A rchive Date
[ 04-01-2026 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Venezuela ]
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[https://slate.com/news - and - politics/2026/01/venezuela - maduro - trump - attack - capture - oil - news - conference.html
It’s Painfully Clear What Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is All About
Rarely has an American president been so blatant about his motives
By Fred Kaplan Jan 03, 2026 3:32 PM
In a lengthy press conference Saturday detailing the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump confirmed, with stunning frankness, the classic leftist critique of American foreign policy: that, at least for as long as he’s in power, it’s all about the oil.
Over the past few months, Trump and his aides had characterized their pressure campaign against Maduro’s regime as a war on “narco - terrorism” and a fight to restore democratic rule. But following Maduro’s extraction in a complex military and intelligence operation, the American president was clear about its true motive.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he said, adding, “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.” Then came the kicker: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in” and spend billions of dollars fixing the energy infrastructure that they developed decades ago, until socialist regimes nationalized their wells, then wrecked them. The wealth resulting from this grab - back will benefit the Venezuelan people, he said, but added that much of it will reimburse America’s oil companies.
Finally, Trump said, U.S. troops will be sent to enforce Big Oil’s rule, if necessary. “They always say ‘boots on the ground,’ we’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said. “We had boots on the ground last night,” as part of the operation to extract Maduro. He said the military was poised to go in again if necessary.
There’s a storied history, starting in the Cold War, of the U.S. military and the CIA co - opting or overthrowing Central and South American governments - including Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Chile, as well as several attempt to do so in Cuba - to bolster the interests of U.S. corporations, including United Fruit, IT&T, and various oil companies, among others.
But rarely have the presidents who ordered these interventions been so blatant about the primary motive. Instead, at least in public, they spoke of fighting Communism or upholding democracy, even when the enemies weren’t really Communist and their allies weren’t at all democratic.
But Trump was up front in his motives, and repeatedly so. Several times in his press conference, he talked of bringing in big U.S. oil companies to regain their former assets. (In fact, though, American firms never owned the land where they drilled for Venezuela’s oil riches, and, as in many other countries, the interplay between foreign exploiters and local nationalizers was more complex than Trump’s narrative suggests.) And he also talked about restoring “American dominance in the Western hemisphere” - a policy that Trump’s recently issued National Security Strategy called the “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. “We are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region,” he said - not to protect democracy but for its own sake.
Maduro and his wife were captured, then indicted by the U.S. Attorney in New York, on charges of drug trafficking. But Trump all but admitted that wasn’t the real reason for the elaborate operation. Just a month ago, while officers were planning the attack on Venezuela, Trump pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been convicted of drug - trafficking. Asked about this at Saturday’s news conference, Trump said he’d issued the pardon because Hernández, who’d supported Trump, had been “treated unfairly” by former President Joe Biden.
As for democracy, Trump was asked whether he would support María Corina Machado, the Nobel Prize - winning leader of Venezuela’s opposition movement, to lead a new government - or even whether he’d spoken with her. Trump answered no to both questions. “It would be very tough for her to be the leader,” he said in a dismissive tone. “She doesn’t have the respect in the country.” Nor did he even mention Edmundo González, who was elected Venezuela’s president in 2024 and fled to safe exile in Spain after Maduro stole the election.
Earlier on Saturday, in an interview on Fox News, Trump acted as if he’d barely thought about Machado or Gonzalez. “I mean, I don’t know about what kind of an election that was,” he said, referring to the 2024 contest. Meanwhile, he said, “They have a vice president, you know.”
Later, during Saturday’s press conference, Trump acknowledged that the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodríguez - who, by law, has now been sworn in as president - was handpicked by Maduro. He added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now “working with” Rodriguez, who is “willing to do what’s necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
Venezuelan law requires an ascending vice president to call for new elections, but this doesn’t seem in the offing. Asked who precisely is going to “run” Venezuela, Trump replied, “We’re designating various people … It’s largely going to be the people standing right behind me” - who included Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine. “Venezuela has a lot of bad people,” Trump added. “We’re not going to take a chance that one of those people take over from Maduro.”
Asked how long this transition will take, Trump said he’d “like to do it quickly,” but that rebuilding the country’s oil infrastructure “takes a period of time.”
Still, it remains unclear how America really will “run” Venezuela, a country of 28.5 million people, roughly the size of Texas or California. Its military officers, most of whom were loyal to Maduro, are still in place, as are its cabinet ministers and bureaucrats. Trump said that many of them will soon be switching sides. Maybe, maybe not. There are also more than 20,000 Cubans in Venezuela, many of them military and intelligence officers, many others health - care workers, all of them providing services in exchange for Venezuelan oil. Will they be leaving? Will power struggles be breaking out? Will the military simply adapt to Washington’s demands, in exchange for guarantees to stay in power?
Then there are broader questions. The whole world is watching not just this operation - an impressive tactical display of U.S. military power - but what happens next. Trump’s unabashedly imperial rationale for the action may inspire Russian President Vladimir Putin to double down on his claims of rightful dominance over Ukraine - and Chinese President Xi Jinping to feel more confident in his claims over Taiwan. At the same time, anti - regime activists in Iran may feel emboldened, especially since Trump said, just the other day, that he stands “locked and loaded” to punish Tehran’s leaders if they killed protesters.
Finally, there is Cuba. In his press conference, Trump noted similarities between Cuba and Venezuela. Both countries have been wrecked by socialist dictators, and “we want to help the people in Cuba.” Rubio, a Cuban - American who has avidly supported the anti - Castro movement in Florida (which he once represented as a senator), added, “If I lived in Havana and worked in the government, I’d be concerned.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. aircraft carrier and its supporting armada, which had mobilized off Venezuela’s shore before the operation, remain deployed, and on high alert. “We’re ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,” Trump said.
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