Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is slated to appear in Manhattan federal court on Monday. The ousted Venezuelan leader, brought to New York with his wife after their capture by American forces in a dramatic military operation, faces charges related to cocaine trafficking. He is being held in a Brooklyn jail.
President Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela until there can be a “proper” transition. The oil-rich nation's de facto leader is leftist Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president. Trump said she has agreed to do whatever the U.S. needed done. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said the U.S. would be “running policy,” after Maduro’s removal.
“We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it's good for the people of Venezuela, it's in our national interest,” he said on NBC's “Meet the Press.”
According to Trump, the U.S. plan for Venezuela includes “taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground” and sharing it in part with Venezuelans. He added that U.S. oil companies would spend billions of dollars in Venezuela to fix its oil infrastructure.
Chevron and others in the U.S. oil-and-gas industry didn’t receive advance notice of the U.S. incursion or the Trump administration's broader Venezuela strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.
Flying back to Washington, D.C., on Air Force One on Sunday, Trump threatened Colombia with possible action.
The Justice Department charged Maduro and five others with playing roles in a drug-trafficking network called the Cartel de los Soles and of helping to move large shipments of cocaine to the U.S.
Venezuela’s capital was rocked by a series of explosions during “Operation Absolute Resolve.” Venezuela’s government said the coastal states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira were also hit.
The Justice Department and federal law enforcement agencies defended their role in the seizure of Maduro, saying in a joint statement that the U.S. had “pursued every lawful opportunity to resolve this matter peacefully.”
The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Monday morning.