United States

The UN human rights office says the US military intervention that ousted Venezuela’s leader violates international law and the UN Charter, warning it undermines global security and risks worsening human rights. It says Venezuela’s future must be decided by its people.

Washington, DC – It has become a familiar pattern. United States presidents conduct unilateral military actions abroad. Congress shrugs.

On Saturday, in the hours after the US military abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Democrats in the Senate pledged to raise yet another resolution to rein in US President Donald Trump’s military actions.

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, has said the party will push for a vote within the week. By all accounts, the odds of its success remain long.

Since Trump took office for a second term in 2025, Congress has weighed multiple bills that would force him to seek legislative approval before initiating a military strike.

But the latest attack on Venezuela offers a stark instance of presidential overreach, one that is “crying out for congressional action”, according to David Janovsky, the acting director of the Constitution Project at the Project on Government Oversight.

Experts say it is also one of the clearest tests in recent history of whether Congress will continue to cede its authority to check US military engagement abroad.

“There are a lot of angles where you can come at this to say why it’s a clear-cut case,” Janovsky told Al Jazeera.

He pointed out that, under the US Constitution, Congress alone wields the authority to allow military action. He also noted that the Venezuela attack “is in direct contravention of the UN Charter, which is, as a treaty, law in the United States”.

“Any of the fig leaves that presidents have used in the past to justify unilateral military action just don’t apply here,” Janovsky added. “This is particularly brazen.”

An uphill battle

Since August, the Trump administration has signalled plans to crank up its “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela.

That month, Trump reportedly signed a secret memo calling on the US military to prepare for action against criminal networks abroad. Then, on September 2, the Trump administration began conducting dozens of strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats off the Venezuelan and Colombian coasts.

That deadly bombing campaign was itself condemned as a violation of international law and an affront to Congress’s constitutional powers. It coincided with a build-up of US military assets near Venezuela.

Trump also dropped hints that the US military campaign could quickly expand to alleged drug-trafficking targets on Venezuelan soil. “When they come by land, we’re going to be stopping them the same way we stopped the boats,” Trump said on September 16.

The strikes prompted two recent votes in the House of Representatives in December: one that would require congressional approval for any land strikes on the South American country, and one that would force Trump to seek approval for strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats.

Both resolutions, however, failed roughly along party lines. A similar resolution in the Senate, which would have required congressional approval before any more attacks, also fell short in November.

But speaking to reporters in a phone call just hours after the US operation on Saturday, Senator Tim Kaine said he hoped the brashness of Trump’s latest actions in Venezuela would shock lawmakers into action.

Republicans, he said, can no longer tell themselves that Trump’s months-long military build-up in the Caribbean and his repeated threats are a “bluff” or a “negotiating tactic”.

“It’s time for Congress to get its a** off the couch and do what it’s supposed to do,” Kaine said.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, US Senator Chris Murphy also agreed that it was “true” that Congress had become impotent on matters of war, a phenomenon that has spanned both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Bash pointed to former President Barack Obama’s 2011 military deployment to Libya, which went unchecked by Congress.

“Congress needs to own its own role in allowing a presidency to become this lawless,” Murphy responded.

Republicans ho-hum about resolutions

Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war, something it has not done since World War II.

Instead, lawmakers have historically passed Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) to approve committing troops to recent wars, including the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the strikes on alleged al-Qaeda affiliates across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

No AUMFs have been passed that would relate to military action in Venezuela.

When lawmakers believe a president is acting beyond his constitutional power, they can pass a war powers resolution requiring Congressional approval for further actions.

Beyond their symbolism, such resolutions create a legal basis to challenge further presidential actions in the judiciary.

However, they carry a high bar for success, with a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress needed to override a presidential veto.

Given the current makeup of Congress, passage of a war powers resolution would likely require bipartisan support.

Republicans maintain narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, so it would be necessary for members of Trump’s own party to back a war powers resolution for it to be successful.

In November’s Senate vote, only two Republicans — co-sponsor Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska — split from their party to support the resolution. It failed by a margin of 51 to 49.

December’s vote on a parallel resolution in the House only earned 211 votes in favour, as opposed to 213 against. In that case, three Republicans broke from their party to support the resolution, and one Democrat opposed it.

But Trump’s abduction of Maduro has so far only received condemnation from a tiny fragment of his party.

Overall, the response from elected Republicans has been muted. Even regular critics of presidential adventurism have instead focused on praising the ouster of the longtime Venezuelan leader, who has been accused of numerous human rights abuses.

Senator Todd Young, a Republican considered on the fence ahead of November’s war powers vote, has praised Maduro’s arrest, even as he contended the Trump administration owed Congress more details.

“We still need more answers, especially to questions regarding the next steps in Venezuela’s transition,” Young said.

Some Democrats have also offered careful messaging in the wake of the operation.

That included Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat who represents a large Venezuelan diaspora community in Florida.

In a statement on Saturday, Wasserman Schultz focused on the implications of Maduro’s removal, while avoiding any mention of the military operation that enabled it. Instead, she asserted that Trump owed Congress an explanation about next steps.

“He has failed to explain to Congress or the American people how he plans to prevent the regime from reconstituting itself under Maduro’s cronies or stop Venezuela from falling into chaos,” she wrote.

In December, however, Wasserman Schultz did join a group of Florida Democrats in calling for Congress to exercise its oversight authority as Trump built up military pressure on Venezuela.

What comes next?

For its part, the Trump administration has not eased up on its military threats against Venezuela, even as it has sought to send the message that Maduro’s abduction was a matter of law enforcement, not the start of a war.

Trump has also denied, once again, that he needed congressional approval for any further military action. Still, in a Monday interview with NBC News, he expressed optimism about having Congress’s backing.

“We have good support congressionally,” he told NBC. “Congress knew what we were doing all along, but we have good support congressionally. Why wouldn’t they support us?”

Since Saturday’s attack and abduction, Trump has warned that a “second wave” of military action could be on the horizon for Venezuela.

That threat has extended to the potential for the forced removal of Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, who was formally sworn in as the country’s interim president on Monday.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine.

The administration has also said that strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela will continue and that US military assets will remain deployed in the region.

Constitutional expert Janovsky, however, believes that this is a critical moment for Congress to act.

Failure to rein in Trump would only further reinforce a decades-long trend of lawmakers relinquishing their oversight authorities, he explained. That, in turn, offers tacit support for the presidency’s growing power over the military.

“To say this was a targeted law enforcement operation — and ignore the ongoing situation — would be a dangerous abdication of Congress as a central check on how the United States military is used,” Janovsky said.

“Continued congressional inaction does nothing but empower presidents to act however they want,” he added.

“To see Congress continue to step back ultimately just removes the American people even farther from where these decisions are actually being made.”

The Panama Canal has become the focus of increased US pressure as the Trump administration tries to curb Venezuelan oil shipments. Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo breaks it down.

Leading medical groups in the United States have raised alarm after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of cutting the number of vaccines it recommends for children.

Monday’s sweeping decision, which advances the agenda of Trump-appointed Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr, removes the recommendation for rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease and hepatitis A vaccines for children.

It comes as US vaccination rates have been slipping, and the rates of diseases that can be protected against with vaccines, such as measles and whooping cough, are rising across the country, according to government data.

