Venezuela

Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

“We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

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BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 8 (UPI) — The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a dramatic military operation ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump represents another blow — a new red flag — for Iran and its main proxy, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, potentially depriving the group of an ally and a foothold, or safe haven, in Latin America.

The predawn raid in Caracas not only sparked renewed U.S. accusations that both entities were involved in drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and evading sanctions, but also raised questions about whether the Venezuela model could be applied to Iran.

“No more drug trafficking, no more Iran‑Hezbollah presence there and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in summarizing his country’s. goals for Venezuela and its allies.

Venezuela and Iran, which developed deep political, diplomatic, economic and military cooperation under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, as part of an “Axis of Unity” against U.S. influence, have suffered from U.S.-imposed crippling sanctions that have intensified their economic crises.

In June 2022, Iran and Venezuela signed a 20‑year cooperation agreement intended to strengthen their alliance and circumvent U.S. sanctions by expanding collaboration in areas such as energy, oil, petrochemicals, science and technology, and other sectors.

The accord envisaged Iranian assistance with Venezuela’s oil industry and broader technical cooperation, and since then, the two countries have also deepened military cooperation, including links involving drone technology.

Long-standing ties between Iran and Venezuela created conditions in which Hezbollah — through networks embedded in Venezuela and parts of the diaspora — was reportedly able to establish financial and logistical operations in the country.

According to U.S. congressional testimony in October, these activities included fundraising, money transfers, smuggling and using Venezuelan‑issued travel documents.

The Maduro government denied these allegations, but Washington sanctioned Venezuelan officials and businessmen accused of assisting Hezbollah operatives.

Such accusations against Hezbollah, whose military capabilities were significantly degraded during the war with Israel, have been described by analysts in Lebanon as exaggerated and unsupported by clear evidence.

Mohanad Hage Ali, an analyst and fellow at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, said Venezuela offered “a window of opportunity” for Hezbollah to be active in a state where the regime is friendly to the group and sympathetic to its ideology. But many claims describing a vital Hezbollah-Venezuela relationship exceeded what publicly available evidence supports.

“This is because what we have seen are instances of involvement by individuals who have relationships with Hezbollah, whether relatives or others, and these relationships and the roles they play seem small compared to Hezbollah’s budgetary needs in Lebanon,” Hage Ali told UPI.

Undoubtedly, he said, Hezbollah has some form of presence, representation, financial and economic activities, or plays a role in drug trafficking, but these are “limited,” as is its ability to expand abroad.

With the militant group relying more on direct funding from Iran, Hage Ali said Hezbollah would be affected in the event of a regime change in Caracas, but added, “I fail to see Venezuela as a crucial part of the overall puzzle of Hezbollah financing.”

It remains to be seen whether Trump can translate or invest the success in capturing Maduro into political gains.

It would not be easy to contain a country such as Venezuela simply by abducting its president, retired Lebanese Brig. Gen. Hassan Jouni argued.

“Would Trump be able to control and subjugate the Venezuelan regime? Would that require boots on the ground– a land invasion?” Jouni asked, warning that such a move would entail significant attrition and deep involvement for the United States, making the operation highly risky.

Snatching Maduro from his home in Caracas and charging him with drug trafficking and terrorism sent a clear message from Trump to countries around the world — especially those opposing his policies, chief among them Iran: Cooperate or face the use of force.

Jouni said the message capped the Dec, 29 meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with threats that Iran would not be allowed to restart its nuclear program or rebuild its ballistic missile industry.

Could the Venezuela scenario be used for Iran? Could Trump do in Tehran what he did in Caracas — even going so far as to reach and capture Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

Jouni ruled out such a possibility, explaining that Iran differs from Venezuela because of the nature of its regime, its geographical location and the vast size of the country. Moreover, Khamenei would be protected by an “exceptional protection system.”

“Would Russia and China accept the overthrow of the Iranian regime and its replacement with a pro-U.S. one?” Jouni asked during an interview with UPI, suggesting “under-the-table” coordination with Russia on Ukraine and with China on Taiwan for possible exchanges.

Moreover, Iran would not stand idle and would strike back at Israel — as it did during the 12-day war last June, causing considerable damage — and would likely target U.S. bases across the region.

Kassem Kassir, a political analyst who specializes in Islamic movements and is close to Hezbollah, said Iran is being targeted, whether through economic pressures and sanctions affecting the internal situation, or militarily.

“Today, Tehran is ready for all possibilities, working to contain popular movements and street protests by addressing economic problems,” Kassir told UPI.

With Hezbollah no longer constituting a threat to Israel, a war against Iran, which would require Trump’s approval and his green light for Israel, might not change much, given the fighting round in June, according to Jouni.

A possible way out could be a deal — modeled on the recently forced arrangement with Venezuela regarding its oil, under which Caracas agreed to export up to $2 billion worth of crude to the United States — through which Trump could secure substantial investments in Iran in exchange for eased tensions or dropping threats of regime change.

Whether all these new U.S. interventions could bring stability remains uncertain and doubtful, especially given the chaos unleashed after the 2003 Iraq invasion, when disbanding the army and rebuilding the state from scratch backfired both in the country and across the region, Hage Ali noted.

The United States says it will control sales of Venezuelan oil “indefinitely” and decide how the proceeds of those sales are used, as President Donald Trump’s administration consolidates control over the South American country after abducting its president.

The US Department of Energy said on Wednesday that it had “begun marketing” Venezuelan oil on global markets and all proceeds from the sales “will first settle in US-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks”.

“These funds will be disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the US government,” it said.

“These oil sales begin immediately with the anticipated sale of approximately 30-50 million barrels. They will continue indefinitely.”

The announcement comes just days after the Trump administration abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday in what legal experts say was a clear violation of international law.

The US has said it plans to “run” the country and take control of its vast oil reserves, with Trump saying on social media on Tuesday that Caracas would hand between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil over to Washington.

The US actions against Venezuela come amid a months-long pressure campaign by the Trump administration against Maduro, who has been charged in New York with drug trafficking offences that he denies.

That has included a partial US naval blockade against Venezuela and the seizure of several vessels that the Trump administration says were transporting oil to and from the country in violation of US sanctions.

Earlier on Wednesday, US special forces seized two Venezuela-linked vessels – including a Russian-flagged ship in the North Atlantic – for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

The seizures came as senior US officials briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the Trump administration’s plans in Venezuela.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said most Republicans have backed Trump’s actions while Democrats have raised a slew of questions.

That includes “how long this operation in Venezuela will continue, what it will cost, [whether] any American servicemen actually be deployed on the ground in Venezuela, and what is the Venezuelan reaction,” Fisher explained.

“The Trump administration [is] hoping to get everyone on side before the end of the day,” he added.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on social media that Wednesday’s briefing was “worse” than imagined.

“Oil company executives seem to know more about Trump’s secret plan to ‘run’ Venezuela than the American people. We need public Senate hearings NOW,” she said.

Three-phased plan

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that the Trump administration is pursuing a three-phased plan that begins with the sales of Venezuelan oil.

“That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it’s dispersed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime,” Rubio said.

The second phase would see US and other companies gain access to the Venezuelan market, and “begin to create the process of reconciliation nationally … so that opposition forces can be amnestied and released from prisons or brought back to the country”.

“And then the third phase, of course, would be one of transition,” Rubio added.

Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran and energy at Eurasia Group, said the US announcement about controlling Venezuelan oil sales hints at “a return to the concessionary system” in place before the 1970s.

Brew explained in a social media post that, under that system, “producer states own the oil but it is Western firms that manage production and marketing, ultimately retain the bulk of the profits”.

A group of United Nations experts also warned that recent statements from Trump and other administration officials about plans to “run” Venezuela and exploit its oil reserves would violate international law.

Specifically, the experts said the US position contravenes “the right of peoples to self-determination and their associated sovereignty over natural resources, cornerstones of international human rights law”.

“Venezuela’s vast natural resources, including the largest proven oil reserves in the world, must not be cynically exploited through thinly veiled pretexts to legitimise military aggression, foreign occupation, or regime-change strategies,” they said.

Political situation unstable

Renata Segura, the Latin America and Caribbean programme director at the International Crisis Group, noted Venezuelan authorities have not commented on the US saying it plans to control sales of the country’s oil.

“And so we have to assume that either [the Venezuelan authorities] have accepted these terms, or that they’re just going to be forced to accept them,” Segura told Al Jazeera.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as president earlier this week following Maduro’s abduction, stressing on Tuesday that “there is no foreign agent governing Venezuela” despite US claims to “run” the country.

Segura explained, “There’s a lot of debate within the [Venezuelan] regime itself about how to move forward” amid the US pronouncements, stressing the political situation remains far from stable.

“It’s very important what the army might do,” she said.

“The military forces in Venezuela control enormous amounts of power – both economic but also on the streets – and there might be a moment in which they think they’re not going to be on board with this particular arrangement that the United States is presenting.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Wednesday sought to assert its control over Venezuelan oil, seizing a pair of sanctioned tankers transporting petroleum and announcing plans to relax some sanctions so the U.S. can oversee the sale of Venezuela’s petroleum worldwide.

Trump’s administration intends to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following its ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid. Besides the United States enforcing an existing oil embargo, the Energy Department says the “only oil transported in and out of Venezuela” will be through approved channels consistent with U.S. law and national security interests.

That level of control over the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil could give the Trump administration a broader hold on oil supplies globally in ways that could enable it to influence prices. Both moves reflect the Republican administration’s determination to make good on its effort to control the next steps in Venezuela through its vast oil resources after Trump has pledged the U.S. will “run” the country.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the oil taken from the sanctioned vessels seized in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea would be sold as part of the deal announced by Trump on Tuesday under which Venezuela would provide up to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S.

