Trump Is Confused On How To Run Venezuela After Maduro’s Arrest
In 2017, during his first presidency, Donald Trump said he was “not going to rule out a military option” to address the worsening crisis in Venezuela.
In May 2023, Trump had made a proposal to then-president Iván Duque to invade Venezuela through Colombia, but his advisors had stopped him. On both occasions, everyone present asked Trump not to proceed with the plan.
The plan to attack Venezuela has been on Donald Trump’s agenda since he publicly declared:
“We built Venezuela’s oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations. And they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country,” Trump said.
After removing Maduro, Trump said, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.”
“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.”
The vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who also serves as oil minister, has taken over as interim leader with the blessing of Venezuela’s top court, though she has said Maduro remains president.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has also issued a statement endorsing a Supreme Court ruling that appointed Rodriguez as acting president for 90 days.
“Here, the unity of the revolutionary force is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said.
Opposition leader and 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado celebrated the operation and capture in a statement, calling it the “hour of freedom.”
This is what Donald Trump said about the opposition leader.
“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”
So how is Donald Trump going to run Venezuela? Is he going to order the interim president Rodriguez to abdicate her position when the US military is not on the ground to enforce his order?
In retrospect, Trump said, “We are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have them. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level, actually.”
I think this man is confused.
