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President Donald Trump said the U.S. is now in control of Venezuela following the arrest of longtime leader Nicolás Maduro, outlining a plan to run the country, rebuild its economy and delay elections until what he described as a recovery is underway.
Trump made the remarks during a gaggle with reporters as questions mounted about who is governing Venezuela after a U.S. military operation led to Maduro’s arrest early Saturday.
“Don’t ask me who’s in charge because I’ll give you an answer, and it’ll be very controversial,” Trump told a reporter.
He was then asked to clarify, to which Trump replied, “It means we’re in charge.”
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Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez addresses the media in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 10, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
Trump was also asked whether he had spoken directly with Venezuela’s newly sworn-in Vice President Delcy Rodríguez amid uncertainty about how the new government is functioning and what role the U.S. is playing.
While Trump said he has not personally spoken with Rodríguez, he suggested coordination is already underway between U.S. officials and the new leadership.
During the gaggle, Trump repeatedly portrayed Venezuela as a failed state that cannot immediately transition to democratic rule, arguing the country’s infrastructure and economy had been devastated by years of mismanagement.
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro greets his supporters during a rally in Caracas on Dec. 1, 2025. (Pedro Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
He compared Venezuela’s collapse to what he claimed would have happened to the U.S. had he lost the election, using the comparison to underscore his argument for intervention.
“We have to do one thing in Venezuela. Bring it back. It’s a dead country right now,” Trump said. “It’s a country that, frankly, we would have been if I had lost the election. We would have been Venezuela on steroids.”
Trump said rebuilding Venezuela will center on restoring its oil industry, which he said had been stripped from the U.S. under previous governments, leaving infrastructure decayed and production crippled.
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A coast guard boat of the Venezuelan Navy operates off the Caribbean coast on Sept. 11, 2025. (Juan Carlos Hernandez/Reuters)
He stressed that American oil companies – not U.S. taxpayers – will finance the reconstruction, while the U.S. oversees the broader recovery.
“The oil companies are going to go in and rebuild this system. They’re going to spend billions of dollars, and they’re going to take the oil out of the ground, and we’re taking back what they sell,” Trump said. “Remember, they stole our property. It was the greatest theft in the history of America. Nobody has ever stolen our property like they have. They took our oil away from us. They took the infrastructure away. And all that infrastructure is rotted and decayed.”
Trump said elections will not take place until the country is stabilized, arguing that rushing a vote in a collapsed state would repeat past failures.
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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Tokyo, Japan, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
He said the U.S. will manage Venezuela’s recovery process, including addressing inflation, revenue loss and infrastructure collapse.
“We’re going to run everything,” Trump said. “We’re going to run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.”
When asked whether the operation in Venezuela was motivated by oil interests or amounted to regime change, Trump rejected both characterizations and instead cast the effort as part of a broader security doctrine.
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President Donald Trump shared a photo of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima after strikes on Venezuela, on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Donald Trump via Truth Social)
He tied the intervention to long-standing U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere, invoking historical precedent.
“It’s about peace on Earth,” Trump said. “You gotta have peace, it’s our hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was very important when it was done.”
Trump went on to criticize past presidents for failing to enforce that doctrine, arguing his administration has restored it as a guiding principle.
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“And other presidents, a lot of them, they lost sight of it,” Trump added. “I didn’t. I didn’t lose sight. But it really is. It’s peace on Earth.”
Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration arrived at the West 30th Street Heliport for the arrival of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in New York. (Stefan Jeremiah/AP Photo)
Trump said the U.S. role in Venezuela will ultimately focus on rebuilding the country while caring for Venezuelans displaced by years of economic collapse.
He said that includes Venezuelans currently living in the U.S., many of whom he said were forced to flee.
“We’re gonna cherish a country,” Trump said. “We’re going to take care of, more importantly, of the people, including Venezuelans that are living in our country that were forced to leave their country, and they’re going to be taken very good care of.”
Trump made clear the comments on Venezuela were part of a broader foreign policy outlook, using the gaggle to issue warnings about instability elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and overseas. He suggested the U.S. is prepared to respond forcefully to threats he said could endanger American security interests.
Trump singled out Colombia, describing the country as a growing security concern and accusing its leadership of enabling large-scale drug trafficking into the U.S.
“Colombia’s very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.
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When asked whether that meant U.S. action, Trump replied, “It sounds good to me.”
Trump also addressed ongoing protests in Iran, warning that the U.S. is closely monitoring the situation and would respond if the Iranian government uses violence against demonstrators.
“We’re watching it very closely,” he said. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