“This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health,” Kennedy said in a statement on Monday.

In response, the American Medical Association (AMA) said it was “deeply concerned by recent changes to the childhood immunisation schedule that affects the health and safety of millions of children”.

“Vaccination policy has long been guided by a rigorous, transparent scientific process grounded in decades of evidence showing that vaccines are safe, effective, and lifesaving,” Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, a doctor and AMA trustee, said in a statement posted on the group’s website.

She pointed out that major policy changes needed “careful review” and transparency, which are lacking in the CDD’s decision.

“When longstanding recommendations are altered without a robust, evidence-based process, it undermines public trust and puts children at unnecessary risk of preventable disease,” she said.

The change was effective immediately and carried out following the approval by another Trump appointee, CDC acting director Jim O’Neill, without the agency’s usual outside expert review.

The changes were made by political appointees, without any evidence that the current recommendations were harming children, Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said.

“It’s so important that any decision about the US childhood vaccination schedule should be grounded in evidence, transparency and established scientific processes, not comparisons that overlook critical differences between countries or health systems,” he told journalists.

Protections against those diseases are only recommended for certain groups deemed high risk, or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making”, the new CDC guidance stated.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren.

But CDC requirements often influence the state regulations, even as some states have begun creating their own alliances to counter the Trump administration’s guidance on vaccines.

Kennedy, the US health secretary, is a longtime vaccine sceptic.

In May, Kennedy announced that the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women, a move immediately questioned by public health experts who saw no new data to justify the change.

In June, Kennedy fired an entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee, later installing several of his own replacements, including multiple vaccine sceptics.

In August, he announced that the US is to cut funding for mRNA vaccine development, a move health experts say is “dangerous” and could make the US much more vulnerable to future outbreaks of respiratory viruses like COVID-19.

Kennedy in November also personally directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying any new evidence to support the change.

Trump, reacting to the latest CDC decision on his Truth Social platform, said the new schedule is “far more reasonable” and “finally aligns the United States with other Developed Nations around the World”.

Denmark and Mexico, also threatened by US President Donald Trump, warn that the US violated international law.

Members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), including key US allies, have warned that the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife by US special forces could be a precedent-setting event for international law.

The 15-member bloc met for an emergency meeting on Monday in New York City, where the Venezuelan pair were also due to face drug trafficking charges in a US federal court.

Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, condemned the US operation as “an illegitimate armed attack lacking any legal justification”, in remarks echoed by Cuba, Colombia and permanent UNSC members Russia and China.

“[The US] imposes the application of its laws outside its own territory and far from its coasts, where it has no jurisdiction, using assaults and the appropriation of assets,” Cuba’s ambassador, Ernesto Soberon Guzman, said, adding that such measures negatively affected Cuba.

Russia’s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the US cannot “proclaim itself as some kind of a supreme judge, which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments irrespective of notions of international law, sovereignty and non-intervention”.

Notable critics at the emergency session included traditional US allies, Mexico and Denmark, both of whom Trump has separately threatened with military action over the past year.

Mexico’s ambassador, Hector Vasconcelos, said that the council had an “obligation to act decisively and without double standards” towards the US, and it was for “sovereign peoples to decide their destinies,” according to a UN readout.

His remarks come just days after Trump told reporters that “something will have to be done about Mexico” and its drug cartels, following Maduro’s abduction.

Denmark, a longstanding US security ally, said that “no state should seek to influence political outcomes in Venezuela through the use of threat of force or through other means inconsistent with international law.”

“The inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation,” Denmark’s ambassador, Christina Markus Lassen, told the council in an oblique reference to Trump’s threat that the US would annex Greenland, a self-governed Danish territory.

France, another permanent member of the UNSC, also criticised the US, marking a shift in tone from French President Emmanuel Macron’s initial remarks that Venezuelans “can only rejoice” following Maduro’s abduction.

“The military operation that has led to the capture of Maduro runs counter to the principle of peaceful dispute resolution and runs counter to the principle of non-use of force,” said the French deputy ambassador, Jay Dharmadhikari.

Representatives from Latvia and the United Kingdom, another permanent UNSC member, focused on the conditions in Venezuela created by Maduro’s government.

Latvia’s ambassador, Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes, said that Maduro’s conditions in Venezuela posed “a grave threat to the security of the region and the world”, citing mass repression, corruption, organised crime and drug trafficking.

The UK ambassador, James Kariuki, said that “Maduro’s claim to power was fraudulent”.

The US ambassador, Mike Waltz, characterised the abduction of Maduro and his wife as a “surgical law enforcement operation facilitated by the US military against two indicted fugitives of American justice”.

The White House defended its wave of air strikes on Venezuela, and in the waters near it, and Maduro’s abduction as necessary to protect US national security, amid unproven claims that Maduro backed “narcoterrorist” drug cartels.

One in three Americans opposes the Venezuelan leader’s abduction by US forces, a poll shows, while others are unsure.

Americans are evenly split in their support for the US military operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an opinion poll has found.

Thirty-three percent of Americans support Maduro’s abduction, compared with 34 percent who are against it and 32 percent who are not sure, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Monday.

Supporters of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party are much more likely to support the military operation, with 65 percent in favour, compared with 11 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of independents.

On the question of who should govern Venezuela, Americans lean against Washington taking control of the country, according to the poll.

Forty-three percent oppose Washington governing Venezuela until a new government is established in Caracas, compared with 34 percent in favour and 20 percent who are unsure.

Americans lean against the US stationing troops in Venezuela – 47 percent to 30 percent – according to the poll.

More Americans than not also oppose the Trump administration taking control of Venezuela’s oil fields, with 46 percent against the idea and 30 percent in favour.

On the question of whether the US could become “too involved” in the Latin American country, 72 percent are very or somewhat concerned.

Trump said on Saturday that the US would “run” Venezuela, though officials in his administration have sought to downplay the prospect of Washington occupying the country.

On Sunday, Trump threatened further military action against Venezuela if it “doesn’t behave”.

Maduro, who was abducted in a raid by US special forces over the weekend, on Monday made his first court appearance to face charges related to “narcoterrorism”, drug trafficking and weapons possession.

Maduro pleaded not guilty to all charges, declaring himself the victim of a kidnapping and a “decent man”.

“I am still president of my country,” Maduro told a US federal court in New York through an interpreter.

Maduro, his wife, Cilia Flores, son Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, and three others face the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

On Monday, Maduro’s deputy, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president.

“I come with pain over the kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said during a swearing-in ceremony at Venezuela’s National Assembly.

Delcy Rodriguez, formerly Venezuela’s vice president, has been formally sworn in to lead the South American country following the abduction of Nicolas Maduro in a United States military operation.

On Monday, Rodriguez appeared before Venezuela’s National Assembly to take her oath of office.

Speaking before the legislative body, composed largely of government loyalists, Rodriguez reaffirmed her opposition to the military attack that led to the capture and removal of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

“I come with pain over the kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage: President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez, 56, told the assembly.

“I swear to work tirelessly to guarantee the peace, spiritual, economic and social tranquillity of our people.”

A former labour lawyer, Rodriguez has been serving as acting president since the early-morning attack that resulted in the abduction. Explosions were reported before dawn on Saturday in the capital, Caracas, as well as at nearby Venezuelan military bases and some civilian areas.

