The world woke up Saturday morning to the news that the U.S. military, after months of buildup, had bombed sites across Venezuela and, in a special operations mission whose details are still murky, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both are now due to be delivered to the U.S. judicial system to face charges of narcotics trafficking and weapons possession.

The greatest surprise, though, may have come in U.S. President Donald Trump’s press conference afterward from his estate in Mar-a-Lago. Amid the expected braggadocio came Trump’s unexpected declaration that the United States would remain in control of Venezuela until there was a transition.

The world woke up Saturday morning to the news that the U.S. military, after months of buildup, had bombed sites across Venezuela and, in a special operations mission whose details are still murky, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both are now due to be delivered to the U.S. judicial system to face charges of narcotics trafficking and weapons possession.

The greatest surprise, though, may have come in U.S. President Donald Trump’s press conference afterward from his estate in Mar-a-Lago. Amid the expected braggadocio came Trump’s unexpected declaration that the United States would remain in control of Venezuela until there was a transition.

It was an odd assertion. According to accounts in Venezuela, security forces loyal to Maduro are still on the streets of the capital, Caracas, and elsewhere, and there is no reported sign of an uprising by the opposition. U.S. troops do not occupy the vast country of around 30 million people.

Since the failed effort in 2019 to install former National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as the interim democratic president of Venezuela, Trump has made removing Maduro a personal project. But this time, for now at least, it was not about restoring democracy.

The Trump........

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