The U.S. is one of many Western countries who see Maduro’s government as illegitimate, citing widespread fraud in the 2024 election:
The Trump administration has long accused Maduro of running a criminal narco-trafficking organization called Cartel de los Soles, which experts say is shorthand for a system of corruption rather than a single hierarchical group. The U.S. declared it a foreign terrorist organization in November.
On Saturday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Maduro, Flores, and senior Venezuelan face charges related to alleged “drug trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracies,” according to an unsealed indictment Bondi posted on X.
The indictment alleges that, starting in 1999, Maduro and others partnered with international drug trafficking organizations to transport thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States.
[…]
The Trump administration claims that Venezuela “stole” oil and assets from the U.S., after its government nationalized them in the late 1990s, which Maduro’s government denies.
Last month, Trump ordered a blockade against Venezuelan oil and sanctioned tankers. And on Saturday morning, Vice President JD Vance tweeted that Trump had been clear to Maduro: “the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States.”
[…]
“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 said. “The biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela.”
Despite Trump’s announcement that Vice President Rodríguez has been sworn in, it’s unclear who will take over Maduro’s duties long term.
“I’m not sure there’s going to be a power vacuum, because so many of his cronies apparently were left behind,” Todd Robinson, former acting U.S. ambassador to Venezuela during President Trump’s first term, told NPR.
“There are a lot of questions about what exactly is left behind now, and what more the United States is willing to do to ensure that a potential legitimate person takes over,” Robinson added.
Trump on Saturday did not outline a clear plan on next steps but said that the U.S. will run Venezuela until a “proper transition can take place.”
“We’re going to run the country right. It’s going to be run very judiciously, very fairly,” he said during Saturday’s press conference after Maduro was captured.
It’s reasonable to see Maduro as a drug dealer with no legitimate claim to be a head of state.
But in that case, we have no business sticking around in Venezuela now that he’s gone. Best we can do is hope that Trump’s ‘running Venezuela’ remarks are salesman’s puffery.
When will the United State improve the lives of Americans?