The United States will temporarily administer Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, pending what President Donald Trump described as a “safe, proper and judicious” leadership transition.
Trump made the disclosure during a news conference on Saturday, January 3, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, hours after a U.S. military operation reportedly captured the Venezuelan leader and removed him from power.
According to the U.S. president, Washington’s immediate focus will be stabilising the country, securing its energy infrastructure, and preparing the ground for a future transition, with U.S. forces remaining on alert.
Trump said the United States would oversee Venezuela’s administration for an interim period to avoid a repeat of past political instability.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said, adding that the U.S. did not want to “have somebody else get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”
He noted that the interim administration would be handled by a small group of senior U.S. officials, with a strong emphasis on restoring Venezuela’s oil infrastructure and ensuring basic welfare for citizens.
Trump said major U.S. oil companies would be deployed to Venezuela to rehabilitate its oil sector, despite maintaining that an embargo on Venezuelan oil remains in force.
According to him, U.S. energy firms would invest billions of dollars to repair infrastructure and restart production, which he said would ultimately benefit the Venezuelan economy.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies… go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said.
Trump framed the move as consistent with longstanding U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, referencing the Monroe Doctrine.
He also suggested that other countries in the region, including Cuba, could face heightened U.S. pressure, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio warning that governments with similar political systems “should be concerned.”
On relations with China, Russia, and Iran—countries with interests in Venezuela—Trump said the U.S. remains open to business engagement but insisted that Venezuela’s energy assets were historically built with American investment and had been “stolen” under previous governments.
Venezuela holds some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, making U.S. control or influence over its transition highly significant for global energy markets.
The move represents one of the most aggressive uses of U.S. military power in Latin America in decades and signals a more interventionist foreign policy posture under Trump’s second term.
For emerging markets and oil-dependent economies, developments in Venezuela could influence oil prices, investment flows, and geopolitical risk assessments.
On December 26, 2025, President rump announced he authorized a “powerful and deadly strike” against an ISIS terrorist base in Northwest Nigeria.
On December 26, 2025, President rump announced he authorized a “powerful and deadly strike” against an ISIS terrorist base in Northwest Nigeria.
According to his Truth Social post, Trump said the strike was executed “as only the United States is capable of doing,” and vowed the country would not allow “Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.”
The strike followed repeated warnings from President Trump over alleged religiously motivated violence in Nigeria.
In November, Trump publicly threatened military intervention and directed the U.S. Department of Defense to prepare for potential action in Nigeria.
He also accused the Nigerian government of failing to curb “mass slaughter” of Christians, threatening to withdraw all aid and assistance unless immediate steps were taken.
In response, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu rejected Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern”, defending Nigeria’s constitutional guarantees for religious freedom and the government’s efforts to protect all faiths.