Maduro in New York jail as Trump says US to 'run' Venezuela
Trump called the operation to capture President Nicolas Maduro and his wife an "assault not seen since World War II".
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WASHINGTON: The United States attacked Venezuela and captured its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on Saturday (Jan 3), with US President Donald Trump promising to put the country under American control for now, even as Venezuelan officials vowed defiance.
As part of a dramatic overnight operation that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas, US Special Forces captured Maduro in or near one of his safe houses, Trump said.
With Maduro in US custody, Trump said: "We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition."
"We can't take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn't have the interests of Venezuelans in mind," he said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
A US government plane carrying Maduro landed at a military base shortly after nightfall, and he was transported by helicopter to New York City.
The White House posted a video on X of Maduro, handcuffed and in sandals, escorted by federal agents through a US Drug Enforcement Administration facility in New York.
"Good night, happy new year," the 63-year-old leftist is heard saying in English.
Maduro, who was indicted on various US charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Monday, according to a Justice Department official.
His wife also faces charges, including cocaine importation conspiracy.
Maduro is expected to be held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn before his court appearance, the official told Reuters.
It is unclear how Trump plans to oversee Venezuela.
US forces have no control over the country itself, and Maduro's government appears not only to still be in charge but to have no appetite for cooperating with Washington.
Maduro's apparent successor, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on Venezuelan television Saturday afternoon 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," Rodriguez said, calling Maduro "the only president of Venezuela".
Rodriguez spoke hours after Trump said his administration had been in touch with her and that she appeared cooperative, adding that "she really doesn't have a choice".
Venezuela's Supreme Court late Saturday ordered Rodriguez to become the country's interim leader.
The high court ruled that Rodriguez "assume and exercise, in an acting capacity, all the attributes, duties and powers inherent to the office of president ... to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the nation".
The judges stopped short of declaring Maduro permanently absent from office, a ruling that requires holding elections within 30 days.
Peace in Latin America was disrupted by the US attack on Venezuela, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil told Russia's RIA state news agency in remarks published on Sunday.
POTENTIAL POWER VACUUM IN VENEZUELA
In Venezuela, the streets were mostly calm on Saturday. 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.
"It's all calm now, but I feel like at any moment everyone will be out celebrating."
At his press conference, where he was accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump did not provide specific answers to repeated questions about how the United States would take over and run Venezuela.
"The people that are standing right behind me" – such as Rubio and Hegseth – would oversee the country, Trump said.
He said he was open to sending US forces into Venezuela. "We're not afraid of boots on the ground," he said.
The removal of Maduro, whom critics called a dictator as he led Venezuela with a heavy hand for more than 12 years, could open a power vacuum in the country, which is bordered by Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, and the Caribbean.
Who the US planned to cooperate with in Venezuela was not made clear; Trump publicly closed the door on working with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, widely seen as Maduro's most credible opponent.
Trump said the United States has not been in contact with Machado. "She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country," he said.
Trump's comment outraged some supporters of Machado, who has voiced support for US actions to fight alleged drug trafficking and who dedicated her Nobel Prize win to Trump and the Venezuelan people.
Machado "is the most respected politician in the country", said Pedro Burelli, a former board member at state oil company PDVSA, on X.
"Venezuela is broke and needy, but it is not about to surrender to absurd whims."
Reuters has previously reported that members of Machado’s team helped the Trump administration build the case for an aggressive stance against the Venezuelan government, despite worries about blowback from Trump’s policies on Venezuelan immigrants living in the United States.
RECALLING PAST REGIME CHANGES
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.
He said on Saturday that as president, including his first term, he has overseen military actions that were "only victories". But none of those involved removing another country's leader.
Trump in the past criticised such interventions, calling the Iraq invasion "a big fat mistake" during a 2016 presidential debate, and saying in 2021 that he was "especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars".
Before Saturday, the US had not made such a direct intervention in the region since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago to depose military leader Manuel Noriega over allegations that he led a drug-running operation.
The United States has levelled similar charges against Maduro, accusing him of running a "narco-state" and rigging the 2024 election.
Maduro, a 63-year-old former bus driver handpicked by the dying Hugo Chavez to succeed him in 2013, has denied those claims and said Washington was intent on taking control of his nation's oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Trump's action recalls the Monroe Doctrine, laid out in 1823 by President James Monroe, laying US claim to calling the shots in the region, as well as the "gunboat diplomacy" seen under President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s.
Trump nodded to the comparisons during his press conference, suggesting an updated version of it might be called the "Don-roe Doctrine".
While various Latin American governments oppose Maduro and say he stole the 2024 vote, Trump's boasts about controlling Venezuela and exploiting its oil revive painful memories of past US interventions in Latin America that are generally opposed by governments and people in the region.
Argentina's President Javier Milei lauded Venezuela's new "freedom", while Mexico condemned the intervention and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said it crossed "an unacceptable line".
One former diplomat said leaders in Latin America and beyond would draw dark lessons from the unilateral US action, which he compared to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"For Latin America, it basically says no leader is safe if deemed illegitimate by the US," said Tyson Barker, a senior associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
"For the world, it flattens any moral credibility we have vis-à-vis China and Russia."
The United Nations Security Council planned to meet on Monday to discuss the intervention, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said could "constitute 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 Maduro and his wife.
North Korea also denounced the US strikes on Venezuela, saying the act is "the most serious form of encroachment of sovereignty", state news agency KCNA said on Sunday.
"The incident is another example that clearly confirms once again the reogue and brutal nature of the United States," KCNA said, citing a spokesperson for North Korea's Foreign Ministry.
Pope Leo said on Sunday that he was following developments in Venezuela with a "soul full of concern".
Leo, the first US pope, called for Venezuela to remain an independent country and for respect for human rights.
US TO BE REIMBURSED: TRUMP
A US occupation "won't cost us a penny" because the United States would be reimbursed from the "money coming out of the ground", Trump said, referring to Venezuela's oil reserves, a subject he returned to repeatedly during Saturday's press conference.
The idea that a country's oil reserves can pay for an American invasion also recalls the 2003 Iraq war.
In the run-up to the invasion, US officials repeatedly stated that the cost would largely be covered by Iraq's assets, including its oil. Various estimates by academics say the actual cost to the United States of its years-long entanglement in Iraq ended up being at least US$2 trillion.
Trump’s attention to 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 control both chambers by narrow margins.
Opinion polls show the top concern for voters is high prices at home, not foreign policy.
"How does going to war in South America help regular Americans who are struggling?" US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, wrote on X.
Outside the White House, about 100 protesters organised by the ANSWER Coalition, an anti-war group, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which has supported Maduro in the past, called on the White House to return Maduro to Venezuela, calling it a "kidnapping".
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