Trump: U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela after capturing Maduro in overnight attack

Maduro on Saturday night was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

He faces drug charges in New York next week.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has yet to weigh in on the U.S. operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Caracas as of Saturday night, nearly 24 hours since President Trump approved the audacious mission that captured the Venezuelan leader.

Gabbard’s silence on the operation surprised some in the U.S. intelligence community, which laid the groundwork for the mission over several months, and which had assets in harm’s way on the ground in Venezuela as the operation unfolded.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe accompanied Trump in Mar-a-Lago throughout the night as the extraction was underway, and stood beside the president as he conducted a news conference announcing the results.

“Teamwork at its finest,” Ratcliffe wrote on social media, posted alongside photos of him with the president’s team in the temporary situation room set up at Trump’s Florida estate.

Gabbard, a native of Hawaii who, according to her X account, spent the holidays in her home state, made a name for herself as a member of Congress campaigning against “regime change wars,” particularly the U.S. war in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.

In a speech at Turning Point USA’s annual conference last month, Gabbard criticized “warmongers” in the “deep state” of the intelligence community she leads trying to thwart Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.

“Too often we, the American people, are told we must choose between liberty or security, and which side often wins out in that proposition,” she told the gathered crowd. “Liberty loses, and the warmongers claim that they are doing what they are doing for the sake of our security. It’s a lie.”

In Caracas on Saturday, the mood was tense after Maudro’s outsider. Long lines formed at supermarkets and pharmacies as shoppers, fearful of uncertainty, stocked up on essentials.

Maduro’s supporters gathered throughout the city, many bearing arms, but seemed unsure of what to do next.

WASHINGTON — Maria Eugenia Torres Ramirez was having dinner with her family in Los Angeles on Friday night when the flood of messages began. Word had begun to circulate that the U.S. was invading Venezuela and would seize its president, Nicolás Maduro.

Torres Ramirez, 38, fled her native country in 2021, settled in L.A. and has a pending application for asylum. Her family is scattered throughout the world — Colombia, Chile and France. Since her parents died, none of her loved ones remain in Venezuela.

Matthew Waxman, chair of the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School, said that in the days ahead, he expects the Trump administration to try to justify its actions not just as a law enforcement operation, but “as part of a larger campaign to defend the United States against what it has characterized as an attack or invasion by Maduro-linked drug cartels.”

“All modern presidents have claimed broad constitutional power to use military force without congressional authorization, but that is always hotly contested. We’ll see if there’s much pushback in Congress in this case, which will probably depend a lot on how things now play out in Venezuela,” Waxman said.

“Look at what happened last year in Iran: The president claimed the power to bomb nuclear program infrastructure, and when the operation didn’t escalate, congressional opponents backed off.”

Teams of armed pro-government youth riding on motorcyles and other vehicles are part of the paramilitary civilian repression apparatus that has helped prop up the authoritarian government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to human rights groups.

Collectively known as colectivos and typically donning jeans and sometimes masks, the feared mobile gunmen provide an intimidation force against opposition efforts, activists say, representing an effective damper on criticism of the government. They would show up at anti-government protests.

The colectivos took to the streets of Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, early Saturday as word spread that Maduro had been apprehended by U.S. forces and removed from the country.

Here are how some elected representatives in California are responding:

“The president has lost his mind. There was no approval from Congress, let alone any notification,’’ said Rep. Gil Cisneros, D-Covina. “(Nicolás) Maduro is an illegitimate leader, but what was the justification for kidnapping him and his wife? This shortsighted and reckless attack continues to feed the president’s goal of regime change and controlling Venezuelan oil, no matter the cost. This administration has continued to lie, bypass Congress and the American people, and act unilaterally without authorization. The administration must immediately brief Congress on the legal justification for the kidnapping as well as a plan to maintain regional stability.’’

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia and member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, also slammed Trump’s action Saturday. “The self-proclaimed president of peace has once again resorted to war. After months of conducting extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean, this rogue president has just escalated his illegal campaign by carrying out military strikes in Venezuela without any declaration of war or authorization of military force from Congress,’’ she said.

