Trump's plan for Venezuela: Take oil, shun democratic leader

After the United States seized Venezuela's leader, who will run the country?

According to President Donald Trump, the answer is: his own administration, the South American country's vice president, and not Venezuela's democratic opposition.

Trump also made clear that US companies would profit from the oil of Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven reserves, after US forces attacked the capital Caracas and seized leftist leader Nicolas Maduro in the dead of night.

Trump, who for years condemned what he called failed US nation-building, said bluntly that the United States will manage Venezuela, a country of nearly 30 million people, at least temporarily.

"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump told a news conference at his Florida estate.

How Trump would run the country - where the US embassy is shuttered, and no US troops are known to be on the ground - remains unclear.

Trump said that the United States was "designating various people", including an unnamed "group."

But he added that for a "period of time," Venezuela will be led by "the people that are standing right behind me" - Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US military leaders.

Rubio, a sworn foe of Latin America's leftists, for months has highlighted how not just the United States but most Western countries saw Maduro as illegitimate, following two elections that observers said were riddled with irregularities.

But hours after Maduro was grabbed, Trump brushed aside the prospects of Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize and had been hailed by Western leaders as representing Venezuelans, as a successor.

"I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader," Trump said.

"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," Trump said.

Working with VP

Trump said that the United States had not been in touch with Machado, who had hailed the capture of Maduro as the "hour of freedom."

Instead, Trump said Rubio spoke by telephone to the vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, a stalwart of the leftist movement of Maduro and his late predecessor Hugo Chavez.

"She's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple," Trump said.

Rodriguez, however, did not stick to Trump's script in an address to the nation, saying Maduro was the only president and demanding his return.

Most US allies, who had once lined up to oppose Maduro, quickly distanced themselves from Trump.

French President Emmanuel Macron, while hailing the end of "Maduro's dictatorship," said the will of Venezuelans was represented by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the opposition figure and Machado ally seen by the international community as the legitimate winner of 2024 elections.

Kevin Whitaker, a veteran former US diplomat dealing with Latin America, including Venezuela, said he was "extremely surprised" to hear Trump undercut Machado.

"This seems to be a case where the Trump administration, at least by appearance at this point, is making decisions about the democratic future of Venezuela without referring back to the democratic result" of the election, said Whitaker, now at the Atlantic Council think tank.

Eyes on the (oil) prize

Trump said on Saturday that he would allow American oil companies to go into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves.

"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," Trump told a news conference in Florida.

Trump also said that "the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect."

Venezuela, which has 17% of the world's oil reserves, produces just under a million barrels of crude a day, according to OPEC, and sells most of it on the black market at steep discounts.

Trump claims Caracas is using oil money to finance "drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping."

At the start of his second term in 2025, he ended licenses that had allowed multinational oil and gas companies to operate in Venezuela despite the sanctions, with US company Chevron the only one to receive an exemption.

Venezuelan oil is of lower quality and is mostly processed into diesel or byproducts such as asphalt, rather than gasoline. The United States has refineries around the Gulf of Mexico specifically designed to handle it.

"The United States is doing just fine without Venezuelan oil," Stephen Schork, an analyst at consulting firm the Schork Group, told AFP last month, pointing to political reasons instead.

More of the same for Venezuelans?

Rodriguez constitutionally would need to call a new election. But analysts said it remains to be seen if Rodriguez, like Maduro, would actually be willing to hand over power.

Rodriguez's elevation may mean better ties with the United States, "but I'm not sure it will be a significant change for Venezuelans," said Iria Puyosa, a Venezuelan scholar also at the Atlantic Council.

Maduro and Chavez, for years, thumbed their nose at the United States, denouncing US imperialism as they pursued a socialist economy, which had fallen into shambles and prompted the flight of millions of people.

Trump's Democratic rivals voiced outrage at the open involvement of oil companies, seeing it as a throwback to imperialism at its most egregious.

"The United States should not be running other countries for any reason," said Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat.

"We should have learned by now not to get involved in endless wars and regime change missions that carry catastrophic consequences for Americans."

AFP

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