Trump’s comments to reporters aboard Air Force One raised the possibility of further U.S. military interventions in Latin America, and suggested Colombia and Mexico could also face military action if they do not reduce the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.
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“Operation Colombia sounds good to me,” Trump said. He also said that Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela, “looks like it’s ready to fall” on its own without U.S. military action.
Maduro is in a New York detention center awaiting a Monday court appearance on drug charges. His capture by the United States has sparked deep uncertainty about what is next for the oil-rich South American nation.
Trump said his administration will work with remaining members of the Maduro regime to clamp down on drug trafficking and overhaul its oil industry, rather than push for immediate elections to install a new government.
“Here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said in an audio recording released by the ruling PSUV socialist party.
Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino said on state television the U.S. attack killed soldiers, civilians and a “large part” of Maduro’s security detail “in cold blood.” Venezuela’s armed forces have been activated to guarantee sovereignty, he said.
The Cuban government said 32 of its citizens were killed during the raid.
Rodriguez has long been considered the most pragmatic member of Maduro’s inner circle. But she has publicly contradicted Trump’s claim she is willing to work with the United States.
Trump said Rodriguez may pay a bigger price than Maduro “if she doesn’t do what’s right,” according to an interview with The Atlantic magazine on Sunday.
The Venezuelan communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that remark.
‘A QUARANTINE ON THEIR OIL’
Trump’s administration has described Maduro’s capture as a law-enforcement mission to force him to face U.S. criminal charges filed in 2020, including narco-terrorism conspiracy. Maduro has denied criminal involvement.
But Trump also said U.S. oil companies need “total access” to the country’s vast reserves and suggested that an influx of Venezuelan emigrating to the United States also factored into the decision to capture Maduro.
“What really played (into the decision to capture Maduro) is the fact that he sent millions of people into our country from prisons and from mental institutions, drug dealers, every drug addict in his country was sent into our country,” Trump said.
Item 1 of 8 Members of the militia group known as “Colectivos” take part in a march calling for the release of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, after he and his wife Cilia Flores were captured following U.S. strikes on Venezuela, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 4, 2026. REUTERS/Gaby Oraa
The Venezuelan government has said for months Trump was seeking to take the country’s natural resources, especially its oil, and officials made much of a previous Trump comment that major U.S. oil companies would move in.
“We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed — it was revealed that they only want our oil,” Cabello said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Venezuela’s next leader should keep Venezuela’s oil industry out of the hands of U.S. adversaries and stop drug trafficking and cited an ongoing U.S. blockade on tankers.
“That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interest of the Venezuelan people are met,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
MUTED STREETS
Some Maduro supporters gathered at a government-sponsored protest march on Sunday afternoon in Caracas.
Once ruled by Spain, Venezuela’s “people must not surrender, nor should we ever become a colony of anyone again,” said demonstrator Reinaldo Mijares. “This country is not a country of the defeated.”
Maduro opponents in Venezuela have been wary of celebrating his seizure, and the presence of security forces seemed, if anything, lighter than usual on Sunday.
Despite a nervous mood, some bakeries and coffee shops were open and joggers and cyclists were out as usual. Some citizens were stocking up on essentials.
“Yesterday I was very afraid to go out, but today I had to. This situation caught me without food and I need to figure things out. After all, Venezuelans are used to enduring fear,” said a single mother in oil city Maracaibo who bought rice, vegetables and tuna.
LOOMING QUESTIONS
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the White House has failed to say how long the U.S. intends to be in Venezuela and how many American troops might be required.
“The American people are worried that this is creating an endless war — the very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against,” Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week.” He said lawmakers would weigh a measure to constrain further Trump administration action in Venezuela, though its prospects could be uncertain given that Congress is controlled by Trump’s Republicans.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Andy Sullivan, John Kruzel, Lincoln Feast, Andrew Cawthorne and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Cynthia Osterman, Sergio Non, Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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