“One of those ships that was seized that had oil in the Caribbean, you know what the interim authorities are asking for in Venezuela?” Rubio told reporters after briefing lawmakers Wednesday about the Maduro operation. “They want that oil that was seized to be part of this deal. They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if they cooperate and work with the United States.”

Seizing 2 more vessels

U.S. European Command said on social media that the merchant vessel Bella 1 was seized in the North Atlantic for “violations of U.S. sanctions.” The U.S. had been pursuing the tanker since last month after it tried to evade a blockade on sanctioned oil vessels around Venezuela.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed U.S. forces also took control of the M Sophia in the Caribbean Sea. Noem said on social media that both ships were “either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it.”

The two ships join at least two others that were taken by U.S. forces last month — the Skipper and the Centuries.

The Bella 1 had been cruising across the Atlantic nearing the Caribbean on Dec. 15 when it abruptly turned and headed north, toward Europe. The change in direction came days after the first U.S. tanker seizure of a ship on Dec. 10 after it had left Venezuela carrying oil.

When the U.S. Coast Guard tried to board the Bella 1, it fled. U.S. European Command said a Coast Guard vessel had tracked the ship “pursuant to a warrant issued by a U.S. federal court.”

As the U.S. pursued it, the Bella 1 was renamed Marinera and flagged to Russia, shipping databases show. A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, said the ship’s crew had painted a Russian flag on the side of the hull.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had information about Russian nationals among the Marinera’s crew and, in a statement carried by Russia’s state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti, demanded that “the American side ensure humane and dignified treatment of them, strictly respect their rights and interests, and not hinder their speedy return to their homeland.”

Separately, a senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Klishas, decried the U.S. action as “blatant piracy.”

The Justice Department is investigating crew members of the Bella 1 vessel for failing to obey Coast Guard orders and “criminal charges will be pursued against all culpable actors,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said.

“The Department of Justice is monitoring several other vessels for similar enforcement action — anyone on any vessel who fails to obey instructions of the Coast Guard or other federal officials will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Bondi said on X.

The ship had been sanctioned by the U.S. in 2024 on allegations of smuggling cargo for a company linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

Easing sanctions so U.S. can sell oil

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is “selectively” removing sanctions to enable the shipping and sale of Venezuelan oil to markets worldwide, according to an outline of the policies published Wednesday by the Energy Department.

The sales are slated to begin immediately with 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil. The U.S. government said the sales “will continue indefinitely,” with the proceeds settling in U.S.-controlled accounts at “globally recognized banks.” The money would be disbursed to the U.S. and Venezuelan populations at the “discretion” of Trump’s government.

Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA said it is in negotiations with the U.S. government for the sale of crude oil.

“This process is developed under schemes similar to those in force with international companies, such as Chevron, and is based on a strictly commercial transaction, with criteria of legality, transparency and benefit for both parties,” the company said in the statement.

The U.S. plans to authorize the importation of oil field equipment, parts and services to increase Venezuela’s oil production, which has been roughly 1 million barrels a day.

The Trump administration has indicated it also will invest in Venezuela’s electricity grid to increase production and the quality of life for people in Venezuela, whose economy has been unraveling amid changes to foreign aid and cuts to state subsidies, making necessities, including food, unaffordable to millions.

Ships said to be part of a shadow fleet

Noem said both seized ships were part of a shadow fleet of rusting oil tankers that smuggle oil for countries facing sanctions, such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.

After the seizure of the now-named Marinera, which open-source maritime tracking sites showed was between Scotland and Iceland earlier Wednesday, the U.K. defense ministry said Britain’s military provided support, including surveillance aircraft.

“This ship, with a nefarious history, is part of a Russian-Iranian axis of sanctions evasion which is fueling terrorism, conflict, and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine,” U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said.

The capture of the M Sophia, on the U.S. sanctions list for moving illicit cargos of oil from Russia, in the Caribbean was much less prolonged.

The ship had been “running dark,” not having transmitted location data since July. Tankers involved in smuggling often turn off their transponders or broadcast inaccurate data to hide their locations.

Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers had left the Venezuelan coast since Saturday, after the U.S. captured Maduro.

The M Sophia was among them, Madani said, citing a recent photo showing it in the waters near Jose Terminal, Venezuela’s main oil export hub.

Windward, a maritime intelligence firm that tracks such vessels, said in a briefing to reporters the M Sophia loaded at the terminal on Dec. 26 and was carrying about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil — a cargo that would be worth about $108 million at current price of about $60 a barrel.

The press office for Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the seizures.

Toropin, Boak, Lawless and Biesecker write for the Associated Press. Lawless reported from London.

Russian officials indicated in 2019 that the Kremlin would be willing to back off from its support for Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in exchange for a free hand in Ukraine, according to Fiona Hill, an advisor to President Trump at the time.

The Russians repeatedly floated the idea of a “very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine,” Hill said during a congressional hearing in 2019. Her comments surfaced again this week and were shared on social media after the U.S. stealth operation to capture Maduro.

Hill said Russia pushed the idea through articles in Russian media that referenced the Monroe Doctrine — a 19th-century principle in which the U.S. opposed European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and, in return, agreed to stay out of European affairs. It was invoked by Trump to justify the U.S. intervention in Venezuela.

Even though Russian officials never made a formal offer, Moscow’s then-ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, hinted many times to her that Russia was willing to allow the United States to act as it wished in Venezuela if the U.S. did the same for Russia in Europe, Hill told the Associated Press this week.

“Before there was a ‘hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink, how about doing a deal?’ But nobody [in the U.S.] was interested then,” Hill said.

Trump dispatched Hill — then his senior advisor on Russia and Europe — to Moscow in April 2019 to deliver that message. She said she told Russian officials “Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other.”

At that time, she said, the White House was aligned with allies in recognizing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president.

But fast forward seven years and the situation is different.

After ousting Maduro, the U.S. has said it will now “run” Venezuela policy. Trump also has renewed his threat to take over Greenland — a self-governing territory of Denmark and part of the NATO military alliance — and threatened to take military action against Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine.

The Kremlin will be “thrilled” with the idea that large countries — such as Russia, the United States and China — get spheres of influence because it proves “might makes right,” Hill said.

Trump’s actions in Venezuela make it harder for Kyiv’s allies to condemn Russia’s designs on Ukraine as “illegitimate” because “we’ve just had a situation where the U.S. has taken over — or at least decapitated the government of another country — using fiction,” Hill told AP.

The Trump administration has described its raid in Venezuela as a law enforcement operation and has insisted that capturing Maduro was legal.

The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hill’s account.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the military operation to oust Maduro but the Foreign Ministry issued statements condemning U.S. “aggression.”

Burrows writes for the Associated Press.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s opposition supporters have long hoped for the day when Nicolás Maduro is no longer in power — a dream that was fulfilled when the U.S. military whisked the authoritarian leader away. But while Maduro is in jail in New York on drug trafficking charges, the leaders of his repressive administration remain in charge.

The nation’s opposition — backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S. — for years vowed to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But President Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.

Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, are in exile or prison.

“They were clearly unimpressed by the sort of ethereal magical realism of the opposition, about how if they just gave Maduro a push, it would just be this instant move toward democracy,” David Smilde, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades, said of the Trump administration.

The U.S. seized Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores in a military operation Saturday, removing them both from their home on a military base in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Hours later, Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and expressed skepticism that Machado could ever be its leader.

“She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” Trump told reporters. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Ironically, Machado’s unending praise for the American president, including dedicating her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump and her backing of U.S. campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and attack alleged drug traffickers in international waters, has lost her some support at home.

The rightful winner of Venezuela’s presidential election

Machado rose to become Maduro’s strongest opponent in recent years, but his government barred her from running for office to prevent her from challenging — and likely beating — him in the 2024 presidential election. She chose retired ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia to represent her on the ballot.

Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner mere hours after the polls closed, but Machado’s well-organized campaign stunned the nation by collecting detailed tally sheets showing González had defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin.

The U.S. and other nations recognized González as the legitimate winner.

However, Venezuelans identify Machado, not González, as the winner, and the charismatic opposition leader has remained the voice of the campaign, pushing for international support and insisting her movement will replace Maduro.

In her first televised interview since Maduro’s capture, Machado effusively praised Trump and failed to acknowledge his snub of her opposition movement in the latest transition of power.

“I spoke with President Trump on Oct. 10, the same day the prize was announced, not since then,” she told Fox News on Monday. “What he has done as I said is historic, and it’s a huge step toward a democratic transition.”

Hopes for a new election

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday seemed to walk back Trump’s assertion that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela. In interviews, Rubio insisted that Washington will use control of Venezuela’s oil industry to force policy changes, and called its current government illegitimate. The country is home to the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves.

Neither Trump nor Rodríguez have said when, or if, elections might take place in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s constitution requires an election within 30 days whenever a president becomes “permanently unavailable” to serve. Reasons listed include death, resignation, removal from office or “abandonment” of duties as declared by the National Assembly. That electoral timeline was rigorously followed when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, died of cancer in 2013.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president on Air Force One on Sunday, said he believes an election will happen but did not specify when or how.

“We’re going to build the country up – infrastructure wise – crescendoing with an election that will be free,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters.

But Maduro loyalists in the high court Saturday, citing another provision of the constitution, declared Maduro’s absence “temporary” meaning there is no election requirement. Instead, the vice president — which is not an elected position — takes over for up to 90 days, with a provision to extend to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party.

Challenges lie ahead for the opposition

In its ruling, Venezuela’s Supreme Court made no mention of the 180-day limit, leading to speculation that Rodríguez could try to cling to power as she seeks to unite ruling party factions and shield it from what would certainly be a stiff electoral challenge.

Machado on Monday criticized Rodríguez as “one the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking … certainly not an individual that can be trusted by international investors.”

Even if an election takes place, Machado and González would first have to find a way back into Venezuela.

González has been in exile in Spain since September 2024 and Machado left Venezuela last month when she appeared in public for the first time in 11 months to receive her Nobel Prize in Norway.

Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory in Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario, said the Trump administration’s decision to work with Rodríguez could harm the nation’s “democratic spirit.”

“What the opposition did in the 2024 election was to unite with a desire to transform the situation in Venezuela through democratic means, and that is embodied by María Corina Machado and, obviously, Edmundo González Urrutia,” he said. “To disregard that is to belittle, almost to humiliate, Venezuelans.”

Cano writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to free up the flow of Venezuelan oil to benefit Venezuelans after US forces abducted President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.

“We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which requires billions of dollars that will be paid for by the oil companies directly,” Trump said at a media briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida hours after Maduro was seized on Saturday. “They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but it’s going to be paid, and we’re going to get the oil flowing.”

Then, on Tuesday, the US president said he wanted to use proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States”. Rubio has echoed Trump in his comments in recent days.

But what has been holding back the flow of Venezuelan oil, preventing the country from attracting investments and driving the country into poverty?

A key reason is one that Trump and Rubio have been silent about: Washington’s own efforts to strangle Venezuela’s oil industry and economy through sanctions, which also have set off a refugee crisis.

What has Trump said about Venezuelan oil?

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the US.

Trump wrote: “This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

Trump added that he had directed his energy secretary, Chris Wright, to execute the plan “immediately”.

“It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States,” Trump wrote.

During the news conference on Saturday, Trump said US oil companies would fix Venezuela’s “broken infrastructure” and “start making money for the country”.

Earlier Trump had accused Venezuela in a Truth Social post of “stealing” US oil, land and other assets and using that oil to fund crime, “terrorism” and human trafficking. Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller has made similar claims in recent days.

What does it mean for the US to take Venezuelan oil?

Oil is trading at roughly $56 per barrel.

Based on this price, 30 million barrels of oil would be worth $1.68bn and 50 million barrels of oil would be worth $2.8bn.

“Trump’s statement about oil in Venezuela is beyond an act of war; it is an act of colonisation. That is also illegal based on the UN Charter,” Vijay Prashad, the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research based in Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa, told Al Jazeera.

Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US involvement in Venezuela was “less about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela’s oil deposits”.

“This [oil] 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.”

According to the website of the US Energy Information Administration, the US consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2023.

What has Rubio said about Venezuelan oil?

In an interview on the NBC TV network’s Meet the Press programme that aired on Sunday, Rubio said: “We are at war against drug trafficking organisations. That’s not a war against Venezuela.”

“No more drug trafficking … and no more using the oil industry to enrich all our adversaries around the world and not benefitting the people of Venezuela or, frankly, benefitting the United States and the region,” Rubio said.

Rubio said in the interview that since 2014, about eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, which he attributed to theft and corruption by Maduro and his allies. According to a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from May, nearly 7.9 million people have indeed left Venezuela.

But he was silent on the US’s own role in creating that crisis.

What are the US sanctions against Venezuela’s oil?

Venezuela nationalised its oil industry in 1976 under then-President Carlos Andres Perez during an oil boom. He established the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) to control all oil resources.

Venezuela continued to be a major oil exporter to the US for some years, supplying 1.5 million to 2 million barrels per day in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After President Hugo Chavez took office in 1998, he nationalised all oil assets, seized foreign-owned assets, restructured the PDVSA and prioritised using oil revenue for social programmes in Venezuela.

From 2003 to 2007, Venezuela under Chavez managed to cut its poverty rate in half – from 57 percent to 27.5 percent. Extreme poverty fell even more sharply, by 70 percent.

But exports declined, and government authorities were accused of mismanagement.

The US first imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil in retaliation for nationalising US oil assets in 2005.

Under US sanctions, many senior Venezuelan government officials and companies have been barred from accessing any property or financial assets held in the US. They cannot access US bank accounts, sell property or access their money if it passes through the US financial system.

Critically, any US companies or citizens doing business with any sanctioned individual or company will be penalised and risk becoming subject to enforcement actions.

Maduro took over as president in 2013 after Chavez’s death. In 2017, Trump, during his first term in office, imposed more sanctions and tightened them again in 2019. This further restricted sales to the US and access for Venezuelan companies to the global financial system. As a result, oil exports to the US nearly stopped, and Venezuela shifted its trade mainly to China with some sales to India and Cuba.

Last month, the Trump administration imposed yet more sanctions – this time on Maduro family members and Venezuelan tankers carrying sanctioned oil.

Today, the PDVSA controls the petroleum industry in Venezuela, and US involvement in Venezuelan oil drilling is limited. Houston-based Chevron is the only US company that still operates in Venezuela.

How have sanctions hurt Venezuela’s oil flows?

Trump might today be interested in getting Venezuelan oil flowing, but it is US sanctions that blocked that flow in the first place.

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 – it earns only a fraction of the revenue it once did from exporting crude.

[BELOW: The sentence above promises statistics that will show how much oil exports have dropped, but the next graf doesn’t deliver. We should add that figure]

According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Venezuela exported $4.05bn of crude oil in 2023. This is far below other major exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn) and Russia ($122bn).

How have US sanctions hurt Venezuelans and the country’s oil infrastructure?

The US sanctions on Venezuelan oil prevent US and non-US companies from doing business with the PDVSA. Because the US is a market no one wants to lose, firms, including banks, are wary of taking any steps that could invite Washington’s sanctions.

In effect, that has meant Venezuela’s oil industry has been almost entirely deprived of international financial investment.

The sanctions additionally restrict Venezuela from accessing oilfield equipment, specialised software, drilling services and refinery components from Western companies.

This has resulted in years of underinvestment in the PDVSA’s infrastructure, leading to chronic breakdowns, shutdowns and accidents.

The sanctions have also resulted in broader economic turmoil.

The country’s gross domestic product per capita stood at about $4,200 in 2024, according to World Bank data, down from more than $13,600 in 2010.

From about 2012, the economy went into a sharp decline, driven by domestic economic policies, a slump that was later deepened by US sanctions. The resulting hardships have pushed millions of Venezuelans to leave the country – the same people who Trump and Rubio now argue should benefit from Venezuela’s oil revenues.

Does the US have any claim to Venezuelan oil?

US companies began drilling for oil in Venezuela in the early 1900s.

In 1922, vast petroleum reserves were initially discovered by Royal Dutch Shell in Lake Maracaibo in Zulia state in northwestern Venezuela.

At this point, US companies ramped up their investments in the extraction and development of Venezuelan oil reserves. Companies such as Standard Oil led development under concession agreements, propelling Venezuela to a position as a key global supplier, especially for the US.

Venezuela was a founding member of OPEC, joining at its creation on September 14, 1960. OPEC is a group of major oil-exporting countries that work together to manage supply and influence global oil prices.

But the claims by Trump and Miller that Venezuela somehow “stole” US oil are baseless under international law, experts said.

The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, adopted by the UN General Assembly in a resolution in 1962, is clear that sovereign states have the inherent right to control, use and dispose of their resources for their own development.

In other words, Venezuela alone owns its oil.

MIAMI — In 2017, as political outsider Donald Trump headed to Washington, Delcy Rodríguez spotted an opening.

Then Venezuela’s foreign minister, Rodríguez directed Citgo — a subsidiary of the state oil company — to make a $500,000 donation to the president’s inauguration. With the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro struggling to feed Venezuela, Rodríguez gambled on a deal that would have opened the door to American investment. Around the same time, she saw that Trump’s ex-campaign manager was hired as a lobbyist for Citgo, courted Republicans in Congress and tried to secure a meeting with the head of Exxon.

The charm offensive flopped. Within weeks of taking office, Trump, urged by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, made restoring Venezuela’s democracy his driving focus in response to Maduro’s crackdown on opponents. But the outreach did bear fruit for Rodríguez, making her a prominent face in U.S. business and political circles and paving the way for her own rise.

“She’s an ideologue, but a practical one,” said Lee McClenny, a retired foreign service officer who was the top U.S. diplomat in Caracas during the period of Rodríguez’s outreach. “She knew that Venezuela needed to find a way to resuscitate a moribund oil economy and seemed willing to work with the Trump administration to do that.”

Nearly a decade later, as Venezuela’s interim president, Rodríguez’s message — that Venezuela is open for business — seems to have persuaded Trump. In the days since Maduro’s stunning capture Saturday, he’s alternately praised Rodríguez as a “gracious” American partner while threatening a similar fate as her former boss if she doesn’t keep the ruling party in check and provide the U.S. with “total access” to the country’s vast oil reserves. One thing neither has mentioned is elections, something the constitution mandates must take place within 30 days of the presidency being permanently vacated.

This account of Rodríguez’s political rise is drawn from interviews with 10 former U.S. and Venezuelan officials as well as businessmen from both countries who’ve had extensive dealings with Rodríguez and in some cases have known her since childhood. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from someone who they almost universally described as bookishly smart, sometimes charming but above all a cutthroat operator who doesn’t tolerate dissent. Rodríguez didn’t respond to AP requests for an interview.

Father’s murder hardens leftist outlook

Rodríguez entered the leftist movement started by Hugo Chávez late — and on the coattails of her older brother, Jorge Rodríguez, who as head of the National Assembly swore her in as interim president Monday.

Tragedy during their childhood fed a hardened leftist outlook that would stick with the siblings throughout their lives. In 1976 — when, amid the Cold War, U.S. oil companies, American political spin doctors and Pentagon advisers exerted great influence in Venezuela — a little-known urban guerrilla group kidnapped a Midwestern businessman. Rodriguez’s father, a socialist leader, was picked up for questioning and died in custody.

McClenny remembers Rodríguez bringing up the murder in their meetings and bitterly blaming the U.S. for being left fatherless at the age of 7. The crime would radicalize another leftist of the era: Maduro.

Years later, while Jorge Rodríguez was a top electoral official under Chávez, he secured for his sister a position in the president’s office.

