Trump says US "will run" Venezuela after capturing Maduro - National & International News - MON 5Jan2026 -

After Nicolas Maduro’s capture on Saturday, Trump says the US “will run” Venezuela. Uncertainty and potential pitfalls remain.

Trump says US “will run” Venezuela after capturing Maduro

In an operation months in the making, US military forces carried out airstrikes and a midnight raid in Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Just before 4:30 AM ET, the White House posted a photo of a blindfolded Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima. Twelve hours later, Maduro and Flores were in New York, where they will face trial in a federal court for drug trafficking conspiracy charges.

Reaction to the raid and Maduro’s capture has been mixed both within the US and internationally. UN representatives from numerous countries, some of them US allies, condemned the US’s actions as a “crime of aggression”. US representative to the UN Mike Waltz has defended it as a law enforcement action, which he asserts means that international law does not apply in the same way.

Economist and UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs warned the UN Security Council that it must condemn US actions in Venezuela. Doing otherwise would risk a complete breakdown in global order and a potential global cataclysm in the nuclear age.

What’s next for Venezuela?

Many are also wondering what happens next in Venezuela. For now, Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is acting president. Trump has said that until there is a peaceful transfer of power through elections, the US is “in charge” and “will run” Venezuela by pressuring Rodriguez to acquiesce to US demands.

This seems to have been news to Maria Machado, leader of Venezuela’s main opposition party. Machado celebrated Maduro’s capture on social media, and called on Venezuela’s military to pledge loyalty to Edmundo González Urrutia, whom Machado backed in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election. Urrutia lost to Maduro, but Maduro’s critics claim widespread election fraud.

President Trump dismissed the idea of putting Machado or her allies in power. “She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” Trump told reporters. Trump also said the US did not consult Machado before moving against Maduro.

It is also uncertain how Venezuela’s powerful military leadership and even its ordinary citizens will react. Experts have raised a broad range of scenarios that could lead to protracted civil disorder or even civil war in the country following Maduro’s ouster. Some have warned that Trump risks repeating the mistakes of the George W. Bush administration in the 2003 US takeover of Iraq.