``What the hell is going on?’’ Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, posted Saturday morning on X. ``Trump has supposedly abducted President Maduro and his wife and brought them to the United States for trial, supposedly for drug trafficking and bringing drugs to the United States. It was just a few

weeks ago when Trump pardoned one of the biggest drug traffickers in the world, Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who had been convicted by the Biden administration and was serving a sentence of 45 years in prison. What is this? Is this about regime change? Is this about oil? Or is this a power play to continue to send a message around the world that Trump is all-powerful and he is headed towards dictatorship in our country?’’

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, wrote on X that ``President Trump just bombed Venezuela and arrested its leader without any explanation to the American people and without authorization from Congress. Americans do not want another foreign regime change war launched in secret and without accountability. And Trump is setting an example to the world that it is acceptable for countries to unilaterally overthrow sovereign leaders. ``Congress must rein in this administration and stop it from dragging our country into another endless, unauthorized war,’’ Chu added.

Rep. Young Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, expressed support for the decision.

``Maduro was a brutal dictator and indicted narco-terrorist responsible for flooding our country with deadly drugs and contributing tocountless American deaths,’’ she said early Saturday. ``The Venezuelan people have suffered under his illegitimate rule for long enough. I’m glad he will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and look forward to hearing more from the administration in the coming days and hours.’’

The United National issued the following statement on the U.S. attack:

The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by the recent escalation in Venezuela, culminating with today’s United States military action in the country, which has potential worrying implications for the region.

Independently of the situation in Venezuela, these developments constitute a dangerous precedent. The Secretary-General continues to emphasize the importance of full respect - by all - of international law, including the UN Charter. He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected.

The Secretary-General calls on all actors in Venezuela to engage in inclusive dialogue, in full respect of human rights and the rule of law.

The surprise capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is a major victory for Marco Rubio, President Trump’s secretary of State.

Rubio has long tried to “sway top leaders of the isolationist MAGA movement to his lifelong effort to topple Latin America’s leftist authoritarians,” The Times reported in October.

Here are some highlights:

• As a senator from Florida, Rubio represented exiles from three leftist autocracies — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — and for years he has made it his mission to weaken their governments.
• He has long maintained that eliminating Maduro would deal a fatal blow to Cuba, whose economy has been buoyed by billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions.
• To overcome Trump’s isolationists instincts, Rubio painted Maduro in a new light: Going after Maduro, Rubio argued, was not about promoting democracy or a change of governments. It was striking a drug kingpin fueling crime in American streets, an epidemic of American overdoses, and a flood of illegal migration to America’s borders.
  

A new superseding indictment accuses Maduro and his wife on drug charges.

“MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO worked together to traffic cocaine, much of which had been previously seized by Venezuelan law enforcement, with the assistance of armed military escorts. During this time, MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO maintained their own groups of statesponsored gangs known as colectivos to facilitate and protect their drug trafficking operation. MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO also ordered kidnappings, beatings, and murders against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking.”

Here is the full indictment.

At around 5:25 p.m. ET, a person in custody was escorted out of the plane believed to be carrying Maduro.

The person gingerly made his way down a stairway one step at a time, then was led across the tarmac surrounded by a crowd of at least three dozen federal agents.

Several agents in the crowd appeared to film the person on their phones.

The Trump administration did not seek congressional approval for the attack, prompting lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill to express trepidation and concern over the operation. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Saturday that it was “not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission.”

Trump agreed, saying that members of Congress tend to “leak” information to the public. “Congress will leak and we did not want leakers,” Trump said.

Democrats and some Republicans in Congress raised questions about the legality of the attack and the administration’s long-term vision for Venezuela.

Venezuela, a country of 30 million people with twice the landmass of California, sits on one of the largest oil reserves in the world. But its production capacity has been relatively weak in recent years, owed in large part, experts say, to U.S. sanctions, as well as poor government investment in its infrastructure.

