Trump Goes to War in Venezuela, Captures Maduro: Live Updates |
For months, the Trump administration has been escalating its aggressive military campaign against alleged Latin American drug traffickers and Venezuela, while attempting to force the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power. On Saturday, the U.S. conducted airstrikes, captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and will now, according to President Trump, run the country and take over its oil industry — though it is far from clear how. Here are the latest developments.
While there are many unique features of the U.S. military action to topple Venezuela’s government, there are certainly obvious parallels to George H.W. Bush’s removal of Manuel Noriega from Panama’s presidency in December of 1989, followed by his trial and incarceration in the U.S. on drug smuggling charges. This was an act of regime change justified at least in part as a law enforcement measure, albeit one carried out by the U.S. military. Like Maduro, Noriega had declared himself the winner of a sharply disputed election. But quite a few differences in the two situations stand out as well:
1.) Manuel Noriega’s status as a drug smuggler was far better established than Maduro’s, in part because he had operated as a CIA asset for years.
2.) U.S. interests in Panama were quite a bit more robust thanks to the Canal, which was not fully returned to Panamanian control until 1999.
3.) The U.S. promptly ushered in a new government under the candidate believed to have won the most recent presidential election, so there was no period of U.S. control of the country.
4.) Bush consulted with the leadership of Congress before launching the strike and secured bipartisan support.
In any event, the 1989 intervention was of dubious legality. It was condemned by the U.N. General Assembly as illegal, and only a U.S. veto kept the U.N. Security Council from doing the same.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife arrived at Stewart Airport in Orange County, New York, to face “narco-terrorism” charges, among others, in the city following an overnight operation by the U.S. that removed him from power. pic.twitter.com/3rqgDRB3gq
The Washington Post reports that Rodríguez, who has held multiple roles in the Maduro government, including communications minister, foreign affairs minister, and economy minister, has pursued reform in the past:
Along with her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the national assembly president, she has represented a more modern faction within the Maduro government that has remained loyal to the regime but has shown a willingness to strategically open up the economy.
“They think their interests could survive a controlled economic opening,” according to Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based senior analyst for the Andes region at International Crisis Group.
She is not, however, a moderate, Gunson said.
The New York Times adds:
She is the daughter of a Marxist guerrilla who won fame for kidnapping an American businessman, was educated partly in France, where she specialized in labor law and rose to meteoric heights in the government of Nicolás Maduro, whom she is succeeding.
But Ms. Rodríguez, 56, is also known for building bridges with Venezuela’s economic elites, foreign investors and diplomats, presenting herself as a cosmopolitan technocrat in a militaristic and male-dominated government.
After Venezuela’s economy endured a harrowing crash from 2013 to 2021, she spearheaded a market-friendly overhaul which had provided a semblance of economic stability before the U.S. military campaign targeting Mr. Maduro.
Her privatization of state assets and relatively conservative fiscal policy had left Venezuela somewhat better prepared to resist the Trump administration’s blockade of sanctioned tankers carrying oil, the country’s economic lifeblood.
The New York Times spoke with Rubio and reports that he “said he was reserving judgment on Delcy Rodríguez’s comments, in which she denied she planned to work with the United States”:
“We’re going to make decisions based on their actions and their deeds in the days and weeks to come,” he said, referring to officials in the interim Venezuelan government. “We think they’re going to have some unique and historic opportunities to do a great service for the country, and we hope that they’ll accept that opportunity.”
There have been numerous public demonstrations around the world celebrating Trump’s intervention, Maduro’s capture, and the possibility for regime change, from Spain to Chile to South Florida. The Miami Herald reports from Doral:
Venezuelans in South Florida celebrated with joy, tears and cautious hope after President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces had captured Maduro, a moment many exiles see as long-delayed justice after years of repression, economic collapse and forced migration.
Hundreds gathered outside El Arepazo in Doral, sharing stories of lives upended by political violence, shortages and imprisonment, and expressing hope for freedom and a chance to rebuild their country.