Monday’s swearing-in ceremony was overseen by Rodriguez’s brother – the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez – and Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, who held a copy of the Venezuelan Constitution.

Other members of Maduro’s inner circle, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino, were also in attendance.

The ceremony took place as Maduro, her predecessor and former boss, faced an arraignment proceeding in a New York City courthouse.

Federal prosecutors in the US have charged Maduro with four counts related to allegations he leveraged government powers to export thousands of tonnes of cocaine to North America.

The charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, the illegal possession of machine guns and other destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess such guns and devices.

Maduro and his wife have pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their allies, including Rodriguez, have denounced the pair’s abduction as a violation of international law, as well as Venezuelan sovereignty.

In court on Monday, Maduro maintained he remained the rightful leader of Venezuela, saying, “I am still president.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump, however, has signalled that it plans to work with Rodriguez for the time being, though Trump himself warned that her tenure as president could be cut short, should she fail to abide by US demands.

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in a Sunday morning interview.

A day earlier, in a televised address announcing the attack, Trump had said his administration plans “to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition”.

On Air Force One on Sunday, as he flew back to Washington, DC, Trump doubled down on that statement.

“Don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer that will be very controversial. We’re in charge,” he told reporters.

He added that Rodriguez is “cooperating” and that, while he personally has not spoken to her, “we’re dealing with the people who just got sworn in”.

The Trump administration’s seeming willingness to allow Rodriguez, a former labour lawyer, to remain in charge has raised eyebrows.

Rodriguez, who served as vice president since 2018, is known to be a stalwart “chavista”: an adherent of the left-wing political movement founded by Maduro’s mentor, the late Hugo Chavez. She has held various ministerial roles under Maduro, including leading the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But Trump’s allies in the Republican Party have argued that keeping Rodriguez in place is simply a practical reality.

“We don’t recognise Delcy Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela. We didn’t recognise Nicolas Maduro as a legitimate ruler,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton told CNN on Sunday.

“It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned officials are in Venezuela. They have control over the military and security services. We have to deal with that fact. That does not make them a legitimate leader.”

While on Air Force One, Trump largely avoided committing to new elections in Venezuela, indicating he would instead focus on “fixing” the country and allowing US oil companies access to its vast petroleum reserves.

One reporter on the aeroplane asked, “How soon can an election take place?”

“Well, I think we’re looking more at getting it fixed, getting it ready first, because it’s a mess. The country is a mess,” Trump replied. “It’s been horribly run. The oil is just flowing at a very low level.”

He later added, “We’re going to run everything. We’re going to run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time. But the main thing you have to fix: It’s a broken country. There’s no money.”

Recent presidential elections in Venezuela have been widely denounced as fraudulent, with Maduro claiming victory in each one.

The contested 2018 election, for example, led to the US briefly recognising opposition leader Juan Guaido as president, instead of Maduro.

Later, Maduro also claimed victory for a third term in office during the 2024 presidential race, despite election regularities.

The official vote tally was not released, and the opposition published documents that appeared to show that Maduro’s rival, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won. Protests erupted on Venezuela’s streets, and the nonprofit Human Rights Watch reported that more than 2,000 protesters were unlawfully detained, with at least 25 dead in apparent extrajudicial killings.

The opposition has largely boycotted legislative elections in Venezuela, denouncing them as rigged in favour of “chavistas”.

Monday’s swearing-in ceremony included the 283 members of the National Assembly elected last May. Few opposition candidates were among them.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is planning to meet with executives from US oil companies later this week to discuss boosting Venezuelan oil production after US forces abducted its leader, Nicolas Maduro, the Reuters news agency has reported, citing unnamed sources.

The meetings are crucial to the administration’s hopes of getting top US oil companies back into the South American nation after its government, nearly two decades ago, took control of US-led energy operations there, the Reuters news agency report said on Monday.

The three biggest US oil companies – Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron – have not yet had any conversations with the Trump administration about Maduro’s ouster, according to four oil industry executives familiar with the matter, contradicting Trump’s statements over the weekend that he had already held meetings with “all” the US oil companies, both before and since Maduro was abducted.

“Nobody in those three companies has had conversations with the White House about operating in Venezuela, pre-removal or post-removal, to this point,” one of the sources said on Monday.

The upcoming meetings will be crucial to the administration’s hopes to boost crude oil production and exports from Venezuela, a former OPEC nation that sits atop the world’s largest reserves, and whose crude oil can be refined by specially designed US refineries. Achieving that goal will require years of work and billions of dollars of investment, analysts say.

It is unclear what executives will be attending the upcoming meetings, and whether oil companies will be attending individually or collectively.

The White House did not comment on the meetings, but said it believed the US oil industry was ready to flood into Venezuela.

“All of our oil companies are ready and willing to make big investments in Venezuela that will rebuild their oil infrastructure, which was destroyed by the illegitimate Maduro regime,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

One oil industry executive told Reuters the companies would be reluctant to talk about potential Venezuela operations in group settings with the White House, citing antitrust concerns that limit collective discussions among competitors about investment plans, timing and production levels.

Political risks, low oil prices

US forces on Saturday conducted a raid on Venezuela’s capital, arresting Maduro in the dead of night and sending him back to the US to face narcoterrorism charges.

Hours after Maduro’s abduction, Trump said he expects the biggest US oil companies to spend billions of dollars boosting Venezuela’s oil production, after it dropped to about a third of its peak over the past two decades due to underinvestment and sanctions.

But those plans will be hindered by a lack of infrastructure, along with deep uncertainty over the country’s political future, legal framework and long-term US policy, according to industry analysts.

“While the Trump administration has suggested large US oil companies will go into Venezuela and spend billions to fix infrastructure, we believe political and other risks, along with current relatively low oil prices, could prevent this from happening anytime soon,” wrote Neal Dingmann of William Blair in a note.

Material change to Venezuelan production will take a lot of time and millions of dollars of infrastructure improvement, he said.

And any investment in Venezuelan infrastructure right now would take place in a weakened global energy market. Crude prices in the US are down by 20 percent compared with last year. The price for a barrel of benchmark US crude has not been above $70 since June, and has not touched $80 per barrel since June of 2024.

A barrel of oil cost more than $130 in the leadup to the US housing crisis in 2008.

Chevron is the only US major currently operating in Venezuela’s oil fields.

Exxon and ConocoPhillips, meanwhile, had storied histories in the country before their projects were nationalised nearly two decades ago by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Conoco has been seeking billions of dollars in restitution for the takeover of three oil projects in Venezuela under Chavez. Exxon was involved in lengthy arbitration cases against Venezuela after it exited the country in 2007.

Chevron, which exports about 150,000 barrels per day of crude from Venezuela to the US Gulf Coast, meanwhile, has had to carefully manoeuvre with the Trump administration in an effort to maintain its presence in the country in recent years.

A US embargo on Venezuelan oil remained in full effect, Trump has said.

The S&P 500 energy index rose to its highest since March 2025, with heavyweights Exxon Mobil rising by 2.2 percent and Chevron jumping by 5.1 percent.

WASHINGTON — Venezuela risks “a second strike” if its interim government doesn’t acquiesce to U.S. demands. Cuba is “ready to fall,” and Colombia is “very sick, too.”