Up until now, China has been the largest importer of Venezuelan crude, purchasing between 60% and 80% of its barrels output each month. Senior Chinese officials were in Caracas when the raid occurred, and in a statement, China’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply shocked” by what it described as a “hegemonic” U.S. action that violated international law.

Trump justified the stunning attack by accusing Maduro of sending “monsters” into the United States from Venezuelan prisons and claiming his involvement in the drug trade. But the American president focused more on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, accusing its government of stealing U.S. oil infrastructure in the country decades prior and vowing that, under new U.S. government control, output would increase going forward.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in,” he added, “spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country.”

Some critics say the move is all about oil.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) dismissed the administration’s justification of the mission, stating on social media, “it’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month,” referencing Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.

“It’s about oil and regime change,” she added.

Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s vice president since 2018, overseeing much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy as well as its feared intelligence service.

In the wake of a U.S. military operation that involved the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump said his team was in touch with Rodriguez, whom he called “quite gracious” and said she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to Make Venezuela Great Again.”

However, Rodríguez has tried to project strength and unity among the ruling party’s many factions, downplaying any hint of betrayal. In remarks on state TV, she demanded the immediate release of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and denounced the U.S. operation as a flagrant violation of the United Nations charter.

“There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro,” Rodríguez said.

A lawyer educated in Britain and France, 56-year-old Rodríguez has a long history of representing the revolution started by the late Hugo Chávez on the world stage.

She and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, head of the Maduro-controlled National Assembly, have strong leftist credentials born from tragedy. Their father was a socialist leader who died in police custody in the 1970s, a crime that shook many activists of the era, including a young Maduro.

Unlike many in Maduro’s inner circle, the Rodríguez siblings have avoided criminal indictment in the U.S. Delcy Rodríguez has developed strong ties with Republicans in the oil industry and on Wall Street who balked at the notion of U.S.-led regime change.

Among her past interlocutors was Blackwater founder Erik Prince and, more recently, Richard Grenell, a Trump special envoy who tried to negotiate a deal with Maduro for greater U.S. influence in Venezuela.

Fluent in English, Rodríguez is sometimes portrayed as a well-educated moderate in contrast to the military hardliners who took up arms with Chávez against Venezuela’s democratically elected president in the 1990s.

When Maduro announced Rodriguez’s appointment as vice president in June 2018, he called her a “sister” and “brave young woman” who has been “tested in a thousand battles.”

Under Venezuela’s constitution, the vice president is designated by the president. The vice president also assumes power if the president resigns or becomes incapacitated.

Trump did not offer a timeline for how long a transition would take, or which Venezuelan factions he would support to assume leadership.

Maria Corina Machado, a leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, said Saturday that she and her team were prepared to assume control of Venezuela.

“The hour of freedom has arrived,” she wrote on social media. “We are prepared to assert our mandate and take power.”

But in a surprising statement, Trump told reporters that he did not believe Machado had the “respect” needed to run the country.

Trump instead focused on how his Cabinet intends to run Venezuela in the coming days, stating that American oil companies are ready to descend on the country and begin “taking out tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”

“That wealth is going to the people of Venezuela and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes to the United States of America, in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused to us by that country,” Trump said.

In recent speeches and media appearances, Machado has expressed support for privatizing Venezuela’s oil industry, without committing herself to granting U.S. companies preferential treatment in a post-Maduro world.

“Oil wealth was not used to uplift, but to bind,” Machado said in her Nobel Prize lecture last month. “And then came the ruin: Obscene corruption; historic looting. During the regime’s rule, Venezuela received more oil revenue than in the previous century combined. And it was all stolen. Oil money became a tool to purchase loyalty abroad.”

At a rally south of downtown Los Angeles Saturday afternoon, John Parker, a representative of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, called the raid a “brutal assault and kidnapping” that amounted to a war crime.

