Trump says US will run Venezuela as captured Maduro lands in New York
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Mr Trump said US forces were ready to conduct a second, “much bigger” wave of strikes if necessary.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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Venezuela
Published Jan 04, 2026, 01:05 AM
Updated Jan 04, 2026, 11:35 AM
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump said on Jan 3 he was putting Venezuela under temporary American control after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.
“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. “We can’t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn’t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind.”
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.
Critics said his focus on oil at the press conference raised questions about his administration’s efforts to frame the capture of Mr Maduro and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug boats as a law enforcement operation aimed at choking off drug shipments to the US.
As part of the dramatic overnight operation that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations,
US Special Forces captured Mr Maduro
in or near one of his safe houses, Mr Trump said.
Mr Maduro and his wife, Ms Cilia Flores, were transported to a US Navy ship offshore before being flown to the US on the evening of Jan 3.