CARACAS, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- After explosions rocked Venezuela's capital, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of their country by the U.S. military on early Saturday to New York, leaving the country in a state of emergency.
U.S. President Donald Trump insisted Sunday the United States was "in charge" of Venezuela after Maduro's capture, and was also dealing with the new leadership in Caracas, leaving the Latin American country's future in limbo.
INVASION FRAMED AS "TRANSITION"
Washington has made little effort to disguise the extent of its intervention in Venezuela. Trump has said openly that the United States will "run" the oil-rich country until a "safe, proper and judicious transition" takes place -- one that meets U.S. demands. Yet what such a transition would entail, or how it would unfold, remains undefined.
Rather than working through Venezuela's divided opposition, the Trump administration has exerted direct pressure on Delcy Rodriguez, who was instructed by the Supreme Court of Justice to be acting president following Maduro's capture. Trump swiftly confirmed her position, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already spoken with her, while warning in an interview with The Atlantic that she would "pay a very big price" if she failed to comply.
Later on Sunday, Rodriguez said she was ready to work together with the Trump administration, asking the U.S. leader for a balanced, respectful relationship. Yet analysts say Venezuela's left-wing forces retain a solid social base, particularly within the armed forces, limiting Washington's ability to rapidly reshape the political landscape.
Support for Maduro among senior officials remains significant. Meanwhile, the opposition is seeking to reassert itself, with exiled presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia described by some supporters as the country's "legitimate president," and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado promoting plans for an "orderly transition."
Lina Luna, director of the School of International Relations, Externado University of Colombia, argued that from Washington's perspective, figures such as Machado are not meant to govern Venezuela at all. Rather, she said, the United States seeks to exercise direct control over the country. Trump himself told a press conference that Machado "doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country."
Under Venezuela's constitution, a president's "absolute absence" would require power to pass to the vice president and elections to be held within 30 days. That timeline, however, has been effectively suspended. Trump said Venezuela will not hold elections in the next 30 days and elections must wait until the country is "fixed," reinforcing concerns that constitutional processes are being subordinated to U.S. oversight.
Alan Fajardo, a sociologist at Honduras' National Autonomous University, told Xinhua that such "transitional management" could take one of two paths: maintaining Venezuela's existing government and institutional framework in form while continuing to exert political and economic pressure, or directly installing a pro-U.S. regime, with the possibility of larger-scale military intervention and even occupation of Venezuelan territory not ruled out.
"What Washington would like, in essence, is to establish something akin to a Roman imperial consulate: installing a compliant, allied figure -- possibly a puppet --subordinated to U.S. authority," said political scientist Jaime Tamayo from the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.
OIL FIRST, GOVERNANCE LATER
Washington has offered few details about its endgame in Venezuela. The White House has remained deliberately vague, insisting only that the United States will not govern the country day to day, beyond enforcing what officials describe as an existing "oil quarantine."
Yet the administration's underlying objective is hardly obscure. Trump has openly called for major American oil companies to invest billions of dollars to repair Venezuela's dilapidated energy infrastructure and tap its vast petroleum reserves -- a move widely seen as settling old scores. Eighteen years ago, under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela nationalized U.S. and Western oil assets, triggering compensation claims worth some 60 billion U.S. dollars.
Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua that Trump "believes that Venezuela's oil industry was originally a U.S. industry, and that he is restoring that."
The message has been reinforced by repeated threats of force. Trump has warned that further military action could follow if Caracas fails to cooperate in opening its oil sector, declaring that Washington is "not afraid of boots on the ground" and that a second wave of strikes is being prepared if required, referring to Rodriguez's remarks that Venezuela is ready to defend its natural resources and will never become a colony of any country or a slave of any empire.
Venezuela sits atop roughly 300 billion barrels of heavy, sour crude -- around a fifth of the world's reserves and precisely the grade American refineries lack.
In theory, a smooth political transition and the lifting of sanctions could raise output to about 1.2 million barrels a day by the end of 2026, still well below historical peaks, The Economist reported.
"Trump intends to pressure U.S. oil companies into changing their investment plans, so that they re-enter Venezuela on a large scale and rebuild its oil infrastructure, without U.S. government help," said Ramsay.
In practice, however, the obstacles are formidable. Output has already fallen amid U.S. blockades and logistical constraints, while decades of mismanagement have left the infrastructure in disrepair.
The PDVSA, the state oil company now largely run by the military, has suffered a severe brain drain, and restoring capacity would require about 110 billion dollars -- twice the combined global investment of U.S. oil majors in 2024 -- making large-scale recovery uncertain, The Economist noted.
For critics, the risks extend beyond economics. Tamayo and other analysts argued that this resource-first approach turns governance into a tool of extraction, prioritizing control over institutional rebuilding or livelihoods, and risks hollowing out the state, fracturing authority and worsening insecurity -- hardly the "orderly transition" Washington claims to seek.
INT'L BACKLASH AGAINST HEGEMONIC U.S.
The U.S. raid on Maduro has triggered strong international condemnation, with many governments and analysts warning that the action sets a dangerous precedent for the use of force against a sovereign state.
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Trump is "taking a big gamble," cautioning that the chances of avoiding a chaotic outcome "aren't that great."
Regional leaders have voiced particular concern over the broader implications for Latin America. Venezuela's acting president, Rodriguez, warned that what happened to her country could happen elsewhere in the region, undermining faith in international law and human rights if violations by a dominant power go unpunished.
Tamayo, for his part, argued that the intervention may provoke defensive reactions from states that can no longer assume their sovereignty will be respected.
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has been among the most outspoken critics, condemning U.S. actions as violations of sovereignty and warning that Latin American history shows foreign intervention brings instability rather than solutions.
She has rejected unilateral measures and instead called for regional cooperation and economic integration, pushing back against Washington's threats toward both Venezuela and Mexico.
These concerns were formalized on Sunday, when the governments of Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Spain issued a joint statement opposing U.S. military action. The declaration reaffirmed Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, founded on non-intervention and the peaceful resolution of disputes, and stressed that only an inclusive, Venezuelan-led political process can produce a democratic and sustainable outcome.
For analysts such as Tamayo, the critical question now is whether Venezuelans will mobilize not to defend Maduro as an individual, but to defend their institutions, constitution, sovereignty and control over natural resources. As Luna put it, Latin America faces a collective challenge -- preventing what she described as the open colonization of Venezuela's political system and resources. ■