But she advanced slowly at first and clashed with colleagues who viewed her as a haughty know-it-all.

In 2006, on a whirlwind international tour, Chávez booted her from the presidential plane and ordered her to fly home from Moscow on her own, according to two former officials who were on the trip. Chávez was upset because the delegation’s schedule of meetings had fallen apart and that triggered a feud with Rodriguez, who was responsible for the agenda.

“It was painful to watch how Chávez talked about her,” said one of the former officials. “He would never say a bad thing about women but the whole flight home he kept saying she was conceited, arrogant, incompetent.”

Days later, she was fired and never occupied another high-profile role with Chávez.

Political revival and soaring power under Maduro

Years later, in 2013, Maduro revived Rodríguez’s career after Chávez died of cancer and he took over.

A lawyer educated in Britain and France, Rodríguez speaks English and spent large amounts of time in the United States. That gave her an edge in the internal power struggles among Chavismo — the movement started by Chávez, whose many factions include democratic socialists, military hardliners who Chávez led in a 1992 coup attempt and corrupt actors, some with ties to drug trafficking.

Her more worldly outlook, and refined tastes, also made Rodríguez a favorite of the so-called “boligarchs” — a new elite that made fortunes during Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution. One of those insiders, media tycoon Raul Gorrín, worked hand-in-glove with Rodríguez’s back-channel efforts to mend relations with the first Trump administration and helped organize a secret visit by Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, to Caracas in April 2018 for a meeting with Maduro. A few months later, U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed the first of two money laundering indictments against Gorrin.

After Maduro promoted Rodríguez to vice president in 2018, she gained control over large swaths of Venezuela’s oil economy. To help manage the petro-state, she brought in foreign advisers with experience in global markets. Among them were two former finance ministers in Ecuador who helped run a dollarized, export-driven economy under fellow leftist Rafael Correa. Another key associate is French lawyer David Syed, who for years has been trying to renegotiate Venezuela’s foreign debt in the face of crippling U.S. sanctions that make it impossible for Wall Street investors to get repaid.

“She sacrificed her personal life for her political career,” said one former friend.

As she amassed more power, she crushed internal rivals. Among them: once powerful Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami, who was jailed in 2024 as part of an anti-corruption crackdown spearheaded by Rodríguez.

In her de-facto role as Venezuela’s chief operating officer, Rodríguez proved a more flexible, trustworthy partner than Maduro. Some have likened her to a sort of Venezuelan Deng Xiaoping — the architect of modern China.

Hans Humes, chief executive of Greylock Capital Management, said that experience will serve her well as she tries to jump-start the economy, unite Chavismo and shield Venezuela from stricter terms dictated by Trump. Imposing an opposition-led government right now, he said, could trigger bloodshed of the sort that ripped apart Iraq after U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein and formed a provisional government including many leaders who had been exiled for years.

“We’ve seen how expats who have been outside of the country for too long think things should be the way it was before they left,” said Humes, who has met with Maduro as well as Rodríguez on several occasions. “You need people who know how to work with how things are not how they were.”

Democracy deferred?

Where Rodríguez’s more pragmatic leadership style leaves Venezuela’s democracy is uncertain.

Trump, in remarks after Maduro’s capture, said Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado lacks the “respect” to govern Venezuela despite her handpicked candidate winning what the U.S. and other governments consider a landslide victory in 2024 presidential elections stolen by Maduro.

Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy to Venezuela during the first Trump administration, said it is impossible for the president to fulfill his goal of banishing criminal gangs, drug traffickers and Middle Eastern terrorists from the Western Hemisphere with the various factions of Chavismo sharing power.

“Nothing that Trump has said suggests his administration is contemplating a quick transition away from Delcy. No one is talking about elections,” said Abrams. “If they think Delcy is running things, they are completely wrong.”

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.

A few weeks ago, I wondered whether Nicolás Maduro was a Juan Vicente Gómez 2.0, that other dictator who held power in Venezuela for almost three decades at the beginning of the 20th century. We now know that wasn’t the case. Gómez, from the very beginning, exercised terror within the country, but he forged an alliance with American oil companies that allowed him to perpetuate the regime until his death 90 years ago. Maduro also practiced that terror, but failed to consolidate all the internal and external support he needed. When he wanted to fully surrender to the United States, the playing field had already shifted. As the saying goes, “too little, too late.”

In the conclusion of that other article, I wondered if Venezuela was on the verge of a new 1936, the year the country inaugurated a new era after the dictator’s death. It was then that the masses burst onto the public scene, modern political parties emerged, unions were organized, and solutions to the country’s serious problems began to be discussed. Today, after the US military intervention and Maduro’s capture on January 3, 2026, history is being rewritten minute by minute.

Now, as this year begins, we can break down the situation into three levels.

First, there are the celebrations. Venezuelans abroad are filled with euphoria, while within the country the reaction is more silent and private. The dictator is gone, but the dictatorship persists. The torturers remain in power. But seeing a tyrant fall, one who mocked the country with ironic brutality is a poetic justice many of us hoped for, and there remains the hope that he will also be tried for his crimes against humanity, a record that ranges from extrajudicial executions and state terrorism to the material and emotional destruction of an entire country.

Maduro, perhaps, never imagined this end, trusting that 20th century international law would protect his tyranny. But times have changed. Each power guards what it considers its own backyard, and the law of the strongest has returned, without euphemism. Herein lies the second level. It is fine to question all foreign intervention and its legality, but after the mega-fraud of July 28, 2024, regional diplomacy proved insufficient, and too many turned a blind eye. The half-hearted diplomatic attempts of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico proved useless in achieving the transition.

The return of exiles, the demolition of the old La Rotunda prison—a symbol of political oppression like El Helicoide today—and still fragile guarantees of political participation generated new expectations during the López Contreras regime.

The region is also responsible for this outcome. Nor can we forget that it was during the Hugo Chávez era that we fell into this geopolitical trap, losing the independence and sovereignty we had achieved during the democratic years. Ideological factions, authoritarian tendencies, and an international rebellion contrary to national interests placed us in a vulnerable position in a much larger game that is not our own.

And the third level is the possibility, amidst the evident contradictions, of rebuilding Venezuelan democracy. There are many possible scenarios, and we know that we are now at the mercy of external decisions where, for the United States, the priority is not so much restoring democracy as securing its interests. With a game of musical chairs within chavismo-madurismo, Delcy Rodríguez now becomes the figure ruling from Miraflores Palace. As president, she will try to prolong her interim term and cling to power, continuing the lobbying she has been doing for some time, as a reliable ally for the United States and who could be the proconsul they need beyond an interim period. The country also faces the feudal structures left behind by chavismo, where military, regional, and economic factions that continue to control everything could engage in a power struggle of coups and counter-coups.

However, there is also the possibility that Venezuelan democratic society (which carries in its DNA the struggles of the past and present) can begin to reconstitute itself. For this to happen, it is essential to demand the release of all political prisoners, the return of exiles, an end to censorship, and a profound and peaceful institutional change that allows for the dismantling of the regime from within, by its own figures. This is a dynamic already observed in other transition processes, capable of laying the foundations for lasting social transformations, with reconciliation, but also with justice.

In this phase of the process, the main leadership of María Corina Machado and the legitimacy of Edmundo González Urrutia are recognized, but it is also the moment to convene the entire democratic leadership to build the agreements that will make future governance possible. The coming months constitute a true critical path, a fragile bridge where both the best and worst scenarios can materialize.

History does not repeat itself, but there are logics and precedents that help us better understand the processes of change. In 1936, the transformation did not occur due to foreign intervention, but rather due to the death of Gómez. The then Minister of War and Navy, Eleazar López Contreras, assumed the acting presidency. In the last weeks of December 1935, some looting and disturbances occurred, which were quickly controlled, and the new leader managed to retain power.

Venezuelans can do their part: To demand change step by step and navigate this minefield with caution, where everything, once again, could go very wrong.

The regime seemed immovable: the same ministers, the same lawmakers, the same system, sustained by consolidated power groups that demanded mere continuity. However, a timid opening began. The return of exiles, the demolition of the old La Rotunda prison (a symbol of political oppression), and still fragile guarantees of political participation generated new expectations.

On February 14, 1936, after attempts to reinstate censorship and prolong the suspension of constitutional guarantees, the people of Caracas took to the streets and, in a defiant gesture, demanded that the government go beyond minimal concessions. Overwhelmed by pressure from students, unions, and the press, López Contreras presented the February Plan a few days later, abandoning half-measures and initiating what would be a true political opening, Venezuela-style.

The situation today is more complex than in 1936. The main actors have shown no qualms, and Venezuelan society remains wounded and shackled by the cumulative repression of all these years. But the demands cannot be abandoned, nor can the future be left to external tutelage or the continuation of oppression. A new horizon is possible, and although there are external factors beyond our control, Venezuelans can do their part: To demand change step by step and navigate this minefield with caution, where everything, once again, could go very wrong. It has been achieved before, and today, with greater awareness and determination (because we have learned something), it is possible to build and consolidate a shared vision for our country.

Caracas, January 6, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Brazilian government will send medical equipment and medicine to Venezuela in the wake of the January 3 US bombings against military sites and other infrastructure.

Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha made the announcement Tuesday, invoking humanitarian reasons as well as regional health concerns, after medicine warehouses in Venezuela’s La Guaira state were destroyed by the US attacks.

“We are trying to mobilize, via the public healthcare sector and private companies, dialysis supplies and medicines to support the Venezuelan people after this distribution center was targeted,” Padilha said in a press conference.

The minister recalled Venezuelan solidarity in shipping oxygen to the Brazilian city of Manaus in 2021 during a coronavirus crisis. Venezuela’s eastern neighbor will also deploy healthcare professionals as part of its solidarity efforts.

The offer of assistance follows the Lula da Silva government’s firm condemnation of the US strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores as “unacceptable” and a “dangerous precedent for the international community.”