Iran may get “hit very hard” if its government cracks down on protesters. And Denmark risks U.S. intervention, as well, because “we need Greenland,” President Trump said.

In just 37 minutes while speaking with reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One, Trump threatened to attack five countries, both allies and adversaries, with the might of the U.S. military — an extraordinary turn for a president who built his political career rejecting traditional conservative views on the exercise of American power and vowing to put America first.

The president’s threats come as a third of the U.S. naval fleet remains stationed in the Caribbean, after Trump launched a daring attack on Venezuela that seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife over the weekend.

The goal, U.S. officials said, was to show the Venezuelan government and the wider world what the American military is capable of — and to compel partners and foes alike to adhere to Trump’s demands through intimidation, rather than commit the U.S. military to more complex, conventional, long-term engagements.

It is the deployment of overwhelming and spectacular force in surgical military operations — Maduro’s capture, last year’s strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, assassinations of Islamic State leadership and Iran’s top general in Iraq — that demonstrate Trump as a brazen leader willing to risk war, thereby effectively avoiding it, one Trump administration official said, explaining the president’s strategic thinking.

Yet experts and former Trump aides warn the president’s approach risks miscalculation, alienating vital allies and emboldening U.S. competitors.

At a Security Council meeting Monday at the United Nations in New York — called by Colombia, a long-standing and major non-North Atlantic Treaty Oranization ally to the United States — Trump’s moves were widely condemned. “Violations of the U.N. Charter,” a French diplomat told the council, “chips away at the very foundation of international order.”

Even the envoy from Russia, which has cultivated historically strong ties with the Trump administration, said the White House operation was an act of “banditry,” marking “a return to the era of illegality and American dominance through force, chaos and lawlessness.”

Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark with vast natural resources, drew particular concern across Europe on Monday, with leaders across the continent warning the United States against an attack that would violate the sovereignty of a NATO ally and European Union member state.

“That’s enough now,” Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said after Trump told reporters that his attention would turn to the world’s largest island in a matter of weeks.

“If the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop,” Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, told local press. “That includes NATO, and therefore, post-World War II security.”

Trump also threatened to strike Iran, where anti-government protests have spread throughout the country in recent days. Trump had previously said the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” if Iranian security forces begin firing on protesters, “which is their custom.”

“The United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump wrote on social media on Jan. 2, hours before launching the Venezuela mission. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

In Colombia, there was widespread outrage after Trump threatened military action against leftist President Gustavo Petro, whom Trump accused, without evidence, of running “cocaine mills and cocaine factories.”

Petro is a frequent critic of the American president and has slammed as illegal a series of lethal U.S. airstrikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.

“Stop slandering me,” Petro wrote on X, warning that any U.S. attempts against his presidency “will unleash the people’s fury.”

Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, said he would go to war to defend Colombia.

“I swore not to touch a weapon again,” he said. “But for the homeland, I will take up arms.”

Trump’s threats have strained relations with Colombia, a devoted U.S. ally. For decades, the countries have shared military intelligence, a robust trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.

Even some of Petro’s domestic critics have comes to his defense. Presidential candidate Juan Manuel Galán, who opposes Petro’s rule, said Colombia’s sovereignty “must be defended.”

“Colombia is not Venezuela,” Galán wrote on X. “It is not a failed state, and we will not allow it to be treated as such. Here we have institutions, democracy and sovereignty that must be defended.”

The president of Mexico, another longtime U.S. ally and its largest trading partner, has also spoken out forcefully against the American operation in Caracas, and said the Trump administration’s aggressive foreign policy in Latin America threatens the stability of the region.

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said in her daily news conference Monday. “The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: Intervention has never brought democracy, has never generated well-being or lasting stability.”

She addressed Trump’s comments over the weekend that drugs were “pouring” through Mexico, and that the United States was “going to have to do something.”

Trump has been threatening action against cartels for months, with some members of his administration suggesting that the United States may soon carry out drone strikes on drug laboratories and other targets inside Mexican territory. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said such strikes would be a clear violation of Mexican sovereignty.

“Sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples are non-negotiable,” she said. “They are fundamental principles of international law and must always be respected without exception.”

Cuba also rejected Trump’s threat of a military intervention there, after Trump’s secretary of State, Marco Rubio, himself the descendant of Cuban immigrants, suggested that Havana may be next in Washington’s crosshairs.

“We call on the international community to stop this dangerous, aggressive escalation and to preserve peace,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel posted on social media.

The U.S. attacks on Venezuela, and Trump’s threats of additional military ventures, have caused deep unease in a relatively peaceful region that has seen fewer interstate wars in recent decades than Europe, Asia or Africa.

It also caused unease among some Trump supporters, who remembered his pledge to get the United States out of “endless” military conflicts for good.

“I was the first president in modern times,” Trump said, accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, “to start no new wars.”

Wilner reported from Washington and Linthicum from Mexico City.

Venezuelan state TV footage shows Vice President Delcy Rodriguez being formally sworn in as interim president in Caracas days after President Nicolas Maduro was abducted to face narco-terrorism charges in New York.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – recently abducted with his wife by US commandos from his home – has appeared in a federal courtroom in New York City for a hearing on alleged “narco-terrorism” and other charges.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were brought before US District Judge Alvin K Hellerstein at 12pm (17:00 GMT) on Monday for a brief legal proceeding that kicks off a long legal battle over whether they can face trial in the United States.

Handcuffed and wearing blue jail uniforms, Maduro and his wife were led into the court by officers, and both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish.

Maduro pleaded not guilty in the US court, telling the judge: “I was captured. I am innocent and a decent man, the president of my country.”

Across the street from the courthouse, the police separated a small but growing group of protesters from about a dozen pro-intervention demonstrators, including one man who pulled a Venezuelan flag away from those protesting the US abduction.

The left-wing leader, his wife, son and three others could face life in prison if convicted of allegedly working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the country. Some observers say there is no evidence linking him to cartels.

Maduro’s lawyers said they’ll contest the legality of his arrest, arguing he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of a foreign state, though he is not recognised as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by the US and other nations around the world.

Flores also pleaded not guilty to US charges against her during the arraignment. Hellerstein ordered the Venezuelan leader to next appear in court for a hearing on March 17.

‘Attacks’ against US people

Near the end of the hearing, Maduro’s attorney Barry J Pollack said his client “is head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege” that the status ensures.

Pollack said there were “questions about the legality of his military abduction”, and there will be “voluminous” pretrial filings to address those legal challenges.

Earlier, images showed the pair being led handcuffed and under heavy guard from a helicopter en route from a detention facility to the courthouse, two days after they were forcibly removed from Caracas in a brazen US special forces operation.

“The United States arrested a narco-trafficker who is now going to stand trial in the United States,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told an emergency UN Security Council meeting about the US attack on Venezuela on Saturday.

Waltz accused Maduro of being “responsible for attacks against the people of the United States, for destabilising the Western Hemisphere, and illegitimately repressing the people of Venezuela”.

Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, accused the US of carrying out an illegal armed attack against his country.

Venezuela was subjected to bombing, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the loss of civilian and military lives, and the “kidnapping” of Maduro and his wife, Moncada said.

