The United States will “run” Venezuela in the wake of an assault on the country centered on the capture of the country’s leader in Caracas, President Donald Trump said Saturday.
More than 150 aircraft took part in the attack, which destroyed and suppressed Venezuelan air defenses before Delta Force operators landed at the presidential palace and seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife just after 2 a.m. local time, officials told reporters. The capturing force then withdrew from the country. The regime-change operation, dubbed Absolute Resolve, proceeded without authorization from Congress or with international sanction.
Trump, who had long denied that the months-long buildup of forces in the Caribbean was aimed at ousting Maduro, said on Saturday that the United States would “run” Venezuela “for a period of time.”
“We’ll run it properly. We’ll run it professionally. We’ll have the greatest oil companies in the world going in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela,” he said during a press conference at his Florida compound.
Asked just how that will work, the president said, “It’s all being done right now. We’re designating people. We’re talking to people.”
“There’s going to be a team that’s working with the people of Venezuela to make sure that we have Venezuela right. Because for us to just leave, who’s going to take over? I mean, there is nobody to take over. You have a vice president who’s been appointed by Maduro, and right now she’s the vice president, and she’s, I guess, the president.”
“We’re not going to just do this with Maduro, then leave like everybody else, leave and say, you know, let it go to hell. If we just left, it has zero chance of ever coming back,” Trump told reporters.
Asked whether this would involve keeping U.S. troops in Venezuela, the president said, “Well, you know, they always say boots on the ground. So we’re not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually. We’re not afraid of it. We don’t mind saying it. But we’re going to make sure that that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain. This is not, this is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly. Could have gone very badly. We could have lost a lot of people last night. We could have lost a lot of dignity. We could have lost a lot of equipment. The equipment is less important. But we could have lost a lot.”
The assault drew condemnation from Congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans.
“Protecting democracy should not be done through illegal means,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a Saturday statement. “This military action is the next stage in President Trump’s incoherent and arguably illegal Venezuela operation. In recent briefings to Congress, senior administration officials said they were focused on combatting drug trafficking, not regime change, and made clear they had no plan for what would happen if Maduro was removed or overthrown. This was clearly false, and furthermore, a military operation to capture and overthrow a president – even an illegitimate one – is an act of war that must be authorized by Congress.”
Next week, the U.S. Senate will consider a joint resolution, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to effectively block Trump from continuing to pursue military action in Venezuela without explicit Senate approval. “Congress hereby directs the President to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force,” it reads. Kaine and Paul put forward a similar resolution in November that failed to pass.
“Since the founding of our Republic, the Constitution has vested one power clearly and exclusively in Congress: the power to declare war. Let’s be clear: Congress has not declared war on Venezuela,” Schumer said in a joint statement.
The administration did not notify Congress of the impending assault on Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the press conference.
“This is not the kind of mission you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission,” Rubio said.
At the press conference, Trump and other administration figures initially framed the assault as fundamentally a law-enforcement matter: the extradition of Maduro on charges brought in 2020 and a new indictment today.
“The illegitimate dictator Maduro was the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States,” Trump said, reading from a statement. “Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil.”
But he spent much of the press conference talking about the benefits for the American energy industry.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the “pretexts cited to justify such actions” were “unfounded.” The Russian government, which invaded Ukraine in 2014 and then escalated its invasion in 2022, is a close ally of the Maduro regime. Russia, along with Venezuela, South Africa, and Columbia, is calling for a full meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement posted on X, “The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.”
At the press conference, one reporter said, “Mr. President, the U.S. has something of a mixed track record of ousting dictators without necessarily a plan for what comes afterwards. Did that weigh on your decision?”
Responded Trump: “Well, that’s where we had different presidents. But with me, that’s not true. With me, we’ve had a perfect track record of winning.”
Analysts said the Venezuela operation sets a dangerous precedent.
“I am concerned about what comes next, because it’s clearly not over and it has a lot of ways it could go wrong,” Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank told Defense One. “But I’m also worried about the precedent that it sets going forward, because if the U.S. can go in and declare your leader illegitimate, arrest him, remove him, and then occupy the country—then why can’t other countries do that?”
Thomas Novelly and Lauren C. Williams contributed to this report.
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