Trump says the US will “run” Venezuela for now. What do we know about the programs?

washington – President Trump’s announcement on Saturday that The United States will “run” Venezuela after the US arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife raised new questions about the extent of US involvement in the South American country.

Mr. Trump did not provide as many details about his administration’s plans for the US role in Venezuela as he did he talked about it night work from his South Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. The President announced on social media that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, “were kidnapped and expelled from the country.” Officials told CBS News that the operation was carried out by the US Army’s Delta Force, a special operations unit.

Maduro and his wife they were brought to the US to face criminal charges from what prosecutors say they were involved in a conspiracy to commit drug terrorism and import “thousands of tons” of cocaine to the US Maduro and his wife arrived at Stewart Airport in upstate New York on Saturday afternoon, hours after they were arrested.

With Maduro’s ouster, it is not clear who is in charge of Venezuela or who can lead the nation in the future. Mr. Trump said it will be “very difficult” for Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado to take office because she “doesn’t get support or respect in the country.”

The president said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio also had a conversation with the Vice President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez, Mr.

But in his remarks on state television, Rodriguez said Maduro is “the only president of Venezuela” and demanded his release. He was later granted full presidential powers by Venezuela’s supreme court on Saturday who is respected by the military as acting head of state per week.

Venezuela holds its last presidential election in July 2024, but electoral authorities have not provided detailed vote tallies, and the US and many European countries have rejected Maduro’s claim to victory. The US, under the Biden administration, the nominated representative of the opposition party Edmundo González as president-elect. González fled into exile in Spain in September 2024 after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Trump says the US will “handle it well,” but offers few details

Mr. Trump said the US will “manage the country” until there is a “safe, just and prudent” transition of power in Venezuela.

“We will not take the opportunity for someone else to take over Venezuela who does not think of the good of the Venezuelan people. We have had that for decades. We will not allow that,” the president said. “We are here now. And what people don’t understand, but they understand as I say this, we are here now, but we will stay until the time when the right change can happen.”

He did not provide any further details about how the US will manage Venezuela, under what authority, or whether the US will participate in choosing a new leader.

Mr. Trump indicated that senior administration officials — including Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who appeared alongside Mr. Trump on Saturday – they will work with a “team” working with the people of Venezuela. However, he did not say who will be included in that group.

When asked about plans to run the country, Rubio on Sunday signed off on “Look at the Nation” with Margaret Brennan that the US does not plan to directly control Venezuela, but will influence its policy by, among other things, enforcing an “oil quarantine.”

“That’s the way the president is pointing when he says that,” Rubio said. “We continue with that separation of people, and we expect to see that there will be changes, not only in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also to stop drug trafficking, so that we no longer have these problems of gangs, so that they expel FARC and ELN, and that they can no longer meet with Hezbollah and Iran in our area.”

Rubio said people are “obsessed” with whether the US will take Venezuela “by the bootstraps [on the ground] and this or that,” adding Mr. Trump would not rule that out, “although that’s not what you’re seeing right now. What you’re seeing right now is the diversification of oil that allows us to harness the power of what’s next.”

In an interview Saturday evening, “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth what a US run Venezuela might look like.

“It means we’re setting goals. President Trump is setting goals. And ultimately, he’s going to decide which iteration of that,” Hegseth said. “But, it means that the drugs stop flowing, it means that the oil that was taken from us is returned, finally, and that the criminals are not sent to the United States.”

The role of the oil industry

When asked during the US involvement, Mr. Trump said Venezuela’s “entire infrastructure” must be rebuilt. He is particularly focused on the prospect of rebuilding the oil industry in a nation with one of the world’s largest oil reserves.

“If we’re just going, of course [Venezuela] we have no chance of him coming back,” he said. “We will do it well. We will run it professionally. We’re going to have the biggest oil companies in the world come in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take money out, spend that money in Venezuela, and the biggest beneficiaries will be the Venezuelan people.”

When asked about ban on approved oils from Venezuela placed by Mr. Trump last month, Hegseth said that there is no oil coming in or out of the country, and the US military is still well positioned in the Caribbean.

“[Mr. Trump] to say clearly from the platform today. We will find American companies there. We will invest there. These oil storage facilities were operating at 20% capacity. That will change,” Hegseth told CBS News.

The figures for Maduro’s regime are still there

While the Trump administration has removed Maduro, senior members of his government remain. Among them are Rodríguez, who was chosen by Maduro as his deputy, as well as Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

Cabello was named as a co-defendant along with Maduro and his wife in an indictment returned by a New York grand jury as part of an alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Appearing to be a warning to the Venezuelan officials who remain in the area, Mr. Trump said the US is “ready to launch a second and larger attack” on Venezuela if needed, and that his administration is “not afraid of boots on the ground.”

Rubio expanded on the comments Sunday on “Look at the Nation” with Margaret Brennan,” said Mr. Trump “doesn’t feel like he’s going to openly, you know, take away the options available to the United States, even though that’s not what you’re seeing right now.”

Asked to clarify that there is no plan for a US presence in Venezuela, Rubio said “the president always chooses in any and all of these matters.”

When asked by other indicted members of Maduro’s Cabinet, Rubio replied, “So you wanted us to get to the other five military bases?”

“The top person on the list was a guy who claimed to be the president of a country that he wasn’t, and he was arrested along with his wife, who was also indicted,” Rubio said, calling Maduro “the main target.”

Asked if the US is working on a transition to install a leader, Rubio said, while “acknowledging Edmundo” and opposition leader María Corina Machado, “There is a campaign we are in right now.”