Republican walks back Trump’s claim US will ‘run’ Venezuela
Ed Pilkington
Tom Cotton, the Republican chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted on CNN’s State of the Union that there were “still a lot of questions to be answered” about what happens next in Venezuela. He reined sharply back on Trump’s claim that the US would run the country, redefining that startling comment as meaning that the leadership would have to abide by US demands.
“The president wants to give them a chance to turn the page in Venezuela and to help America achieve our policy goals there,” he said. Cotton listed some of the US government’s demands, including: “we want them to stop the drug trafficking. We want them to kick out the Iranians, the Cubans, the Islamic radicals.”
“Just return to being a normal nation that will help build stability, order and prosperity, not just in Venezuela, but in our backyard,” Cotton added.
Cotton also gave a more lukewarm assessment of Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez, whom Trump has indicated the US could possibly work with. “We don’t recognize Delcy Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela,” the senator said.
He added: “I don’t think that we can count on Delcy Rodriguez to be friendly to the United States until she proves it.”
Key events
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on CBS News’ Face the Nation pushed back on questioning regarding why other top Venezuelan officials and Nicolás Maduro allies were not also abducted by US forces. Rubio underscored that the operation to abduct Maduro was a complicated one.
“Imagine the howls we would have from everybody else if we actually had to go and stay there four days to capture four other people,” Rubio said. “We got the top priority.”
A number of other top Venezuelan officials, who worked closely with Maduro, remain in the country. One of those, Venezuelan interior minister Diosdado Cabello, has also been indicted by the US government and has a $25 million reward.
“It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country — the guy lived on a military base — land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets. That’s not an easy mission,” Rubio said.
“And you’re asking me: ‘why didn’t we do that in five other places at the same time?’ I mean, that’s absurd.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on CBS News’ Face the Nation that the US will continue to place pressure on Venezuela by seizing Venezuelan oil shipment boats.
“There’s a quarantine right now in which sanctioned oil shipments, there’s a boat, and that boat is under US sanctions, we go get a court order, we will seize it,” Rubio said. “That remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that — not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one — but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed a desire to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves after ousting Maduro.
In December, the US government seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, considered by some analysts to be an act of piracy. Trump then said that the US would keep or sell the seized Venezuelan oil.
During Trump’s press conference on Saturday, he said that Venezuela had stolen oil that belongs to the US, despite oil being in Venezuelan territory.
US senator Chris Murphy, questioned the Trump administration’s motives for abducting and removing Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro on CNN.
“If this is really just about the oil, if this is really just about the natural resources, if this is just about getting a bunch of Donald Trump’s friends even richer, I don’t think there is a single American family who would support having their son or daughter put into harm’s way to defend the interests of Wall Street,” Murphy said. “This is once again American oil interests, American financial interests, coming before the actual national security interests of the United States.”
Chris Murphy, the US senator from Connecticut, criticized the Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela on CNN.
Murphy equated the US attacks on Venezuela and the abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to other US wars in other parts of the world.
“Over and over again we have seen these warmongering neocons, many of which have influence in this White House, cheerlead us into war under the guise of removing a ‘very bad man’,” Murphy said, likely referring to the long-running US wars in the Middle East. “That ends up getting a lot of Americans killed.”
Republican walks back Trump’s claim US will ‘run’ Venezuela
Ed Pilkington
Tom Cotton, the Republican chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted on CNN’s State of the Union that there were “still a lot of questions to be answered” about what happens next in Venezuela. He reined sharply back on Trump’s claim that the US would run the country, redefining that startling comment as meaning that the leadership would have to abide by US demands.
“The president wants to give them a chance to turn the page in Venezuela and to help America achieve our policy goals there,” he said. Cotton listed some of the US government’s demands, including: “we want them to stop the drug trafficking. We want them to kick out the Iranians, the Cubans, the Islamic radicals.”
“Just return to being a normal nation that will help build stability, order and prosperity, not just in Venezuela, but in our backyard,” Cotton added.
Cotton also gave a more lukewarm assessment of Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez, whom Trump has indicated the US could possibly work with. “We don’t recognize Delcy Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela,” the senator said.
He added: “I don’t think that we can count on Delcy Rodriguez to be friendly to the United States until she proves it.”
Marco Rubio: ‘the Cuban government is a huge problem’
When asked by NBC News if the US will target the Cuban government next, Rubio said “the Cuban government is a huge problem” and when pressed on whether this remark meant yes, Rubio said: “I think they’re in a lot of trouble”.
He added:
I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard. But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime.
Cuba – one of Venezuela’s closest allies – has condemned the US attack as an “act of state terrorism” and is closely monitoring the situation in Caracas. The country, which relies heavily on Venezuelan oil, is in a deep economic crisis.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who Donald Trump has said will help “run” Venezuela, is speaking to the US media. We will bring you the latest lines as soon as we can. Here is a bit of what Rubio said to NBC News’ Meet the Press programme.
Asked how many American soldiers were in Venezuela, he confirmed there were no forces on the ground.
“We don’t have US forces on the ground,” Rubio said, adding that forces were in Venezuela “for about two hours when they went to capture Maduro” on Saturday.
Pope calls for Venezuela to remain independent of US
Pope Leo – the first American pontiff – said Venezuela must remain an independent country as he called for respect of human rights after Nicolás Maduro’s capture by the US.
Addressing crowds at the Vatican after Sunday prayer, the Pope – who spent years as a missionary in Peru – said: “The good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over any other consideration.”
