Trump: New Venezuelan leader to pay ‘big price’ if she doesn’t ‘do what’s right’ |
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Donald Trump threatened Sunday that Venezuela’s new leader will pay a “big price” if she does not cooperate with the United States, after US forces seized and jailed her former boss, Nicolas Maduro.
If Interim President Delcy Rodriguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told The Atlantic in a telephone interview.
US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours of Saturday, bombing military targets and spiriting away Maduro and his wife to face federal narcotrafficking charges in New York. The deposed leader is due to appear in a Manhattan court on Monday.
The Trump administration says it is willing to work with the remainder of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals, particularly opening access to US investment in Venezuela’s enormous crude oil reserves, are met.
The streets of Caracas were calm in the wake of the stunning raid, in which US commandos swooped into Caracas on helicopters, backed by attack jets and naval forces, to capture Maduro.
Residents queued up to buy food in grocery stores, and the masked and heavily armed police visible the previous day were gone, AFP correspondents said.
The Venezuelan........