Parker said when he visited Venezuela a few weeks ago as part of a U.S. peacemaking delegation, he saw “the love people had for Maduro.”

The United States’ intervention in Venezuela had nothing to do with stopping the flow of drugs, he said, and everything to do with undermining a legitimate socialist government. Parker called for Maduro to be set free as a few dozen protesters behind him chanted, “Hands off Venezuela.”

Carlos Sirah, a representative for the Black Alliance for Peace, said the seizure of Maduro was the latest example of American meddling in Latin America, following attacks on Haiti and Panama. He called the raid a “cowardly and blatantly illegal” grab for the country’s oil and minerals.

Paola Moleiro, 16, draped in a Venezuelan flag, arrived with her family at Mi Venezuala restaurant in Vernon to order empanadas Saturday. The teenager had been up most of the night messaging on WhatsApp with her relatives there.

The messages started around midnight. The power was out, they said, and they forwarded videos of what sounded like bomb blasts.

Moleiro said she felt terrified — she had no idea was going on. She’d left Venezuela at age 7 with her parents and siblings, first for Panama and later the United States in 2023. But the rest of her family remained in Venezuela.

She and her family stayed up scanning television channels and about 1:30 am, President Trump announced that U.S. forces had captured Maduro.”

The first thing I did, I called my aunt and said, ‘We are going to see each other again,’” Moleiro recalled.

Because of the Venezuelan state’s control over media, her relatives had no idea the U.S. had seized their leader. “Are you telling me the truth?” Moleiro’s said her aunt asked.

Moleiro hasn’t been home in nine years. She misses her grandmother and her grandmother’s cooking - especially caraotas, a black bean dish served with sugar. As a child, she recalled certain foods were so scarce, she only ate an apple after moving to Panama.

She said she was grateful to President Trump for ending decades of authoritarian rule that had reduced her home country to a shell of what it once was.

“There was no other way,” she said of sending U.S. troops into the country to capture its leader. “I feel it was necessary, they had to do it, because he didn’t want to surrender.”

“Venezuela has always prayed for this,” she said. “It’s been 30 years. I feel it was in God’s hands last night.” A portion of the restaurant wall was covered in Venezuelan bank notes scrawled with messages. Most complimented the food. But one said: “3 de enero del 2026. Venezuela quedo libre.” January 3, 2026. Venezuela is free.

Maduro’s political career began 40 years ago. In 1986, he traveled to Cuba to receive a year of ideological instruction, his only formal education after high school. Upon his return, he worked as a bus driver for the Caracas subway system, where he quickly became a union leader. Venezuela’s intelligence agencies in the 1990s identified him as a leftist radical with close ties to the Cuban government.

Maduro eventually left his bus driver job and joined the political movement that Hugo Chávez organized after receiving a presidential pardon in 1994 for leading a failed and bloody military coup years earlier. After Chávez took office, the former youth baseball player rose through the ranks of the ruling party, spending his first six years as a lawmaker before becoming president of the National Assembly. He then served six years as foreign minister and a couple months as vice president.

Chávez used his last address to the nation before his death in 2013 to anoint Maduro as his successor, asking his supporters to vote for the then-foreign affairs minister should he die. The choice stunned supporters and detractors alike. But Chávez’s enormous electoral capital delivered Maduro a razor-thin victory that year, giving him his first six-year term, though he would never enjoy the devotion that voters professed for Chávez.

Maduro married Flores, his partner of nearly two decades, in July 2013, shortly after he became president. He called her the “first combatant,” instead of first lady, and considered her a crucial adviser.

Maduro’s entire presidency was marked by a complex social, political and economic crisis that pushed millions into poverty, drove more than 7.7 million Venezuelans to migrate and put thousands of real or perceived government opponents in prison, where many were tortured, some at his direction. Maduro complemented the repressive apparatus by purging institutions of anyone who dared dissent.

Venezuela’s crisis took hold during Maduro’s first year in office. The political opposition, including the now-Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, called for street protests in Caracas and other cities. The demonstrations evidenced Maduro’s iron fist as security forces pushed back protests, which ended with 43 deaths and dozens of arrests.

Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela would go on to lose control of the National Assembly for the first time in 16 years in the 2015 election. Maduro moved to neutralize the opposition-controlled legislature by establishing a pro-government Constituent Assembly in 2017, leading to months of protests violently suppressed by security forces and the military.

More than 100 people were killed and thousands were injured in the demonstrations. Hundreds were arrested, causing the International Criminal Court to open an investigation against Maduro and members of his government for crimes against humanity. The investigation was still ongoing in 2025.

Maduro was unable to stop the economic free fall. Inflation and severe shortages of food and medicines affected Venezuelans nationwide. Entire families starved and began migrating on foot to neighboring countries. Those who remained lined up for hours to buy rice, beans and other basics. Some fought on the streets over flour.

Ruling party loyalists moved the December 2018 presidential election to May and blocked opposition parties from the ballot. Some opposition politicians were imprisoned; others fled into exile. Maduro ran virtually unopposed and was declared winner, but dozens of countries did not recognize him.

Months after the election, he drew the fury after social media videos showed him feasting on a steak prepared by a celebrity chef at a restaurant in Turkey while millions in his country were going hungry.

Under Maduro’s watch, Venezuela’s economy shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, while inflation topped 130,000%. Its oil production, the beating heart of the country, dropped to less than 400,000 barrels a day, a figure once unthinkable.

The first Trump administration imposed economic sanctions against Maduro, his allies and state-owned companies to try to force a government change. The measures included freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. and prohibiting American citizens and international partners from doing business with Venezuelan government entities, including the state-owned oil company.

Out of options, Maduro began implementing a series of economic measures in 2021 that eventually ended Venezuela’s hyperinflation cycle. He paired the economic changes with concessions to the U.S.-backed political opposition with which it restarted negotiations for what many had hoped would be a free and democratic presidential election in 2024.

Maduro used the negotiations to gain concessions from the U.S. government, including the pardon and prison release of one of his closest allies and the sanctions license that allowed oil giant Chevron to restart pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The license became his government’s financial lifeline.

Maduro was unable to stop the economic free fall. Inflation and severe shortages of food and medicines affected Venezuelans nationwide. Entire families starved and began migrating on foot to neighboring countries. Those who remained lined up for hours to buy rice, beans and other basics. Some fought on the streets over flour.

Ruling party loyalists moved the December 2018 presidential election to May and blocked opposition parties from the ballot. Some opposition politicians were imprisoned; others fled into exile. Maduro ran virtually unopposed and was declared winner, but dozens of countries did not recognize him.

Months after the election, he drew the fury after social media videos showed him feasting on a steak prepared by a celebrity chef at a restaurant in Turkey while millions in his country were going hungry.

Under Maduro’s watch, Venezuela’s economy shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, while inflation topped 130,000%. Its oil production, the beating heart of the country, dropped to less than 400,000 barrels a day, a figure once unthinkable.

The first Trump administration imposed economic sanctions against Maduro, his allies and state-owned companies to try to force a government change. The measures included freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. and prohibiting American citizens and international partners from doing business with Venezuelan government entities, including the state-owned oil company.

Out of options, Maduro began implementing a series of economic measures in 2021 that eventually ended Venezuela’s hyperinflation cycle. He paired the economic changes with concessions to the U.S.-backed political opposition with which it restarted negotiations for what many had hoped would be a free and democratic presidential election in 2024.

Maduro used the negotiations to gain concessions from the U.S. government, including the pardon and prison release of one of his closest allies and the sanctions license that allowed oil giant Chevron to restart pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The license became his government’s financial lifeline.

The operation began with explosions throughout Caracas, as over 150 U.S. aircraft, from F-35 fighter jets and B-1 bombers to remotely piloted drones, cleared away Venezuelan air defenses to make way for the interdiction team, which included U.S. law enforcement officers.