The abduction of a sitting head of state breached a core norm of international law, the personal immunity of leaders in office, he added, warning that such actions set a dangerous precedent for all countries.

Vast oil wealth

All eyes are on Venezuela’s response to the swiftly moving events after US President Donald Trump said late on Sunday that the US is “in charge” of the South American nation, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who took the place of her ally Maduro, initially took a defiant stand against the seizure of the president in what some observers labelled a return to “US gunboat diplomacy”. But she has now offered “to collaborate” with Washington.

Venezuela’s opposition appreciates US intervention to remove Maduro from power, but is alarmed by Trump’s comments about US plans to “run” Venezuela, apparently with members of his government, one analyst said.

“Trump doesn’t recognise the decision of the Venezuelan people. We are not a colony of the US. We are an independent country,” Jose Manuel Puente, a professor at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion, a private university in Caracas, told Al Jazeera.

“We want to initiate a transition to democracy, to rebuild the institutions, to rebuild the economy, to rebuild the oil sector. And we don’t see that from Trump until now.”

Rodriguez has served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, overseeing much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and its feared intelligence service, and was next in the presidential line of succession.

She’s part of a band of senior officials in Maduro’s administration who now appear to control Venezuela, even as Trump and other US officials say they’ll pressure the government to fall in line with their vision for the oil-rich nation.

On Sunday, some 2,000 Maduro supporters, including rifle-wielding men on motorcycles, rallied in Caracas with crowds shouting and waving Venezuelan flags. The Venezuelan military, loyal to Maduro, announced it recognised Rodriguez and urged calm.

The White House indicated on Sunday that it does not want regime change, only Maduro’s removal and a pliant new government that will enable US companies to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves – even if the government is filled with his former associates.

For many years before becoming president, Donald Trump publicly criticised the George W Bush administration over its decision to launch the war on Iraq. And yet, today, in his second term as president, he finds himself presiding over a military debacle that is quite reminiscent of Bush’s.

Trump ordered a military intervention to remove an antagonistic foreign leader, based on a flimsy argument of national security, with the goal of accessing that country’s oil. In both cases, we see a naive confidence that the United States can simply achieve its goals through regime change. US intervention into Venezuela reeks of the same hubris that surrounded the Iraq invasion two decades ago.

Yet there are also important differences to consider. The most important distinguishing feature of the operation in Venezuela is its lack of an overarching vision. On Saturday after Trump finished an hour-long news conference alongside his secretaries of defence and state, it was not clear what the plan was for Venezuela going forward, or if there was a plan at all. His statements threatening more attacks in the following days brought no clarity either.

Past instances of US-led regime change fit into the larger ideological visions of the incumbent US commander-in-chief. In 1823, President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to European colonialism. As the United States spent the 20th century consolidating its sphere of influence across the Americas, the Monroe Doctrine would justify various interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Cold War added new justifications for the United States to overthrow leftist regimes and install friendly governments in the Americas.

As the Cold War ended, President George HW Bush sought to serve as a caretaker for a “new world order” in which the US had emerged as the world’s lone superpower. When Bush sent troops to Somalia in 1992 and his successor Bill Clinton reversed a military coup in Haiti in 1994, they did so under the paradigm of “humanitarian intervention”. When George W Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, it was done under the umbrella of the post-9/11 “war on terror”. When President Barack Obama intervened against the forces of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, he was guided by the “responsibility to protect” doctrine concerning civilians in danger.

But in the case of the US attack on Venezuela, there has been no ideological justification. Trump and his team have haphazardly thrown around references to humanitarianism, counterterrorism and more to justify the attack. The president even brought up the Monroe Doctrine. But just as it seemed that he was grounding his foreign policy in a larger ideology, albeit one borrowed from two centuries ago, he made a joke of the concept.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal,” Trump explained on Saturday. “But we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine.” Trump did not make up this pun; it was used by the New York Post a year ago to describe Trump’s aggressive foreign policy as he threatened to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

The president’s decision to embrace the tongue-in-cheek term illustrates a disturbing reality of his foreign policy: Any notion that he is promoting an ideological vision is a joke.

The truth is Trump is pursuing an increasingly aggressive and militaristic foreign policy in his second term, not because he wants to impose a grand vision, but because he has discovered he can get away with it.

Striking a variety of foreign “bad guys” who have little capacity to fight back – ISIL (ISIS) affiliates in Nigeria who are “persecuting” Christians and “narcoterrorists” in Latin America – appeals to members of Trump’s base.

After he mentioned the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua during Saturday’s news conference, he went on a minutes-long tangent to brag about his military interventions into US cities. While the president’s inability to stay on topic may be concerning for those questioning his health and mental fitness, this digression into domestic affairs had some relevance for his Venezuelan intervention, at least as far as he was concerned: His increasingly militarised war on drugs and crime abroad justifies an increasingly militarised war on drugs and crime at home.

Past presidents have used US power to pursue a wide variety of ideologies and principles. Trump appears to be paying lip service to past ideologies to justify the use of US power. Many times, the “good” intentions of previous  presidents paved the way to hellish outcomes for the peoples who found themselves on the receiving end of US intervention. But those intentions at least created a level of predictability and consistency for the foreign policies of various US administrations.

Trump, by contrast, seems driven solely by immediate political concerns and short-term prospects for glory and profit. If there is a saving grace of such an unprincipled foreign policy, it may be the ephemeral nature of interventions conducted without an overarching vision. An unprincipled approach to military intervention does not foster the kind of ideological commitment that has led other presidents to engage in long-term interventions like the Iraq occupation.

But it also means that Trump could conceivably use military intervention to settle any international dispute or to pursue any ostensibly profitable goal – say assuming control of Greenland from Denmark.

Last year, he decided tariffs were a potent tool for asserting his interests and started applying them almost indiscriminately on allies and adversaries alike. Now that Trump has grown comfortable using the US military to achieve a range of goals – profit, gunboat diplomacy, distraction from domestic scandals, etc – the danger is that he will grow similarly haphazard in his use of force.

That does not bode well for the US nor for the rest of the world. At a time when multiple global crises are overlapping – climate, conflict and impoverishment – the last thing the world needs is a trigger-happy superpower without a clear strategy or a day-after plan.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is to appear in a New York court on Monday, two days after he was abducted by US special forces in a military operation in Caracas.

The US military arrested Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Saturday and brought them to New York, where they face multiple federal charges, including drugs and weapons charges.

Here is more about Maduro’s scheduled court appearance:

When and where will it take place?

Maduro is to appear before a federal judge at noon (17:00 GMT).

The appearance is scheduled to happen in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in the Southern District of New York. Maduro is to appear before US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein.

A court spokesperson told NBC News that Flores, who is also listed as a defendant in a US indictment unsealed on Saturday, will appear in court on Monday as well.

What are the charges?

According to the indictment, the US accuses Maduro of being at the forefront of corruption to “use his illegally obtained authority” to “transport thousands of tons of cocaine” to the US with his coconspirators.

Additionally, the indictment alleges that Maduro has “tarnished” every public office he has held. It adds that Maduro “allows cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members”.