At the same time, uncertainty looms over what comes next, with key regime figures still in Venezuela, opposition leaders in exile, and unresolved questions about a political transition, even as advocates and local officials hailed the action as a decisive step toward accountability, democracy and human dignity
Trump has shared images of him and other top U.S. officials watching the operation play out overnight. They were apparently monitoring a OSINT account and a “Venezuela” search on X:
Multiple images seems to show a big screen where they've searched "venezuela" on X. pic.twitter.com/JDeXaisg1U
Venezuela expert David Smilde notes to CNN that the president didn’t mention it once during his entire press conference:
During the press conference, Trump called Maduro a “dictator” and said the US would “run” Venezuela until it could ensure a “judicious transition.” However, a transcript of the president’s remarks shows that he did not specifically reference the return of democracy in Venezuela. “It doesn’t look like they have in mind a democratic transition,” Smilde said. “They have in mind a country that is friendly and open to the United States’ interests, stable and economically productive.”
“It doesn’t sound like democracy or (opposition leader) Maria Corina Machado are even on the map, at this point,” Smilde added. …
When asked about the possibility of new elections in the country, Trump said he’d “like to do it quickly,” but soon pivoted to an extended response about Venezuelan oil infrastructure.
Smilde said Trump’s stated plan harkens back to the age of US “gunboat diplomacy” in the region during the 19th and 20th centuries, when US presidents toppled Latin American leaders and replaced them with figures more amenable to US economic interests.
As is already abundantly clear, Trump is only opposed to foreign dictators when they oppose his interests. So far, it’s not clear if there is a prospective one who will let him have his way in Venezuela.
Trump and Rubio said she was going to do what they want. But in a national address on state television surrounded by other government officials, interim president Delcy Rodríguez denounced the U.S., condemned the attack and attempted regime change, insisted that Maduro was the country’s only legitimate leader, and demanded his “immediate release.” She also declared that “we will never again be slaves, that we will never again be a colony of any empire, whatever its nature.” Per the New York Times:
“There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” Rodríguez said to thundering applause.
She added that Venezuela was open to having a respectful relationship with the Trump administration, but only within the framework of international and Venezuelan law. “That is the only type of relationship I will accept, after they have attacked and militarily assaulted our beloved nation,” she said.
The Wall Street Journal’s Brian Schwartz reports that at least one trip is already in the works:
[Signum Global Advisors chairman Charles] Myers said in an interview he is planning a trip to Venezuela with officials from top hedge funds and asset managers to determine whether there are investment prospects in the country under new leadership. The trip will feature about 20 officials from the finance, energy and defense sectors, among others, Myers said. The tentative plan is for the group to travel to Venezuela in March and meet with the new government including the new president, finance minister, energy minister, economy minister, head of the central bank and the Caracas stock exchange.
Myers didn’t provide a list of individuals who were planning to travel to the country. He estimates that there will be between $500 billion and $750 billion in investment opportunities in the country for foreign investors over the next five years.
The president spoke with the New York Post’s Steven Nelson, who asked him if “U.S. troops [will] be on the ground helping run the country.” Trump’s response:
“No, if Maduro’s vice president — if the vice president does what we want, we won’t have to do that.”
“We’re prepared,” Trump added. “You know, we have a second wave that’s much bigger than the first wave.”
The president said that “we’ve spoken to her [Rodriguez] numerous times, and she understands, she understands.”
He also asked Trump if he he planned to strike Cuba next:
“No, Cuba is going to fall of its own volition. Cuba is doing very poorly,” Trump said. …
“You know, many Cubans lost their lives last night. Did you know that? Many Cubans lost their lives. They were protecting Maduro. That was not a good move.”
Even if you brush aside the U.S. constitutional and international legal problems with Donald Trump’s regime change measures in Venezuela, and even if you aren’t terrified by the challenges associated with “running” that country for an ill-defined span of time, the question remains: why now?
This isn’t like the Cuban missile crisis where the nuclear weapons present on the island posed a tangible and immediate threat to national security. If you buy Trump’s flimsy narcoterrorism rationale for the military strike, the fact remains that according to his own assessment the U.S. has already all but eliminated the flow of drugs across our borders. At the Mar-a-Lago presser this morning the only timing factor discussed by Trump and his aides involved tactical questions like the weather. But you don’t decide to conduct the military overthrow of a foreign government because of such operational details.
There are two horrifying possibilities for the timing that come to mind.
The first is that having been recently thwarted by the federal courts from his deployments of military force in U.S. cities, Trump needed a fresh display of armed power that was beyond the control of the courts. If that seems like a Trump-hating reach, note how often the president in today’s presser........