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The United States is now in control of Venezuela following the Trump administration’s historic capture and arrest of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro.
The president previously announced Maduro’s capture via a post to Truth Social, writing that the U.S. military carried out a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela before capturing the dictator and his wife.
The couple was then flown out of the country and placed aboard the USS Iwo Jima. Images posted by the president to Truth Social show the Venezuelan leader blindfolded and in handcuffs while aboard the assault ship.
With Maduro in U.S. custody and facing charges, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until the country maintains a smooth and democratic transition of power.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” the president said at a Saturday press conference in Florida.
He added that the U.S. would be doing so in order to avoid having another dictatorial leader like Maduro assume the presidency and have the same situation happen once again.
“We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country,” he added. “It’s their homeland. We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.”
The president also vowed to return U.S. energy investment to Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves.
U.S. military members previously carried out a large-scale strike on Venezuela early Saturday morning, capturing and arresting the country’s dictatorial president Maduro and his wife, and transferring them to U.S. soil to face a slew of charges.
Maduro, a socialist elected president and successor to Hugo Chavez in 2013, faces charges related to narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York, the attorney general noted in a statement posted to X.
Maduro is accused of having enriched himself and political elites by supposedly partnering with violent gangs and cartels that have established syndicates and trafficked drugs across the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, Fox News reported. The indictment lists six defendants, including Maduro and his wife, his son, and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the leader of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Since his capture, Venezuela’s Vice President Decly Rodríguez has assumed the role of acting-president. However, President Trump has maintained that the U.S. is still “in charge” of the country.
Though he has not personally spoken with Rodríguez, the president suggested during a press gaggle that coordination is already transpiring between U.S. officials and new Venezuelan leadership.
“We’re going to run everything,” he said. “We’re going to run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.”
During an exclusive interview with The Atlantic, President Trump also warned Rodríguez that if she doesn’t “do what’s right,” she will “pay a big price,” possibly “bigger than Maduro.”