Maduro faces four counts:

• Count 1, narcoterrorism conspiracy: US prosecutors say Maduro and his coconspirators knowingly provided something of financial value to US-designated “foreign terrorist organizations” and their members. The indictment lists these organisations as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist rebel group that signed a peace deal in 2016 but has dissidents who refused to lay down their arms and are still involved in the drug trade; Segunda Marquetalia, the largest dissident FARC group; National Liberation Army, another leftist Colombian rebel group; Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel; Los Zetas/Cartel del Noreste, another Mexican drug cartel; and Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
• Count 2, cocaine importation conspiracy: It accuses Maduro and his codefendants of conspiring to manufacture, distribute and import cocaine into the US.
• Count 3, possession of machineguns and destructive devices: The indictment accuses the defendants of possessing, carrying and using machineguns in relation to the above drug‑trafficking counts.
• Count 4, conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices: It further accuses the defendants of conspiring to use, carry and possess those weapons in furtherance of drug trafficking.

The indictment also says Maduro and his codefendants should forfeit to the US government any proceeds and assets obtained from the alleged crimes.

Is there evidence for these charges?

There is little evidence that drugs are trafficked from Venezuela on a large scale. The 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report said global cocaine production hit a record of 3,708 tonnes, up nearly one‑third from 2022, with most coca cultivation taking place in Colombia, followed by Peru and Bolivia.

Trafficking routes into the US in 2023-2024 primarily passed through Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, not Venezuela, although it does serve as a minor transit corridor for Colombian cocaine moving into the eastern Caribbean.

Who is named in the indictment?

Maduro

Maduro, 63, who became Venezuela’s president in 2013, was declared the winner of 2024’s election. His re-election was rejected as fraudulent by the US and independent observers, such as the Carter Center. A UN expert panel said the 2024 vote failed to meet international standards.

Nine Latin American countries called for a review of the results with independent oversight.

Maduro defended the election results and accused his opponents of undermining the country’s sovereignty.

Since returning to the White House nearly a year ago, US President Donald Trump has expanded sanctions and punitive measures against Maduro and senior officials in his government.

The Trump administration ramped up military pressure starting in August when it deployed warships and thousand of its service members in the Caribbean near Venezuela. It has since carried out dozens of air strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats, killing more than 100 people.

Maduro has pushed back by mobilising Venezuelan military personnel.

During this time, the Caracas-based news network Globovision quoted Maduro as saying: “From the north, the empire has gone mad and, like a rotten rehash, has renewed its threats to the peace and stability of Venezuela.”

But a day before Saturday’s US attack on the country, Maduro had offered to hold talks to combat drug trafficking.

Flores

Flores, 69, has been married to Maduro since 2013.

Known as the “first combatant” rather than first lady, Flores is a veteran lawyer and politician who rose to prominence by defending future President Hugo Chavez after his failed 1992 coup. She helped secure his release and later became a key Chavismo figure and the first woman to preside over Venezuela’s National Assembly. Chavismo, which promotes socialism and anti-imperialist politics, is the political movement started by Chavez, Maduro’s mentor.

The indictment accuses Flores of joining Maduro’s cocaine importation conspiracy.

Other defendants

The indictment names four other people as Maduro’s coconspirators, namely Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister; Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, former Venezuelan interior minister; Nicolas Maduro Guerra, Maduro’s son and a Venezuelan politician; and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the leader of Tren de Aragua, which was designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the US in February. But most experts do not define Tren de Aragua as a “terrorist organisation”.

It is not clear yet who will represent Maduro, Flores and the other defendants.

Who is the judge?

Hellerstein was born in 1933 in New York. He was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by former President Bill Clinton.

He is likely on Monday to advise Maduro and Flores about their rights and ask them if they want to enter a plea.

What’s at stake?

Maduro’s freedom is primarily at stake. If convicted, he could face 30 years to life in prison.

“This is less about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela’s oil deposits,” Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera. “This is the number one target. Trump is not content with just allowing US oil firms to get concessions but to ‘run’ the country, which entails absolute and indefinite control over Venezuela’s resources.”

Venezuela’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily in the Orinoco Belt, a region in the eastern part of the country stretching across roughly 55,000sq km (21,235sq miles).

While the country is home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves – at an estimated 303 billion barrels as of 2023 – it earns only a fraction of the revenue it once did from exporting crude due to mismanagement and US sanctions.

Last month, Trump accused Venezuela in a post on his Truth Social platform of “stealing” US oil, land and other assets and using that oil to fund crime, “terrorism” and human trafficking.

Trump repeated his false claims after Maduro’s arrest. During a news conference on Saturday, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be carried out.

“Given the opposition of all South American states, save for Argentina, to US dominance in the region, Trump’s plan requires a vast military deployment. We need to see how countries like Brazil and Colombia react to this, including also BRICS,” said Bantekas from Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

In a joint statement released on Sunday, the governments of Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay said the US actions in Venezuela “constitute an extremely dangerous precedent for peace and regional security and endanger the civilian population”.

Was Maduro’s abduction legal?

This case is unusual because there are questions about how Maduro was captured and whether it was legal. Russia, China and other Venezuelan allies have accused the US of violating international law.

“If there was an armed conflict between Venezuela and the USA and, given that Maduro is the head of his country’s armed forces, then he would be a legitimate target,” Bantekas said.

“However, under the circumstances there is no armed conflict between the two countries and in the absence of an armed attack by Venezuela against the US, the latter’s invasion in Venezuela violates article 2(4) of the UN Charter, as does the abduction of the country’s President. It is a blatant act of aggression.”

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter bars UN members from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

A United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday will determine the legality of the US abduction of Maduro.

“Given that Maduro is already in US custody and in the USA, it is in the interests of all parties that he appear before a court. At the very least, Maduro can challenge the legality of his arrest and the jurisdiction of the court,” Bantekas said.

“The court itself has an obligation to decide if it has jurisdiction and as a preliminary issue decide whether Maduro enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution. If these issues are dispensed the court nonetheless finds that it has jurisdiction and that Maduro does not enjoy immunity, then the prosecutor must prove its case.”

What’s next?

The Trump administration has not explicitly stated a clear plan for Venezuela, with analysts saying the administration has sent out confusing signals.

In an interview with the NBC news channels on Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Washington will not govern Venezuela on a day-to-day basis besides enforcing an existing “oil quarantine”.

Rubio told ABC news on Sunday that the US had leverage over Venezuela and the US would “set the conditions” to ensure that Venezuela is no longer a “narco-trafficking paradise”.

But on Sunday, Trump told reporters that the US is ready to carry out a second military strike on Venezuela if its government refuses to cooperate with his plan to ‘resolve’ the situation there.

She could “pay a very big price” if she “does not do what’s right”, Trump said, refering Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodriguez.

During his Saturday conference, Trump said that Rodriguez told Rubio that she will do what the US needs her to. “She really doesn’t have a choice,” Trump had said.

In his first press conference after Maduro’s illegal abduction on Saturday, Trump ruled out the possibility of working with opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running in the 2024 presidential elections.

Machado, a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly, is seen as the most credible adversary of Maduro’s leftist government.

On Monday, Rodriguez, the interim leader, offered to cooperate with Trump. In a statement posted on social media, she invited Trump to “collaborate” and sought “respectful relations”.

“President Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war,” she wrote.

Her conciliatory tone came a day after she appeared on state TV declaring that Maduro was still Venezuela’s sole legitimate president.