According to local reports, the warehouses belonging to the Venezuelan Social Security Institute (IVSS) were destroyed during the US bombing of La Guaira port in the early hours of Saturday.

In a statement, the IVSS reported that the lost supplies were destined for renal patients and denounced the “terrorist character of the US government” in targeting healthcare facilities.

Nelare Bermúdez, from La Guaira state’s healthcare authority, said that three-months worth of medicines for renal patients had been lost. Nevertheless, she vowed that authorities will work to ensure that healthcare services are not affected.

Venezuela has an estimated 16,000 patients suffering from chronic kidney conditions. The direct destruction of supplies adds to difficulties chronic patients already face under US sanctions. A 2018 CEPR report found that 300,000 Venezuelans with heart and other conditions were at risk as a consequence of US economic coercive measures.

In recent years, sanctions have also seen Venezuelan authorities face prohibitions, delays and overpricing in acquiring medical equipment and medicines. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Venezuela suffered delays in securing necessary vaccines.

Washington’s January 3 attacks have killed a reported 80 people, with 32 Cuban nationals confirmed dead. Venezuelan authorities have yet to disclose information on damages and casualties from the strikes.

On Tuesday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez decreed seven days of mourning in honor of the Venezuelans killed in the US military operation.

“Our young martyrs gave their lives to defend our country,” Rodríguez told reporters. “My heart was broken by the images of the fallen bodies but I know they sacrificed themselves for the values of this nation.”

Rodríguez was sworn in on Monday after the Supreme Court declared a “temporary absence” in the Venezuelan presidency. Maduro, as well as First Lady and legislator Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to charges including cocaine importation conspiracy during their arraignment hearing on January 5.

The USmilitary operations followed months of buildup and regime-change threats from the Trump administration. The US president has threatened Rodríguez and the Venezuelan government to accept US demands, including favorable oil deals.

[UPDATE: Venezuelan authorities reported the arrival of a shipment with supplies for dialysis patients on Tuesday night at Maiquetía airport but did not specify its origin and contents.]

Jan. 6 (UPI) — Venezuela will be turning over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, days after the U.S. military seized the authoritarian president of the country, Nicolas Maduro.

Trump said Venezuela’s interim government, sworn in Monday, will be giving the United States between 30 million and 50 million barrels of “high quality, sanctioned oil.”

“This oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

It was unclear when the United States would receive the oil, but it will be brought to the United States aboard oil tankers.

Trump said Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been asked to “immediately” execute the plan.

“On it Mr. President,” Wright said in response on X.

“You have my attention to this matter.”

The U.S. military seized Maduro from Venezuela in an early morning operation on Saturday following months of military buildup around the country and an escalating Trump administration pressure campaign. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, were brought to the United States to face narcotrafficking and other drug-related charges.

The Trump administration has been enforcing a naval blockade on Venezuelan oil since mid-December, with Trump arguing the South American country’s oil and assets of U.S. companies were “stolen from us,” referring to Caracas’ decades-old nationalization of its oil industry.

Delcy Rodriguez, former vice president under Maduro, was sworn in as president of Venezuela on Monday. However, Trump has said that the United States will be “running” the South American nation, though other administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have attempted to soften that stance.

Rodriguez is “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Rubio said Monday.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of petroleum per day in 2023.

Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has said that “no foreign agent” is running Venezuela in the wake of Nicolas Maduro’s abduction by United States military forces.

Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president before his abduction, spoke during a televised event on Tuesday, a day after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug-trafficking conspiracy charges.

“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela,” Rodriguez said.

Venezuela’s prosecutor general, meanwhile, called for the immediate release of Maduro and his wife.

“The military operation, without a declaration of war or a UN Security Council resolution, represents an illegal act of armed aggression of a terrorist nature,” Tarek William Saab said.

The statements come amid the continuing fallout from Saturday’s military operation, which left dozens of people in Venezuela dead. The offensive has been broadly condemned as a violation of international law.

Venezuela on Tuesday released a list of the 24 soldiers killed in the predawn assault. Cuba also announced that 32 members of its military had died. Rodriguez declared a seven-day period of mourning to commemorate the fallen military members.

Since seizing Maduro from his residence, the administration of US President Donald Trump has offered little clarity about its plans for Venezuela.

Trump said on Saturday that the US would “run” Venezuela, a statement US Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked back the next day.

The top diplomat instead said that US officials would guide the “direction” of how the country is run and use sanctions and an ongoing embargo to force more access to Venezuela’s oil industry.

Rubio, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine briefed a bipartisan group of Congress members on Monday about the Venezuela operation.

But several lawmakers said that the administration had offered scarce insight into its justification for conducting the strike without first seeking approval from Congress, much less its plans for Venezuela’s future.

“This briefing, while very extensive and long, posed far more questions than it ever answered,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterwards.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Trump ally in the Republican Party, said the next few days would show Venezuela’s “government structure and how willing they are to work with the US”.

In a social media post, Thune called Rodriguez a “practical person, pragmatic person” who “will understand the importance of figuring out a path forward to where America’s national security priorities can be prioritized by Venezuela”.

Trump, meanwhile, offered few new details on the operation during a retreat with Republicans on Tuesday, beyond praising the abduction as an “amazing military feat” and “brilliant tactically”.

Speaking from exile in Miami, Florida, former Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said the country had a “wonderful and incredible opportunity”.

Guaido, who fled Venezuela in 2023, said that rebuilding the country’s democracy would allow millions of Venezuelans to return, and help “bring back to life the oil fields” and restore prosperity.

He condemned Rodriguez as “an acting dictator”, describing the current period as “a phase of transition” that will only be complete “once the rule of law has been reinstalled”.

Unease in Caracas

In Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, crowds gathered on Tuesday for a state-organised display of support for the government.

Some marchers flashed “V” victory signs. Hardline Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello – who, like Maduro, has been indicted by the US Department of Justice – was seen wading through the gathering. He wore a blue cap emblazoned with the slogan, “To doubt is to betray.”

But Noris Argotte Soto, a Venezuelan reporter in Caracas, told Al Jazeera that the situation in the capital continues to be tense, with most residents staying inside their homes.

“In the peripheral areas of the city, everybody remains at home. The tension is rising; people are on edge. And people are very much afraid of going out into the streets, mostly because [of] the security forces that we see at the main points of the city,” she said.

Soto added that government-aligned paramilitaries have been working alongside the military in recent days to maintain security and crack down on potential dissent.

“They were working yesterday with the security forces,” she said.

“They were basically bullying people, intimidating people, searching their cars, even demanding their cell phones to check their messages, check their social media.”

Regional uncertainty

Anxiety was also felt across the region, as the Trump administration has upped its threats against Venezuela’s neighbour, Colombia, as well as the island of Greenland in the northern Atlantic.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s attack, Trump said he had not ruled out an attack on Colombia for allegedly failing to tamp down on the illegal drug trade.

He described the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, who has been a vocal critic of US operations in Venezuela, as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.

On Tuesday, Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio announced she will meet with the US Embassy’s charge d’affaires in Bogota to present a formal complaint over the recent US “threats”.

Villavicencio said she hopes to reassure the Trump administration “about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking”.

Greenland and Denmark also called for an expedited meeting with Rubio on Tuesday to “discuss the significant statement made by the United States”, Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, wrote on social media.

In the wake of Maduro’s abduction, Trump again floated taking control of Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Trump aide Stephen Miller later said that Washington has a right to seize sovereign territories if it deems such moves to be in its national interest.

The statement was in line with a White House national security strategy released in December, which pledged to re-establish US “pre-eminence” in the Western Hemisphere.

The White House on Tuesday again said it was exploring options to seize Greenland, adding that “utilizing the US military is always an option”.

An array of European countries, as well as Canada, have rushed to support Greenland, noting that Denmark is a NATO member. Therefore, an attack on the island would constitute an attack on the entire bloc.

On Tuesday, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined with Denmark to issue a joint statement denouncing Trump’s remarks.

“Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” the statement said.

The attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend have sent shockwaves across Latin America, where many countries fear a return to a period of overt United States interventionism.

Those fears are particularly prominent in Mexico, the US’s neighbour and longtime ally.

The country was one of several — along with Cuba and Colombia — that US President Donald Trump singled out in remarks after Saturday’s attack on Venezuela, which killed dozens of people and was widely condemned as a violation of international law.

Trump suggested that the US could carry out military strikes on Mexican territory in the name of combating drug traffickers.

“Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday morning, after the Venezuela strikes.

“She [President Claudia Sheinbaum] is very frightened of the cartels,” he added. “They’re running Mexico.”

‘We are free and sovereign’

Sheinbaum has responded to Trump’s threats with a firm insistence on Mexican sovereignty.

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal matters of other countries,” Sheinbaum said in comments to the media on Monday.

“It is necessary to reaffirm that, in Mexico, the people rule and that we are a free and sovereign country,” she added. “Cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no.”

Even in good times, Mexican leaders have walked a line between seeking productive relations with their powerful northern neighbour and defending their interests from possible US encroachment.

That balancing act has become more difficult as the Trump administration employs rhetoric and policies that have drawn parallels to earlier eras of imperial intervention.

“Historically, there’s a record of US intervention that is part of the story of Mexican nationalism,” Pablo Piccato, a professor of Mexican history at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera.

Many of those instances loom large in the country’s national memory. The US launched a war against Mexico in 1846 that saw US troops occupy Mexico City and annex enormous swaths of territory, including modern-day California, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Later, during the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 to 1920, US Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson worked with conservative forces in Mexico to overthrow the country’s pro-reform president.

US forces also bombed the port city of Veracruz in 1914 and sent forces into northern Mexico to hunt down revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.

“These are seen as important moments in Mexican history,” said Piccato.

“There is a quote attributed to Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, ‘Poor Mexico. So far from God, so close to the United States.’”

