Venezuela In Uncertainty After Maduro’s Arrest

It’s a new, uncertain world for Venezuela now. Nicolas Maduro led the country for 12 years until he was captured and removed. With him suddenly out of the picture, the country’s future is basically a giant question mark. Months of intense pressure from the Donald Trump-led US administration led to this turning point, where a sitting president was taken away and Venezuela was left facing an unpredictable road ahead.

Within hours of the US bombing Venezuela, Trump went a step further, casually claiming Washington would take over and steer the country until a new government emerges. Delcy Rodríguez, a close ally of Maduro, has been sworn in by the Supreme Court as interim president. She has demanded Maduro’s release, saying he is the “only president”. And despite Trump’s talk of the US stepping in until “a safe and proper and judicious transition”, power on the ground is still in the hands of Maduro’s allies. It’s still not clear how the US plans to run Venezuela or who would be in charge, though Trump said it would be a “group” effort. He added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had talked to Delcy Rodríguez, who is said to have agreed to do “whatever the US asks”.

Rodríguez has publicly rejected that idea, insisting Venezuela won’t become “a colony of an empire.” But on Sunday night, the acting president spoke more calmly than the day before, saying that her people and the region deserved peace and dialogue rather than war. Meanwhile, Trump told The Atlantic that she would face “a very big price” if she didn’t do what he considered the right thing. Across Venezuela, soldiers reportedly remained at their bases, and the capital showed no sign of a US takeover. Meanwhile, Trump hinted that American troops could be deployed but claimed Venezuelan officials were cooperating, a contrast to the bold statements they made immediately after Maduro’s arrest.

Venezuela’s government described the attack as an attempt to seize “Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals” and to “forcibly break the political independence of the nation.” At the same time, Trump said that US oil companies would move in to repair the infrastructure and start making money for the country. He added that the wealth taken from the ground would go to both Venezuelans and the US and that the US would be reimbursed for everything it had spent. He also said the US planned to sell the oil to other countries.

Amid this, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who have been taken into custody, are expected to make their initial appearance in a federal court in Manhattan on Monday. They are set to face an indictment charging them with cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism. During the hearing, they will likely appear before a judge, plead not guilty, and be ordered held until a trial that could take more than a year.