United States President Donald Trump has promised to “take back” Venezuela’s oil reserves and unleash them onto the global market after abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

But exploiting the Latin American country’s vast reserves would face a host of big hurdles, from decrepit infrastructure and legal obstacles to leadership uncertainty in Caracas and an excess supply of oil in the global market, experts say.

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest known oil reserves – estimated to be some 303 billion barrels – but currently produces only a tiny fraction of global output. Its estimated output was 860,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, less than 1 percent of the world’s total, compared with 3.7 million bpd during peak production in 1970.

The oil sector’s decline has been blamed on the combined effects of US sanctions and years of underinvestment, mismanagement and corruption under Maduro and his left-wing predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

While the Trump administration could boost supply in the short term by lifting sanctions, restoring Venezuela’s output to anything near peak levels would require huge investment and likely take years, according to energy analysts.

‘Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in poor shape’

Oil prices moved only slightly in trading on Monday amid market expectations that output would remain largely unchanged for the foreseeable future.

“Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in poor shape overall, due to lack of maintenance for both equipment and oilfield wells,” Scott Montgomery, a global energy expert at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera.

“The state oil company, PDVSA, is well known to suffer from corruption and lack of expertise – many well-trained people have left the country to work elsewhere – and has been unable to invest in the country’s petroleum sector,” Montgomery added.

Thomas O’Donnell, an energy and geopolitical analyst based in Berlin, Germany, estimated that Venezuela could return to peak production in five to seven years in the “absolute best” circumstances, including a peaceful transfer of power.

“Longer term, if things are sorted out, yes, Venezuela can become one of the world’s biggest producers of oil. As far as how long that takes, that has all to do with the transition and what is put in place to manage that – both the country’s security and also to manage the investments,” O’Donnell told Al Jazeera.

Mixed messaging from Trump administration

Trump’s administration has provided conflicting messages on Washington’s exact plans for Venezuela and its oil reserves.

On Saturday, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela and that US oil companies were ready to invest billions of dollars to build up the country’s dilapidated infrastructure and “get the oil flowing”.

In interviews with US media on Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to downplay Trump’s remarks about controlling the country, saying the president was referring to “running policy” and his plans related to spurring private investment, “not securing the oilfields”.

Trump later on Sunday said Washington was “in charge” of the country and was “dealing with” members of the acting administration without providing details.

Under international law, the US has no claim of ownership over Venezuela’s oil reserves, as sovereign states possess the right to control and use their natural resources under the United Nations-endorsed Principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources.

Foreign investors, however, can claim compensation when authorities seize their assets.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were awarded $1.6bn and $8.7bn, respectively, in international arbitration following the Chavez government’s 2007 nationalisation of the oil sector. Caracas did not pay out in either case.

US oil giants, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips, have not commented directly on Trump’s claims about planned investments in Venezuela.

Chevron is the only large US oil company currently operating in Venezuela, the result of an exemption to US sanctions first granted by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Consultancy Rystad Energy, based in Oslo, Norway, has estimated that Venezuela’s oil sector would need about $110bn in capital investment to return to its mid-2010s output of about 2 million bpd.

Patrick De Haan, an analyst at energy price tracker GasBuddy, said companies may be reluctant to commit to large investments in the country when global oil prices are hovering around $60 a barrel due to a glut of supply.

“It will take a longer amount of time than many likely realise. Oil companies in a low-priced environment of today would likely be cautious investing billions with oil prices already low,” De Haan told Al Jazeera.

“In addition, Trump seizing Maduro could lead to loyalists sabotaging efforts to increase output. A lot would have to go right to yield the most optimistic timelines.”

US companies are likely to carefully weigh political developments in Venezuela following their experiences with the Chavez government’s expropriation of their assets.

“Oil companies are not likely to rush into a situation where the state is in turmoil, security is lacking, and no clear path forward for political stability exists,” the University of Washington’s Montgomery said.

Maduro due in court in New York

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s deputy, is now leading the country following a ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Court.

Maduro is scheduled to appear in a New York court on Monday to face charges related to alleged drug trafficking and working with criminal gangs.

Venezuela’s government has condemned the Trump administration over Saturday’s bombing and overthrow of Maduro, labelling his capture a “cowardly kidnapping”.

Russia, China, Iran and Brazil, among other countries, have accused Washington of violating international law, while nations including Israel, Argentina and Greece have welcomed Maduro’s forced removal.

OPEC, which sets limits on production for its 12 members, including Venezuela, is another factor in the Latin American country’s potential oil output.

“Venezuela is a member of OPEC, and like many countries, may become more actively subject to quotas if output climbs,” De Haan said.

Phil Flynn, a market analyst at the Price Futures Group, said reviving Venezuela’s oil production would face “significant challenges”, but he was more bullish about the near-term prospects than other analysts.

He said the market could conceivably see a couple of hundred thousand more barrels a day coming online in the coming months.

“We’ve not had a free Venezuela, and sometimes the US energy industry has the capability to do a lot more than people give them credit for,” Flynn told Al Jazeera.

Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez met with the country’s cabinet of ministers following the abduction of Nicolas Maduro. She has expressed willingness to work with the US, while Donald Trump warned of serious consequences if she fails to cooperate.

UN Security Council to meet on Maduro’s abduction as Trump insists US in control of Venezuela.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

US president says a military operation focused on Colombia’s government ‘sounds good’ to him.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, in the wake of Washington’s abduction of Venezuela’s leader, and said he believed the government in Cuba, too, was likely to fall soon.

Trump made the comments late on Sunday while speaking to reporters on board Air Force One.

“Venezuela is very sick. Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long. Let me tell you,” the US president said.

When asked if he meant an operation by the US on Colombia, Trump said: “Sounds good to me.”

He added that a US military intervention in Cuba is unlikely because the country appears to be ready to fall on its own.

“Cuba is ready to fall. Cuba, looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know how they , if they can hold that, but Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil,” Trump said.

“They’re not getting any of it. Cuba literally is ready to fall. And you have a lot of great Cuban Americans that are going to be very happy about this.”

Trump’s comments come a day after US forces captured and detained Maduro and his wife in a surprise attack on Caracas. The Venezuelan leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, are due to appear in court on drug-related charges in New York later on Monday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump also insisted the US was ‘in charge’ of Venezuela, even though the country’s Supreme Court has appointed the country’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as interim leader.

He also reiterated a threat to send the US military back to Venezuela if it “doesn’t behave”.

Trump has made no secret of his ambitions to expand US presence in the Western hemisphere and revive the 19th century Monroe Doctrine that states Latin America falls under the US sphere of influence. Trump has called his 21st century version the “Don-roe Doctrine”.

The US president has also previously threatened both Colombia and Cuba. Over the weekend he said that Petro has to “watch his ass” and that the political situation in Cuba was “something we’ll end up talking about because Cuba is a failing nation”.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Havana declares two days of mourning for the Cubans killed in US’s operation to capture Nicolas Maduro.

The government of Cuba has announced that 32 ⁠of its ​citizens were ‍killed during the raid by the United States to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.

It said on Sunday that there would be two days of mourning on ‌January 5 and ‌6 in ⁠honour of those killed and that ‌funeral arrangements would be announced.

More soon…

The US president’s latest threat comes a day after Washington bombed Venezuela and abducted its president.