In recent statements, Trump has linked the US’s history in the region to his present-day agenda. While announcing Saturday’s strike, he cited the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century policy that the US has used to assert primacy over the Western Hemisphere.

“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the ‘Donroe Doctrine’,” Trump said.

On Monday, the US State Department also shared an image of Trump on social media with the caption: “This is OUR hemisphere.”

‘Balancing on a thin wire’

Sheinbaum’s insistence on Mexican sovereignty has not prevented her from offering concessions to Trump on key priorities, such as migration, security and commerce.

When faced with Trump’s threats of 25 percent tariffs last February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 Mexican National Guard troops to her country’s border with the US, to help limit irregular immigration and drug-trafficking.

Mexico has also maintained close security ties with the US and cooperated in its operations against criminal groups, including through the extradition of some drug traffickers.

In February, for instance, Sheinbaum’s government extradited 29 criminal suspects that the US accused of drug trafficking and other charges. In August, it sent another 26 suspects to the US, earning a statement of gratitude from the Trump administration.

Washington has historically pressured Mexico to take a hardline stance towards combating drugs, leading to policies that some Mexicans blame for increasing violence and insecurity in their country.

Still, while Sheinbaum has received praise for managing relations with Trump, she has consistently said that unilateral US military action on Mexican territory would be a red line.

Experts say Sheinbaum’s willingness to cooperate should be an incentive for the US government not to launch attacks on Mexican soil.

“Sheinbaum has gone out of her way to cooperate with the US,” said Stephanie Brewer, the director of the Mexico programme at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research group. “There would be no rational reason to break this bilateral relationship by crossing the one red line Mexico has set out.”

But the strikes on Venezuela have also underscored the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive posture towards Latin America.

“I don’t think US strikes on Mexican territory are any more or less likely than they were before the attacks in Venezuela,” said Brewer. “But they do make it abundantly clear that the Trump administration’s threats need to be taken seriously, and that the US is willing to violate international law in its use of military force.”

“Sheinbaum is doing a balancing act on an increasingly thin wire,” she added.

Caracas, Venezuela – The normally noisy capital of Caracas was eerily quiet on Monday, two days after the United States bombed the city and abducted Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.

But many “caraqueños” nevertheless ventured out to buy food and other necessities, albeit at marked-up prices.

The tense atmosphere on Caracas’s streets was yet another sign of the uncertainty facing everyday Venezuelans, as they face the looming threat of further US intervention.

Local authorities have called for regular economic activity to continue in Venezuela. But some stores nevertheless remained closed, while households stocked up on basic supplies in case of shortages.

At Caracas’s central market, Quinta Crespo, many shopkeepers had shuttered their businesses for fear of unrest and looting.

Lines of 10 or more people often stretched outside the stores that remained open, despite the midday sun. Officers from the Bolivarian National Police patrolled outside to keep the queues calm.

Shoppers told Al Jazeera they were buying non-perishables, like corn flour, rice and canned goods, in case the security situation deteriorated in the capital.

“I’m looking for basic necessities, given the situation the country is going through,” said Carlos Godoy, 45, who lives in the western Caricuao district of Caracas. “We are waiting to see what happens. We are all in suspense, in uncertainty.”

Among the most expensive products Godoy saw on his shopping trip was powdered milk, which he said is selling for $16 per kilogram.

Another shopper, Betzerpa Ramírez, said she felt calm, despite the early-morning attack on Saturday. While she felt no need to hoard food items, she did note that prices for some goods have increased.

“Hygiene items are more expensive, even more than food,” she said.

Alexandra Arismendi, who works in a mobile phone shop at the Sambil mall in one of Caracas’s busiest shopping districts, expressed frustration with some of the recent price spikes.

The price of eggs, she said, was “exaggerated”.

“Prices are high,” she said. “A carton of eggs is selling for $10, which is beyond normal.”

Her colleague at the mobile shop, 23-year old María Gabriela, lamented the slump in sales, as shoppers stay indoors for fear of further unrest.

The normally bustling mall had largely emptied of its usual crowds. Gabriela herself was hesitant to show up for work. She travelled by taxi to avoid public transport.

“We thought people would be looking for chargers or power banks [for possible power failures], but they have been looking for other things,” Gabriela said.

“There has been no usual activity. It has been one of the strangest days in recent months.”

Venezuelans have become accustomed to volatile price increases and supply shortages over the past decade. Experts often blame government corruption, mismanagement and US sanctions for destabilising Venezuela’s economy.

During Maduro’s presidency, oil prices plummeted, sending Venezuela’s petroleum-heavy economy into free fall.

By 2018, inflation hit more than 130,000 percent, according to the country’s central bank. The COVID-19 pandemic also dealt the economy a wallop, leading to shortages of food and health supplies.

Maduro’s government has not published inflation statistics since he claimed victory in 2024’s disputed presidential election.

It remains unclear to what degree normalcy will return to Venezuela after the US attack on Saturday.

Early that morning, the administration of US President Donald Trump launched munitions against military installations in the states of Caracas, Aragua, Miranda and La Guaira.

At least 80 people died in the attack, according to an anonymous Venezuelan official quoted in The New York Times.

The US military offensive was over in a matter of hours. But Trump has warned he could authorise a “second wave” of attacks, should his demands for Venezuela not be fulfilled.

The Venezuelan government has also declared a state of emergency to “immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support for the armed attack by the United States”.

It has maintained that Maduro remains the leader of Venezuela, despite his abduction to the US.

To Arismendi, the tension in Venezuela has not yet reached the level seen after the 2024 election, when thousands of protesters took to the streets.

“I feel that there was more tension around the elections,” said Arismendi. “Thank God we’re not at that level right now, but I feel like we’re not that far off either.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

US president says oil will be sold at market prices and that he will control resulting revenues.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that Venezuela will turn over between 30 and 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump said on his platform Truth Social on Tuesday.

“I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

More to follow…

WASHINGTON — A highly confidential CIA assessment produced at the request of the White House warned President Trump of a wider conflict in Venezuela if he were to support the country’s democratic opposition once its president, Nicolás Maduro, was deposed, a person familiar with the matter told The Times.

The assessment was a tightly held CIA product commissioned at the request of senior policymakers before Trump decided whether to authorize Operation Absolute Resolve, the stunning U.S. mission that seized Maduro and his wife from their bedroom in Caracas over the weekend.

Announcing the results of the operation on Sunday, Trump surprised an anxious Venezuelan public when he was quick to dismiss the leadership of the democratic opposition — led by María Corina Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was ultimately stolen by Maduro.

Instead, Trump said his administration was working with Maduro’s handpicked vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has since been named the country’s interim president. The rest of Maduro’s government remains in place.

Endorsing the opposition would probably have required U.S. military backing, with the Venezuelan armed forces still under the control of loyalists to Maduro unwilling to relinquish power.

A second official said that the administration sought to avoid one of the cardinal mistakes of the invasion of Iraq, when the Bush administration ordered party loyalists of the deposed Saddam Hussein to be excluded from the country’s interim government. That decision, known as de-Baathification, led those in charge of Iraq’s stockpiles of weapons to establish armed resistance to the U.S. campaign.

The CIA product was not an assessment that was shared across the 18 government agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, whose head, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was largely absent from deliberations — and who has yet to comment on the operation, despite CIA operatives being deployed in harm’s way before and throughout the weekend mission.

The core team that worked on Absolute Resolve included Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who met routinely over several months, sometimes daily, the source added.

The existence of the CIA assessment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Signs have emerged that Trump’s team was in communication with Rodríguez ahead of the operation, although the president has denied that his administration gave Rodríguez advance notice of Maduro’s ouster.

“There are a number of unanswered questions,” said Evan Ellis, who served in Trump’s first term planning State Department policy on Latin America, the Caribbean and international narcotics. “There may have a been a cynical calculation that one can work with them.”

Rodríguez served as a point of contact with the Biden administration, experts note, and also was in touch with Richard Grenell, a top Trump aide who heads the Kennedy Center, early on in Trump’s second term, when he was testing engagement with Caracas.

While the federal indictment unsealed against Maduro after his seizure named several other senior officials in his government, Rodríguez’s name was notably absent.

Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president Monday in a ceremony attended by diplomats from Russia, China and Iran. Publicly, the leader has offered mixed messages, at once vowing to prevent Venezuela from becoming a colonial outpost of an American empire, while also offering to forge a newly collaborative relationship with Washington.

“Of course, for political reasons, Delcy Rodríguez can’t say, ‘I’ve cut a deal with Trump, and we’re going to stop the revolution now and start working with the U.S.,” Ellis said.

“It’s not about the democracy,” he said. “It’s about him not wanting to work with Maduro.”

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Machado said she had yet to speak with Trump since the U.S. operation over the weekend, but hoped to do so soon, offering to share her Nobel Peace Prize with him as a gesture of gratitude. Trump has repeatedly touted himself as a worthy recipient of the award.

“What he has done is historic,” Machado said, vowing to return to the country from hiding abroad since accepting the prize in Oslo last month.

“It’s a huge step,” she added, “towards a democratic transition.”

Washington, DC – United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not been shy about his desire to see the toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Infamously, the former Florida senator even posted a series of photos of slain deposed leaders, including a bloodied former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as tensions with the US and Maduro’s government spiked in 2019.

But it wasn’t until the second administration of US President Donald Trump that Rubio’s vision of a hardline approach to Latin America and his longtime pressure campaign against leftist leaders was realised – culminating on Saturday with the illegal abduction of longtime Venezuelan leader Maduro.

Experts say Rubio has relied on an ability to capitalise on the overlapping interests of competing actors within the Trump administration to achieve this, even as his broader ideological goals, including the ousting of Cuba’s communist government, will likely remain constrained by the administration’s competing ambitions.

