President Donald Trump has insisted the United States is “in charge” of Venezuela after the seizure of Nicolas Maduro, but was also dealing with the new leadership in Caracas.
Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez said at the same time that she was ready to work together with the Trump administration, asking the US leader for a balanced, respectful relationship.
Trump has faced searching questions over his repeated assertions that Washington is now running Venezuela following the US military operation that spirited away Maduro and his wife before dawn Saturday (local time).
The deposed Maduro is due to appear in a New York court Monday to face federal narcotrafficking charges.
“We’re dealing with the people who just got sworn in. Don’t ask me who’s in charge because I’ll give you an answer and it’ll be very controversial,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One when asked if he had spoken to Rodriguez.
Pressed on what he meant, Trump said: “It means we’re in charge.”
The Trump administration says it is willing to work with the remainder of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals, particularly opening access to US investment in Venezuela’s enormous crude oil reserves, are met.
Asked whether the operation was about oil or regime change, Trump replied: “It’s about peace on earth.”
The US president said elections in Venezuela would have to wait. “We’re going to run it, fix it, we’ll have elections at the right time, but the main thing you have to fix is it’s a broken country,” he said.
As he struck his triumphant tone, Trump also had harsh words for other US adversaries, saying Colombia’s leader was “not going to be doing it very long,” Communist-ruled Cuba was “ready to fall” and that Iran’s leadership will be “hit hard” if protesters are killed.
Trump had earlier threatened that Rodriguez would pay a “big price” if she does not cooperate with the United States.
Venezuelan opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, in an Instagram post from exile in Spain, said Maduro’s capture was “an important step, but not enough” to return the crisis-hit nation to normal.
Gonzalez Urrutia called for the results of the 2024 election – which he claims to have won – to be upheld and for all political prisoners to be freed to ensure a “democratic transition”.
Venezuelans braced for the political aftermath of the raid, in which US commandos swooped in on helicopters, backed by fighter jets and naval forces, to capture Maduro.
Residents queued up to buy food in grocery stores and the masked and heavily armed police visible the previous day were gone, AFP correspondents said.
Some 2000 Maduro supporters – including rifle-wielding men on motorcycles – rallied Sunday in Caracas, however, with crowds shouting and waving red, blue and yellow Venezuelan flags.
The Venezuelan military announced it recognised Rodriguez – previously Maduro’s Vice-President – as acting President, and urged calm.
No Venezuela death toll has been announced but Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said a “large part” of Maduro’s security team were killed “in cold blood”, as well as military personnel and civilians.
Venezuelan hospitals have refused to divulge the number of people killed or injured in the attacks.
A doctors’ group told AFP around 70 people were killed and 90 injured. A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the death toll at at least 15.
But Havana said 32 Cubans died in the US raid. Trump said “a lot” of Maduro’s Cuban security detail were killed.
Despite the success of the initial US operation, questions mounted over Trump’s strategy.
The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, told ABC News that Americans were left “scratching their heads in wonderment and in fear”.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that Washington is not seeking complete regime change or elections.
The United States is fighting drug traffickers, “not a war against Venezuela”, Rubio told NBC’s Meet the Press.
With questions swirling on Capitol Hill, an administration official told AFP that Rubio will discuss Venezuela in meetings with lawmakers Monday.
Trump has made clear Washington intends to call the shots in Venezuela, with a focus on securing access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Maduro, a self-described socialist, led Venezuela with an iron fist for more than a decade through a series of elections widely considered rigged. He came to power after the death of his charismatic mentor, Hugo Chavez.
As news of Maduro’s capture rippled out, exiled Venezuelans waved flags and celebrated in plazas from Madrid to Santiago.
About eight million Venezuelans have fled the grinding poverty and political suppression of their homeland.
–Agence France-Presse