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has ‍urged US President ‍Donald Trump to stop threatening to take over Greenland, after the latter reiterated his wish to do so following Washington’s abduction of the leader of Venezuela.

“It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the US needing ⁠to take over Greenland. The US has no right to annex any of ​the three countries in the Danish Kingdom,” Frederiksen said in ‍a statement on Sunday.

The comments followed an interview published by The Atlantic magazine, in which Trump said: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”

On Saturday, the United States bombed Venezuela and toppled President Nicolas Maduro, raising concerns in Denmark that the same could happen with Greenland, a Danish territory.

“I would therefore strongly urge the US to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have very clearly said that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

The Greenlandic prime minister’s office did not ​immediately comment on Trump’s latest remarks.

The US president has repeatedly called for Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and NATO member, to become part of the US.

Last month, the Trump administration named Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who publicly supports annexation, as special envoy to the mineral-rich Arctic Island.

Greenland’s strategic position between Europe and ⁠North America makes it a key site for the US ballistic missile defence system, and its mineral wealth is attractive, as the US hopes to reduce its reliance on Chinese exports.

Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, posted on Saturday the contentious image of the Danish autonomous territory in the colours of the US flag on her X feed.

Her post had a single word above it: “SOON”.

Stephen Miller is widely seen as the architect of much of Trump’s policies, guiding the president on his hardline immigration and domestic agenda.

Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, called the post “disrespectful”.

“Relations between nations and peoples are built on mutual respect and international law – not on symbolic gestures that disregard our status and our rights,” he said on X.

But he also said that “there is neither reason for panic nor for concern. Our country is not for sale, and our future is not decided by social media posts”.

Denmark’s ambassador to the US, Jesper Moeller Soerensen, reacted to the post on Sunday by saying, “We expect full respect for the territorial integrity” of Denmark.

Soerensen gave a pointed “friendly reminder” that his country has “significantly boosted its Arctic security efforts” and had worked with the US on that.

“We are close allies, and should continue to work together as such,” he wrote.

Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has denounced the United States’ move to abduct leader Nicolas Maduro as a “cowardly kidnapping”, adding that some of the president’s bodyguards were killed “in cold blood”, as well as military personnel and civilians on the Venezuelan side.

In his televised statement on Sunday, Padrino Lopez also endorsed a Supreme Court ruling that appointed Vice President Delcy Rodriguez — who also serves as oil minister — as acting president for 90 days.

US President Donald Trump threatened that Rodriguez will pay a “very big price” if she doesn’t cooperate with Washington. “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a telephone interview.

US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours of Saturday, bombing military targets and spiriting away Maduro and his wife to face federal narco-trafficking charges in New York. The Venezuelan president was escorted off a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state and taken to a Brooklyn jail.

He is due to make his first appearance on Monday in Manhattan’s federal court.

US to use oil blockade to leverage change in Venezuela

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday suggested that Washington would not take a day-to-day role in governing Venezuela other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine”, using that leverage to press policy changes in the country.

Rubio’s statements seemed designed to temper concerns, a day after Trump announced the US would “run” the oil-rich nation. The Trump administration’s actions drew unease from parts of his own Republican Party coalition, including an “America First” base that is opposed to foreign interventions, as well as from observers who recalled past nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rubio dismissed such criticism, saying that Trump’s intent had been misunderstood by a “foreign policy establishment” that was fixated on the Middle East.

Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, reporting from Doral, Florida in the US, said Trump had been elected on an “America First” policy centred around no engagement in foreign wars or sending US service personnel into danger.

“Now we’ve got this situation where he said, less than 24 hours ago, ‘We’re not afraid of putting boots on the ground,’” Lavelle said.

Protests took place in cities across the US against Trump’s military action in Venezuela. Hundreds gathered in the rain in downtown Los Angeles, carrying signs saying “Stop bombing Venezuela now!” and “No blood for oil”.

“I stand against US imperialism altogether. They want oil … They want to help the corporate billionaires. Bombing is just their means to building power like that, of taking control. So again, I’m against it,” said one protester named Niven.

Trump on Saturday delivered a speech in which he made little mention of the so-called “war on drugs” – which for months had been his main justification for bombing Venezuelan ship and assets – but argued that Venezuela had “stolen” oil from the US and that it would now be taken back.

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Saul, said the US actions in Venezuela were illegal, calling on Trump to be investigated and impeached. “Every Venezuelan life lost is a violation of the right to life. President Trump should be impeached and investigated for the alleged killings,” he said in a social media post.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) was set to meet on Monday to discuss the situation in Venezuela. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the US strikes, which a spokesperson said could “constitute a dangerous precedent”.

Uncertainty in Venezuela after Maduro’s abduction

Some Venezuelans in Caracas have welcomed the US’s seizure of Maduro, but others said the action could worsen conflict in the country, with protests denouncing the US taking place.

“There should be a positive change for all Venezuelans, because it has been 28 years of government, and now is the time for transition in this country,” said Ronald Gaulee, a motorcycle rider in Caracas.

Merchant Juan Carlos Rincon was more cautious. “The truth is that there is a lot of manipulation behind all this,” he told the Reuters news agency. “We want to be at peace, move forward, and for Venezuela to have, like any other country, the right to choose its own destiny and its own leaders.”

Baker Franklin Jimenez said he would heed the government’s call to defend the country. “If they took him away, I think they shouldn’t have done so, because this will create an even worse conflict than the one we have now,” he said. “And as for the bombings and all that, we have to go out, we all have to go out into the streets to defend our homeland, to defend ourselves.”

Some Venezuelans decided to flee the country amid the uncertainty, crossing the Venezuela-Colombia border to reach the Colombian town of Cucuta. Karina Rey described a “tense situation” in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, just across the border.

“There are long lines, and people are very paranoid, or on edge, over food. Supermarkets are closing,” Rey told Al Jazeera. “The lines are very long just to stock up on food, because we don’t know what will happen in the coming weeks. We’re waiting to see what happens.”

Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti, reporting from Cucuta, said many Venezuelans there initially felt jubilant after Maduro was ousted. “But that quickly shifted to uncertainty,” he said.

“Several people said they expected the United States to immediately bring opposition leader Maria Corina Machado back into the country, along with Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who many Venezuelans believe won the last presidential election,” Rampietti continued.

“Instead, with much of the existing leadership still in place and with Vice President Delcy Rodriguez appointed as interim leader, there is growing fear about what could happen next.”

Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, said what happens next hinges on the response of Venezuela’s government and armed forces.

“So far, they’ve avoided direct confrontation with US forces, but deployments on the streets point to efforts to contain unrest,” he said. “A smooth transition remains unlikely, and the risk of resistance from pro-regime armed groups – including elements within the military and Colombian rebel networks active in the country – remains high.”

The United States’ abduction of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has been sharply criticised by his allies – but not by Western nations, despite questions about its legality.

So, does the operation signal a new aggressive US strategy? And what might the global impact be?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Charles Shapiro – Former US ambassador to Venezuela under President George W Bush

Stefan Wolff – Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom

Ernesto Castaneda – Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at the American University in Washington, DC

In less than 24 hours, the US bombed Venezuela, brazenly abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their compound in Caracas and whisked them to a detention centre in New York. Here’s how regime change unfolded overnight.