“It took a tremendous amount of political skill on his part to marginalise other voices in the administration and elsewhere who were saying: ‘This is not our conflict. This is not what we stand for. This is going to upset our base,’” Alejandro Velasco, an associate professor of history at New York University, told Al Jazeera.

Those agendas included US President Donald Trump’s preoccupation with opening Venezuela’s nationalised oil industry, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s desire for a more pugilistic military approach abroad, and adviser Stephen Miller’s fixation on migration and mass deportation.

“So that’s the way that Rubio was able to bring into line not quite competing, but really divergent agendas, all of them to focus on Venezuela as a way to advance a particular end,” Velasco said.

A hawk in ‘America First’

A traditionalist hawk who has regularly supported US military intervention in the name of spreading Western democracy and human rights abroad, Rubio initially appeared to be an awkward fit to be Trump’s top diplomat in his second term.

His selection followed a campaign season defined by Trump’s vow to end foreign wars, eschew US-backed regime change, and pursue a wider “America First” pivot.

But the actual shape of Trump’s foreign policy has borne little resemblance to that vision, with the administration adopting a so-called “Peace Through Strength” doctrine that observers say has resulted in more room for military adventurism. That has, to date, seen the Trump administration launch bombing campaigns against Yemen and Iran, strike armed groups in Nigeria and Somalia, and attack alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean.

The approach of Trump 2.0 has more closely aligned with Rubio’s vision of Washington’s role abroad, which has long supported maximum-pressure sanctions campaigns and various forms of US intervention to topple governments.

The US secretary of state’s personal ideology traces to his South Florida roots, where his family settled in the 1960s after leaving Cuba three years before the rise of Fidel Castro, in what Velasco described as an “acerbically anti-communist” political environment.

“I think for him, it started as a question of finally making real the hopes and dreams of Cubans in Florida and elsewhere to return to their homeland under a capitalist government,” Velasco explained.

“It went from that to what this could represent, if we think about it more hemispherically – a bigger shift that would not only increase, but in fact ensure, US hegemony in the region for the 21st century.”

‘Vacuum was his to fill’

After tangling with Trump in the 2016 presidential election, in which the future president deridingly dubbed his opponent “Little Marco” while Rubio decried him as a “con man”, the pair forged a pragmatic working relationship.

Rubio eventually endorsed Trump ahead of the 2016 vote, helping to deliver Florida. In Trump’s first term, Rubio came to be seen as the president’s “shadow secretary” on Latin America, an atypical role that saw the lawmaker influence Trump’s eventual recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president in opposition to Maduro.

Analysts note Rubio’s approach to Venezuela has always been directly aimed at undermining the economic support it provides to Cuba, with the end goal of toppling the island’s 67-year-old Communist government. Following Maduro’s abduction on Saturday, Rubio quickly pivoted to the island nation, telling reporters: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned”.

Still, in the early months of Trump’s second term, Rubio appeared largely sidelined, with the president instead favouring close friends and family members to spearhead marquee negotiations on ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine.

During this time, Rubio was slowly amassing a sizeable portfolio. Beyond serving as secretary of state, Rubio became the acting administrator of the Trump-dismantled US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the acting archivist of the US National Archives. Most notably, he became the acting director of National Security, making him the first top US diplomat to also occupy the impactful White House role since Henry Kissinger.

Rubio eventually found himself in a White House power vacuum, according to Adam Isacson, the director of defence oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

“Rubio’s somebody who understands Washington better than the Grenells and Witkoffs of the world,” Isacson told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s special envoys Richard Grenell and Steve Witkoff.

“At the same time, other powerful figures inside the White House, like Stephen Miller and [Director of the Office of Management and Budget] Russ Vought haven’t cared as much about foreign policy,” he said, “so the vacuum was his to fill.”

Meanwhile, Rubio showed his ability to be an “ideological weather vane”, pivoting regularly to stay in Trump’s good graces, Isacson said. The National Security Strategy released by the White House in December exemplified that approach.

The document, which is drafted by the National Security adviser with final approval from the president, offered little in tough language towards Russia, despite Rubio’s previous hard lines on the war in Ukraine. It supported the gutting of US foreign aid, despite Rubio’s years-long support for the system. It offered little of the human-rights language with which Rubio had earlier in his career styled himself as a champion.

It did, however, include a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which dovetailed with Rubio’s worldview by calling for the restoration of US “preeminence” over the Western Hemisphere.

A pyrrhic victory?

To be sure, the toppling of Maduro has so far proved a partial, if not pyrrhic victory for Rubio, far short of the comprehensive change he has long supported.

In a news conference immediately following Maduro’s abduction, Trump doused support for exiled opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has hewed close to Rubio’s vision for a future Venezuela. Several news agencies have since reported that US intelligence assessed that installing an opposition figure would lead to widespread chaos in the country.

Rubio has so far been the point man in dealing with Maduro’s former deputy and replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, who has been a staunch supporter of the Hugo Chavez-founded Chavismo movement that Rubio has long railed against. Elections remain a far-off prospect, with Trump emphasising working with the government to open the oil industry to the US.

The secretary of state has not been officially given a role connected to the country, but has earned the less-than-sincere title in some US media of “viceroy of Venezuela”.

On news shows, Rubio has been tasked with walking back Trump’s claim that the US would “run” the South American country, while selling the administration’s oft-contradicted message that the abduction of Maduro was a law enforcement action, not regime change, an act of war, or a bid for the country’s oil.

“I think he’s sort of lying through his teeth,” Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Al Jazeera.

“Even he doesn’t seem to believe a lot of the sort of rhetorical and discursive pretexts that have been deployed about drugs, about narco-terrorism, about a law enforcement-only operation, about just sort of enforcing a Department of Justice indictment,” he said.

Having to work with Rodriguez, and reportedly, Venezuela’s security czar and Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello, has been a “bucket of cold water on Rubio’s broader illusions”, Schlenker added, noting that Rubio’s end goal still remains “the end of the Chavista project”.

Rubio is also likely to face further reality checks when it comes to his expected attempts to pitch the overthrow of what he will likely argue is a weakened Cuba.

The island, without the economic resources of Venezuela and no known drug trade, is seen as far less appealing to Trump and many of his allies.

“Compared to Venezuela,” Schlenker said, “there are a lot more reasons why Trump would have less interest in going after Cuba.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday defended his actions during the Capitol riot five years ago, joked about being liberal-minded to win the votes of transgender people and mocked a predecessor’s use of a wheelchair while delivering a meandering speech to House Republicans as the party enters a critical election year facing a razor-thin majority in the House.

The remarks were intended to ensure both the GOP’s executive and legislative wings are aligned on their agenda heading into the November midterms that will determine party control of Congress. But Trump spent more time rehashing past grievances during the lengthy appearance than he did talking about the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro or specific steps he’s taking to bring down prices as polls say inflation is the public’s top concern.

He also did not discuss new policy initiatives or legislation on his agenda for the year.

“We won every swing state. We won the popular vote by millions. We won everything,” Trump said, recounting his performance in the 2024 presidential election while seeming to acknowledge that history will side with the Democratic Party in November.

“But they say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm,” he said.

Political trends show that the party that wins the White House usually loses seats in Congress during the midterm elections two years later.

But Trump did try to rally the caucus at times, asserting that his first year back in office was so successful that Republicans should win in November on that basis alone. He briefly touched on Venezuela and talked about money coming into the U.S. through tariffs and direct investment and negotiations to bring down drug prices.

“You have so many good nuggets. You have to use them. If you can sell them, we’re going to win,” Trump said. He claimed that “we’ve had the most successful first year of any president in history and it should be a positive.”

The House GOP is facing a sudden narrowing of their already thin majority with the death of California Rep. Doug LaMalfa, announced Tuesday, and the resignation of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which took effect at midnight.

“You can’t be tough when you have a majority of three, and now, sadly, a little bit less than that,” Trump said after paying tribute to LaMalfa, noting the challenges House Speaker Mike Johnson faces in keeping their ranks unified.

The president also noted that Rep. Jim Baird (R-Wis.) was recovering after a “bad” car accident, further slimming Johnson’s vote margins.

House Republicans convened as they launch their new year agenda, with healthcare issues in particular dogging the GOP heading into the midterm elections. Votes on extending expired health insurance subsidies are expected as soon as this week, and it’s unclear whether the president and the party will try to block its passage.

Trump said he would be meeting soon with 14 companies to discuss health insurance.

In remarks that approached 90 minutes, Trump also mused about unconstitutionally seeking a third term as president. He claimed it was never reported that he urged his supporters to walk “peacefully and patriotically” on Jan. 6, 2021, to the Capitol, where they rioted to try to overturn his election loss. He used his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, to poke at President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat who used a wheelchair.

According to the president, she thinks the dancing he does at his rallies is not presidential.

“She actually said, ‘Could you imagine FDR dancing?’ She actually said that to me,” Trump said. “And I said there’s a long history that perhaps she doesn’t know.”

GOP lawmakers were hosting a daylong policy forum at the Kennedy Center, where the board, stocked by Trump with loyalists, recently voted to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center. The move is being challenged in court.

Trump and Johnson are trying to corral Republicans at a time when rank-and-file lawmakers have felt increasingly emboldened to buck Trump and the leadership’s wishes, on issues such as the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The meeting also comes days after the Trump administration’s dramatic capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, which occurred after a months-long U.S. campaign to pressure the now-deposed leader by building up American forces in the waters off South America and bombing boats alleged to have been carrying drugs.

The Maduro capture is reigniting the debate about Trump’s powers over Congress to authorize the campaign against Venezuela, though House Republican lawmakers have largely been supportive of the administration’s efforts there.

Kim and Superville write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Will Weissert contributed to this report.

US President Donald Trump says no Americans, but some soldiers ‘on the other side’ were killed in the ‘complex’ military operation that abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro is out, Delcy Rodríguez is in, and yet Venezuela feels no more democratic than it did three days ago, when the former president was still boasting about air defenses and bunker walls.