That must “lead to overcoming violence and embarking on paths of justice and peace, guaranteeing the sovereignty of the country, ensuring the rule of law enshrined in the constitution, respecting the human and civil rights of each and every person, and working together to build a peaceful future of collaboration, stability, and harmony, with special attention to the poorest who are suffering because of the difficult economic situation”.
What we know so far
Rachel Hall
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A plane believed to have been carrying Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, landed in New York on Saturday evening. Maduro was taken to the US Drug Enforcement Administration offices and is now believed to be at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
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CBS News reported that Maduro arrived at the MDC at about 8:52pm ET on Saturday, where he was filmed making a “perp walk” handcuffed and escorted by agents in a video posted on social media by the White House’s official rapid response account. In the video, Maduro, who is wearing a black hooded top and hat, walks down a hallway with a carpet that says “DEA NYD”. He can be heard saying “Goodnight” and “Happy new year”.
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Donald Trump told a press conference on Saturday “We’re going to run the country (Venezuela) until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”. He did not give further details.
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A newly unsealed US justice department indictment accuses Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fuelled by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tons of cocaine.
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The US is going to be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry after the military operation, Trump said. “We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it.”
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Trump said his administration had not spoken to Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader María Corina Machado. He said he did not think she would be able to return to lead Venezuela, saying: “She does not have the support in Venezuela. She is a very nice woman but she does not have the support.”
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Venezuela’s supreme court has ordered vice president Delcy Rodríguez to assume the role of acting president in Maduro’s absence.
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Asked about Trump’s comment that the US will “run” Venezuela temporarily, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS News: “President Trump sets the terms … But it means the drugs stop flowing. It means the oil that was taken from us is returned, ultimately, and that criminals are not sent to the United States.”
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The UN security council is due to hold an emergency meeting on Monday.
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The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is deeply alarmed by US military action in Venezuela, his spokesperson has said, and considered the US intervention “a dangerous precedent”.
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The New York Times reported that at least 40 people, including civilians and soldiers, were killed in Saturday’s attack. The estimate came from a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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Global reaction has been filtering in over the day. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been urged by opposition parties to condemn the US military action in Venezuela, but he has so far refused. The former US vice president, Kamala Harris, has posted to X to say the American actions in Venezuela were “unlawful and unwise” moves that “do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable”. North Korea has reportedly condemned the US’s capture of Nicolás Maduro as a “serious encroachment of sovereignty”. Spain – which has the largest Venezuelan diaspora outside of the US – has condemned what it called a violation of international law.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s failure to condemn the US’ actions in Venezuela “speaks volumes”, according to Philippe Sands KC, a specialist in international law who served as a prosecutor for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after he was arrested in London in 1998.
He said:
The action against Venezuela is manifestly illegal under international law, and cannot plausibly or by any reasonable standard be characterised as a law enforcement action. What now is the plan? One need only to think of Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Libya, amongst others, to imagine what the consequences might be, and the encouragement it will surely give to others to act with such brazen disregard for the international legal norms that bind us all.
Equally worrisome is the failure of others to condemn. The apparent silence of the British prime minister speaks volumes. Having lived through the catastrophe and criminality of the Iraq war in 2003, which Mr Trump himself has condemned, I would hope that Keir Starmer sticks to the principles of legality to which he says he is so firmly committed.
Here are some images from the protest against the US strike on Venezuela, held outside the US embassy in Madrid this afternoon.
Spain has condemned what it called a violation of international law in Venezuela, the country’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez wrote in a letter sent to members of his Socialist Party.
Reuters reports:
Sanchez’ comments went further than his remarks on Saturday in which he said he would not recognise the intervention. lHis etter described the “violation of international law in Venezuela, an act that we strongly condemn”.
The Socialists’ hard-left coalition partner Sumar had urged the government to condemn the US strikes that resulted in the Venezuelan president’s capture, with party sources describing it as an act of imperialist piracy against a member state of the United Nations.
Spain is home to the largest Venezuelan migrant population outside Latin America and the US, and they include senior opposition figures such as Edmundo Gonzalez and Leopoldo Lopez.
On Sunday, hundreds of left-wing protesters demonstrated at the US embassy in Madrid to oppose Washington’s actions after thousands of opposition activists and others gathered at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on Saturday to celebrate Maduro’s detention.
Jillian Ambrose
The Guardian’s energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose has written a helpful explainer on the role the US could play in Venezuela’s oil industry.
Experts told her that lifting production to former levels could take decades and that huge investment was needed.
Under the new regime, US oil companies could follow the playbook used in many developing nations by partnering with the state oil company, PDVSA, to develop and produce crude in exchange for a share of the profits. The parlous financial state of PDVSA means US companies are likely to be able to negotiate a good return on their investments.
But even with a united effort of the US president and some of the world’s biggest oil companies, success is not guaranteed.
Read more here:
Aram Roston
The superseding federal indictment unsealed against Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday immediately after his capture appears to embrace controversial claims made by the Trump administration about a Venezuelan street gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), writes the Guardian’s senior political enterprise reporter Aram Roston.
The new indictment doesn’t spell out precisely what Maduro’s connection would be to TdA. Instead, it says Maduro and others “partnered with narco-terrorists”, including TdA.
Read more here:
Celebrations and protests take place around the world after US strikes on Venezuela – video
Venezuelans around the world have celebrated after the US government captured and removed the authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro. Over recent years, million of Venezuelans have fled the country, driven out by a mixture of widespread shortages and intense political repression.
After hearing the dramatic news of the US attack, crowds of people gathered in countries including Argentina, Chile and Colombia, to wave flags, sing songs and dance in jubilation, while others gathered to condemn the US government’s strikes on Venezuela and voiced opposition to military action.
Here is some video showing the differing moods on the streets:
