter in the early hours of Saturday and taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima to an undisclosed location in the Caribbean.
They were later flown to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being transferred to another aircraft to fly to New York state and then flown by helicopter to the New York Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro and Flores were charged in the Southern District of New York.
The two are charged with conspiracy to commit drug terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
“You will soon see the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi wrote on X.
Maduro had previously vehemently denied being a cartel leader and accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to depose him and gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Trump said at a news conference before Maduro’s arrival in New York: “The oil business in Venezuela has been a bust for a long time, a total bust.”
“We are going to let our very large U.S. oil companies, the largest in the world, step in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
According to the US Energy Information Administration, the South American country has about 303 billion barrels worth of crude oil, accounting for about 20% of the world’s oil resources.
It’s unclear how exactly the U.S. plans to “govern” Venezuela, but the president said it will be a “group” of people who take over.
“We’re going to do it with a group and make sure it’s done properly,” Trump said.
When asked by reporters who would be part of that group in Venezuela, Trump said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with Delcy Rodríguez, the country’s vice president.
Trump said Rodríguez – who has since been named interim president by Venezuela’s Supreme Court – has expressed her willingness to do “anything the United States asks.”
However, speaking on state television after Trump’s comments, Rodríguez called Maduro the “only president in Venezuela” and added that the government was ready to defend itself.
Trump also said he had not spoken to Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was excluded from the presidential election last year but was instrumental in winning support for a Maduro rival who is believed to have won the election.
The US president said Machado “does not have the support or respect in the country” needed to rule Venezuela.
Explosions were heard around Caracas early Saturday morning as US forces attacked military bases. Over the next two hours and twenty minutes, dozens of US aircraft could be seen in the sky as special forces entered Maduro’s safe house to rescue him.
Venezuela’s long-time allies strongly condemned the US actions. Russia accused the US of committing “an act of armed aggression” that was “deeply worrying and condemnable”. China’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply shocked and strongly condemned” the use of force against a sovereign country and its president.
Many Latin American countries, including Venezuela’s neighbors Colombia and Brazil, also condemned the actions. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called it a “criminal attack,” while Trump’s ally in Argentina, Javier Milei, wrote on social media: “Freedom advances.”
The US allies reacted more cautiously and called for a peaceful transfer of power. Sir Keir Starmer said the UK “views Maduro as an illegitimate president” and has “shed no tears over the end of his regime”, but called for a “safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government”.
Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas and French President Emmanuel Macron made similar calls for peace. A new government must “respect the will of the Venezuelan people,” Macron wrote in a post on X.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the legality of the US operation was “complex” and warned that “political instability must not arise in Venezuela.”
Maduro’s capture is the culmination of an escalating pressure campaign by the Trump administration against his administration over the past 12 months, which has included sanctions and sanctions Stationing a large naval force in the region.
Since September, the United States has carried out more than 30 attacks on boats allegedly used for drug trafficking in the Pacific and Caribbean, killing more than 100 people.
The Trump administration has characterized the attacks as attacks on terrorists trying to bring fentanyl and cocaine into the United States, but has provided no evidence to support that claim.
With the exception of two survivors – a Colombian and an Ecuadorian citizen – none of the identities of those on board have been released.
Earlier this week, the conflict escalated further as the The US carried out an attack on a “dock area”. in connection with alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
Fentanyl is manufactured primarily in Mexico and travels almost exclusively overland across the southern border of the United States.
Drug enforcement experts have also described Venezuela as a relatively small player in the global drug trade, acting primarily as a country through which drugs manufactured elsewhere are smuggled.
