The US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving but illegitimate president Nicolas Maduro in an overnight operation Saturday, President Donald Trump said, in Washington's most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country," Trump said in a social media post.
Attacks by US forces knocked out electricity in part of Caracas and captured Maduro in or near one of his safe houses, rushing in so quickly he was not able to secure its steel doors, Trump told Fox News in a telephone interview. Maduro and his wife, Trump said, were transported to the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship in the Caribbean, ahead of their transfer to the United States, where they both face charges.
The removal of Maduro, who led Venezuela with a heavy hand for more than 12 years, potentially opens a power vacuum in the Latin American country. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez — Maduro’s presumptive successor — is in Russia, four sources familiar with her movements said, stoking confusion about who is next in line to govern the South American country.
Russia's foreign ministry said the report that Rodriguez is in Russia was "fake".
Venezuela's ruling "Chavismo" movement, named for Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, said civilians and military personnel died in Saturday's strikes but did not give figures. Trump told Fox that "a couple of guys were hit" but that no US personnel died.
Asked what was next for Venezuelans, Trump was noncommittal while saying the United States would be "very much" involved in Venezuela's future.
“We're making that decision now,” Trump said, adding that "we can't take a chance" at letting someone else take over where Maduro left off. The United States would be "very strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry, Trump said.
While the president was ebullient in his Fox interview, any serious destabilization in the nation of 28 million people threatens to hand Trump the type of quagmire that has marked US foreign policy for much of the 21st century, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that overthrew their governments.
The usual suspects called Saturday's operation an illegal act, while Trump administration officials stuck to their messaging in recent weeks that the US military's actions related to Venezuela are needed to fight drug trafficking.
The US has not made such a direct intervention in its backyard region since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago to depose military leader Manuel Noriega over allegations that he led a drug-running operation. The United States has leveled similar charges against Maduro, accusing him of running a "narco-state" and rigging the 2024 election.
Maduro, a 63-year-old former bus driver handpicked by the dying Hugo Chavez to succeed him in 2013, has denied those claims and said Washington was intent on taking control of his nation's oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Trump said the operation was carried out, "in conjunction with US law enforcement," promising more details at an 11:00 (16:00 GMT) press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Maduro was captured by a team that included US special forces, including the US Army’s Delta Force, a US official told Reuters.
A CIA source in Maduro's inner circle helped US forces track his movements in his final days right up until his capture, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people, who were briefed on the operation, also said members of the Venezuelan military cooperated with the United States to secure Maduro's arrest but declined to provide details.
One person close to Venezuela's opposition, who asked not to be named, described Maduro's removal as an "inside job" aided by the country's military.
Republican US Senator Mike Lee said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told him Maduro would stand trial on criminal charges in the United States and that no further action was anticipated inside Venezuela.
Maduro was indicted in US federal court in 2020 on narco-terrorism and other charges for running what prosecutors called a scheme to send tons of cocaine to the US through the Cartel de Los Soles.
"They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media about Maduro and his wife.
In the Panama case, Noriega spent more than 20 years in prison. Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado welcomed Maduro's removal, saying on social media that her colleague Edmundo Gonzalez - who the opposition, the US and international observers say won a 2024 election - should assume the presidency.
"We will restore order, free political prisoners, build an exceptional country and bring our children back home," she said.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino condemned Saturday's intervention. "In the unity of the people we will find the strength to resist and to triumph," he said in a video message.
Another senior Venezuelan official, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, appeared on a street wearing a helmet and flak jacket, urging people not to cooperate with the "terrorist enemy".
Trump's action recalls the Monroe Doctrine, laid out in 1823 by President James Monroe, laying US claim to influence in the region, as well as the "gunboat diplomacy" seen under Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s.
Venezuelan "allies" Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty. Tehran urged the UN Security Council to stop the "unlawful aggression". Among major Latin American nations, Argentina's President Javier Milei lauded Venezuela's new freedom while fellow narco-state Mexico condemned the intervention and Brazil's socialist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said it crossed "an unacceptable line".
"A new dawn for Venezuela! The tyrant is gone," US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media.
The streets of Venezuela appeared calm as the sun rose. Soldiers patrolled some parts and some small pro-Maduro crowds began gathering in Caracas.
Most, however, expressed relief.
"I'm happy, I doubted for a moment that it was happening because it's like a movie," said merchant Carolina Pimentel, 37, in the city of Maracay. "It's all calm now but I feel like at any moment everyone will be out celebrating."
Trump’s move risks a backlash from the US Congress, which has the constitutional right to declare war, and from his own political base, which favors an “America first” policy and largely opposes military intervention abroad.
In the runup to Saturday's operation, Trump had sought a blockade of Venezuelan oil, expanded sanctions against the Maduro government and staged more than two dozen strikes on vessels involved in trafficking drugs, killing more than 110 people.
Venezuelan state-run energy company PDVSA's oil production and refining were normal and its most important facilities had suffered no damage according to an initial assessment, two sources with knowledge of the company's operations said.
MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic said oil prices were likely to jump on the near-term risk to supply but that the US strike could be bearish in the medium term if a new Venezuelan government results in sanctions being lifted and renewed foreign investment.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Raphael Satter; Editing by William Mallard, William Maclean, Sergio Non, Rod Nickel)
