After Maduro capture, Trump says US will govern Venezuela & its oil ‘for now’

Caracus, Jan 4: Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

Speaking to the press hours after Maduro's capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to "fix" the country's oil infrastructure and sell "large amounts" of oil to other countries.

"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this "extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives."

The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on the South American nation and its leader and months of secret planning resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Maduro and his wife, seized overnight from their home on a military base, were first taken aboard a US warship on their way to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

A plane carrying the deposed leader landed around 4:30 pm Saturday at an airport in New York City's northern suburbs.

Maduro was escorted off the jet, gingerly making his way down a stairway before being led across the tarmac surrounded by federal agents. Several agents filmed him on their phones as he walked.

He was then flown by helicopter to Manhattan, where a convoy of law enforcement vehicles, including an armoured car, was waiting to whisk him to a nearby US Drug Enforcement Administration office.

A video posted on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through that office by two DEA agents grasping his arms. He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.

Legal experts immediately raised questions about whether the operation was lawful. Venezuela's vice president Delcy Rodríguez demanded in a speech that the US free Maduro and called him the country's rightful leader, before Venezuela's High Court ordered her to assume the role of interim president.

The legal authority for the incursion, done without congressional approval, was not immediately clear, but the Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the US.

The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.

The UN Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on US operations in Venezuela on Monday morning, according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.

AP