Electricity was cut throughout much of the city as the assault unfolded, Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

A Delta Force unit penetrated Maduro’s heavily fortified compound at 2:01 a.m. local time, capturing him and his wife as they attempted to escape into a saferoom, U.S. officials said.

Only one helicopter in the U.S. fleet was hit by Venezuelan fire, but was able to continue flying through the mission. No U.S. personnel were killed, Caine said.

Trump, who had ordered the CIA to begin monitoring Maduro’s movements months ago, watched as the operation unfolded from a room at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, “literally like I was watching a television show,” the president said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday morning.

From there, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken to the USS Iwo Jima, stationed in the Caribbean alongside a third of the U.S. naval fleet, before the ship set course for New York, where Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said Maduro will face “the full wrath of American justice” over his alleged ties to illicit drug trafficking.

Across Latin America, reaction to the U.S. operation was mixed. Right-leaning allies of Trump including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa backed the U.S. attack, while leftists broadly condemned it.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized an “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America” and said he was ordering the deployment of the Colombian Armed Forces along his nation’s 1,300-mile-long border with Venezuela.

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that the U.S. “crossed an unacceptable line” and compared the action to remove Maduro in to “the darkest moments of [U.S.] interference in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social network X that Maduro and Flores had both been indicted in the Southern District of New York and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”

She said Maduro faced charges of “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.”

Maduro was indicted in March 2020, during Trump’s first term, but the indictment against Flores was not previously made public.

In an indictment made public Saturday morning, U.S. authorities accused Maduro of leading a “a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.” It alleges the drug trafficking “enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite.”

Authorities estimate that as much as 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela by 2020, according to the indictment. The drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or by plane from clandestine airstrips, authorities allege.

Trump said Maduro and his wife are aboard a U.S. warship and will face prosecution in New York.

President Trump justified attack by accusing Maduro of sending “monsters” into the United States from Venezuelan prisons and claiming his involvement in the drug trade.

But Trump focused more on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, accusing the Venezuelan government of stealing U.S. oil infrastructure in the country decades prior and vowing that, under new U.S. government control, output would increase going forward.

The president spoke little about democracy in Venezuela, dismissing a potential role for its longstanding democratic opposition in running the country in the immediate aftermath of the operation.

Instead, Trump said his team was in touch with Maduro’s hand-picked vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, whom he called “very gracious” and said was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to Make Venezuela Great Again.”

Trump, meanwhile, boasted that the U.S. operation in Venezuela would help reassert U.S. dominance in Latin America.

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he said. “We are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.”

While the United States has a long history of intervention in Latin America—including invasions, land grabs and political meddling, both covert and public—the attack appeared to be the first armed intervention targeting a country on the South American landmass.

The operation also was the most dramatic illustration to date of what the administration has labelled the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th Century political tenet outlining U.S. dominance in the region.

In his Saturday press conference, Trump hailed the Monroe Doctrine, which many in Latin American have condemned as an imperialist blueprint.

“We’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot,” Trump said of the Monroe Doctrine. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again.”

Trump’s comments left more questions than answers about the future of Venezuela.

• Trump said that the United States would now “run” Venezuela, apparently during some kind of transitional period. But he offered few details on how Washington planned to accomplish the complex task of “running” a country of 28 million that has seen more than a decade of profound political, economic and social turmoil.
  
• He spoke of a “very limited” U.S troop presence, mostly focused on protecting the “stolen” oil infrastructure, it seemed, but offered few details on sending in technical experts and other who could, in theory, help govern, etc.
  
• Trump seemed to rule out — at least for now — an interim government run by Marina Corina Machado, the Nobel laureate, or her allies. “She’s a very nice woman, but doesn’t have respect within the country,” Trump said of Machado.
  
• Trump said Marco Rubio had spoken to Delcy Rodriguez, the sitting Venezuelan vice president. She was “very gracious,” Trump said. However, he seemed to close the door of her taking over, noting that Maduro put her in office, disqualifying her.