The change itself was not entirely unexpected. In recent months, reporting had increasingly pointed to Rodríguez as the most viable figure to ensure continuity after Maduro, alongside speculation about negotiations involving her and her brother Jorge Rodríguez, including meetings in Doha facilitated by the Qatari government, that would have secured Maduro a negotiated exit and a prolonged, carefully managed transition.

In the end, that golden exile proved unnecessary. What followed was not a rupture, but an acceleration: the same transition logic, executed without the need for Maduro’s consent—or his presence. Still, calling this a “transition” rather than a decapitation feels increasingly strained when several of the figures flanking Rodríguez as she signaled her willingness to step in, should the Supreme Court so demand, carry the same international bounties Maduro once did, and in some cases appear in the very same indictments, now sharing docket space with far more famous recent arrivals.

If this were a democratic transition, power would be moving outward, toward institutions, parties, and voters. We would have seen the unconditional release of political prisoners. The winners of the July 28 election would not be calling for international protests demanding that their victory be respected. Instead, power has moved sideways and downward. The most visible winners of the post-Maduro moment are not opposition leaders, but many of Maduro’s former allies.

Even more telling is that while the armed forces appear to have retreated to their barracks, colectivos have rapidly expanded their role in Caracas from tolerated enforcers to de facto authorities. They patrol neighborhoods, gather intelligence, intimidate opponents, and perform basic law-enforcement functions with a confidence that suggests not stabilization, but delegation. Where, exactly, the United States is exerting the control President Trump claims to hold over Venezuela’s transition remains unclear, and, for now, largely the stuff of rumor.

Rodríguez may offer a fresher, more professional face at the head of the regime, but the internal knife-fighting, the power jockeying, and the coercive architecture remain firmly in place

This is not state collapse. It is state outsourcing. The arrested transition has reproduced Venezuela’s familiar condition of managed chaos, governed by actors who require neither legal mandates nor democratic legitimacy, only loyalty and force. For ordinary Venezuelans, the result is a familiar but sharpened experience of power: surveillance that feels more granular, coercion that feels more localized, and accountability that feels even more elusive.

The irony is that this consolidation is unfolding under the language of moderation and normalization. Rodríguez’s elevation has been framed as a stabilizing move, a technocratic turn after years of bombast and paranoia. Her record as economic vice president and minister is now being repackaged as evidence of competence, pragmatism, even reform. After denouncing Maduro’s “abduction” by U.S. forces on January 3, the very next day saw a remarkable pivot in the regime’s propaganda apparatus: Rodríguez was suddenly celebrated as Venezuela’s first female president, with a speed matched only by her plane’s return from Russia and landing in Venezuelan airspace, despite official claims that the skies were under U.S. control.

If colectivos are serious about rooting out traitors, they may find better luck checking phones in Miraflores and the Capitol than stopping cars on the highways of Caracas.

That speed matters. It reveals how thin chavismo’s ideological commitments have become, and how central narrative management now is to regime survival. Maduro was not the project; he was a vehicle. Once removed, the system adapted almost instantly, swapping revolutionary mythology for managerial language without altering the underlying mechanics of control.

For Washington, this appears, so far, to have been good enough. With Maduro gone, the Trump administration’s priorities seem to have shifted from political transformation to stabilization and risk management. A loud, autonomous opposition, once instrumental to regime pressure, is now framed less as a democratic partner than as a short-term liability. The result has not been repression, but marginalization: opposition figures are tolerated, even encouraged to remain visible, while being excluded from meaningful decision-making.

Meanwhile, the regime has solved a different problem, at least temporarily: how to continue governing under legal siege. Rodríguez’s inner circle overlaps heavily with the same network of officials who defined the Maduro years, many of whom face international indictments and bounties of their own. This is not fertile ground for the trust or guarantees required to sustain a regime as complex as Venezuela’s.

Whether Rodríguez’s presidency is a durable settlement or a trial arrangement remains unclear. So does the question many within chavismo are surely asking themselves: faced with continued pressure from Washington to “deliver,” will Rodríguez lean into the combative instincts that defined her domestic record, or will Maduro and Cilia Flores soon find themselves joined by more former comrades at MDC?

Transitions are meant to reset political and legal time. What has happened in Venezuela has merely rearranged it. Rodríguez may offer a fresher, more professional face at the head of the regime, but the internal knife-fighting, the power jockeying, and the coercive architecture remain firmly in place.

What emerges, then, is not a failed transition, but an arrested one. Politics has been paused in the name of order. Democracy has been deferred in the name of stability. Venezuela is governed as if perpetually on the verge of change, never quite authoritarian enough to provoke rupture, never democratic enough to allow arrival. Maduro is gone. Democracy, once again, is told to wait.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has made broad but vague assertions that the United States is going to “run” Venezuela after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro but has offered almost no details about how it will do so, raising questions among some lawmakers and former officials about the administration’s level of planning for the country after Maduro was gone.

Seemingly contradictory statements from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested at once that the U.S. now controls the levers of Venezuelan power or that the U.S. has no intention of assuming day-to-day governance and will allow Maduro’s subordinates to remain in leadership positions for now.

Rubio said the U.S. would rely on existing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector and criminal gangs to wield leverage with Maduro’s successors.

The uncertainty on definitive next steps in Venezuela contrasts with the years of discussions and planning that went into U.S. military interventions that deposed other autocratic leaders, notably in Iraq in 2003, which still did not often lead to the hoped-for outcomes.

‘Disagreement about how to proceed’

The discrepancy between what Trump and Rubio have said publicly has not sat well with some former diplomats.

“It strikes me that we have no idea whatsoever as to what’s next,” said Dan Fried, a retired career diplomat, former assistant secretary of state and sanctions coordinator who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“For good operational reasons, there were very few people who knew about the raid, but Trump’s remarks about running the country and Rubio’s uncomfortable walk back suggests that even within that small group of people, there is disagreement about how to proceed,” said Fried who is now with the Atlantic Council think tank.

Supporters of the operation, meanwhile, believe there is little confusion over the U.S. goal.

“The president speaks in big headlines and euphemisms,” said Rich Goldberg, a sanctions proponent who worked in the National Energy Dominance Council at the White House until last year and is now a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank.

Goldberg does not see Rubio becoming “the superintendent of schools” but “effectively, the U.S. will be calling the shots.”

“There are people at the top who can make what we want happen or not, and we right now control their purse strings and their lives,” he said. “The president thinks it’s enough and the secretary thinks it’s enough, and if it’s not enough, we’ll know very soon and we’ll deal with it.”

If planning for the U.S. “to run” Venezuela existed prior to Maduro’s arrest and extradition to face federal drug charges, it was confined to a small group of Trump political allies, according to current U.S. officials, who note that Trump relies on a very small circle of advisers and has tossed aside much of the traditional decision-making apparatus.

These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their understanding of internal deliberations, said they were not aware of any preparations for either a military occupation or an interim civilian governing authority, which has been a priority for previous administrations when they contemplated going to war to oust a specific leader or government. The White House and the State Department’s press office did not return messages seeking comment.

Long discussion among agencies in previous interventions

Previous military actions that deposed autocratic leaders, notably in Panama in 1989 and Iraq in 2003, were preceded by months, if not years, of interagency discussion and debate over how best to deal with power vacuums caused by the ousters of their leaders. The State Department, White House National Security Council, the Pentagon and the intelligence community all participated in that planning.

In Panama, the George H.W. Bush administration had nearly a full year of preparations to launch the invasion that ousted Panama’s leader Manuel Noriega. Panama, however, is exponentially smaller than Venezuela, it had long experience as a de facto American territory, and the U.S. occupation was never intended to retake territory or natural resources.

By contrast, Venezuela is vastly larger in size and population and has a decadeslong history of animosity toward the United States.

“Panama was not successful because it was supported internationally because it wasn’t,” Fried said. “It was a success because it led to a quick, smooth transfer to a democratic government. That would be a success here, but on the first day out, we trashed someone who had those credentials, and that strikes me as daft.”

He was referring to Trump’s apparent dismissal of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose party is widely believed to have won elections in 2024, results that Maduro refused to accept. Trump said Saturday that Machado “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to be a credible leader and suggested he would be OK with Maduro’s No. 2, Delcy Rodríguez, remaining in power as long as she works with the U.S.

Hoped-for outcomes didn’t happen in Iraq and Afghanistan

Meanwhile, best-case scenarios like those predicted by the George W. Bush administration for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq that it would be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East and hopes for a democratic and stable Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban died painfully slow deaths at the tremendous expense of American money and lives after initial euphoria over military victories.

“Venezuela looks nothing like Libya, it looks nothing like Iraq, it looks nothing like Afghanistan. It looks nothing like the Middle East,” Rubio said this weekend of Venezuela and its neighbors. “These are Western countries with long traditions at a people-to-people and cultural level, and ties to the United States, so it’s nothing like that.”

The lack of clarity on Venezuela has been even more pronounced because Trump campaigned on a platform of extricating the U.S. from foreign wars and entanglements, a position backed by his “Make America Great Again” supporters, many of whom are seeking explanations about what the president has in mind for Venezuela.

“Wake up MAGA,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has bucked much of his party’s lockstep agreement with Trump, posted on X after the operation. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.”

Sen. Rand Paul, also a Kentucky Republican, who often criticizes military interventions, said “time will tell if regime change in Venezuela is successful without significant monetary or human cost.”

“Easy enough to argue such policy when the action is short, swift and effective but glaringly less so when that unitary power drains of us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, such as occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam,” he wrote on social media.

In addition to the Venezuela operation, Trump is preparing to take the helm of an as-yet unformed Board of Peace to run postwar Gaza, involving the United States in yet another Mideast engagement for possibly decades to come.

And yet, as both the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences ultimately proved, no amount of planning guarantees success.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

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.