Trump: We will monitor Venezuela for a long time/ I was afraid I would suffer the fate of Carter

According to Isna, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he expects the United States to rule Venezuela for years and extract oil from its huge reserves. He insisted that the country’s interim government, all of whom are loyal to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, “will give us whatever we feel we need.”

When asked by the New York Times how long the U.S. government would seek direct supervision of Venezuela, the South American country, Trump noted that “only time will tell.”

“We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,” he added. We will use oil and we will get oil. “We will lower the price of oil and give Venezuela money that they desperately need.”

According to The New York Times, Trump’s comments came hours after administration officials announced that the United States plans to take control of Venezuela’s oil sales indefinitely, part of a three-phase plan that Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined to members of Congress. That comes as Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday reiterated their warnings that the United States is moving toward a protracted international intervention without clear legal authority.

The American president did not provide an exact time frame for how long the United States will remain “Venezuela’s political master”, and in response, will this period be three months? 6 months? A year or more? “I’d say a lot more,” he said.

We are in contact with Rodriguez

But Trump did not respond to questions about why he recognized Vice President Maduro as Venezuela’s new president instead of backing opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, and declined to comment on whether he had spoken to Ms. Rodriguez.

“But Marco always talks to him,” he said of the US secretary of state. I tell you that we are in constant communication with him and his government.”

Trump also made no commitment about when elections would be held in Venezuela.

The rest of the heads of the region are afraid of us!

The US president, who spoke to his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro on the phone during an interview with the New York Times, noted that he believes Maduro’s removal from power has intimidated other regional leaders to join him. He then expressed his happiness over the success of the operation that broke into Madero’s residence in Caracas and led to the arrest of him and his wife Celia Flores.

He explained that he has followed the training of troops for the operation to the creation of a life-size replica of the site at a military base in Kentucky.

I was afraid of the failure of the operation

President Trump went on to say that as the operation progressed, he worried it would become a “Jimmy Carter disaster” because it would destroy his entire administration. He was referring to the failed operation on April 24, 1980 to rescue 52 Americans who were being held at the Washington Embassy in Tehran, during which an American helicopter collided with a plane in the desert and overshadowed Carter’s legacy.

“I don’t know that he would have won the election, but he certainly had no chance after that disaster,” he said of Jimmy Carter.

Trump compared the success of the operation to capture Maduro, who is said to have killed about 100 Venezuelans, Cubans and others, to the failed operations of his predecessors.

Referring to the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan during the presidency of Joe Biden, which resulted in the death of 13 American soldiers, he said: “You know, you don’t always see Jimmy Carter’s helicopters crashing everywhere, look at the disaster in Afghanistan during the time of Biden, where they couldn’t do the simplest maneuver.”

Revival of Venezuela’s oil industry will take years

Donald Trump said that he has already started making money for the United States by taking oil that was under embargo. He was referring to his announcement Tuesday night that the United States would acquire 30 to 50 million barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude oil.

But he gave no specific time frame for the process, acknowledging that reviving the country’s forgotten oil sector will take years.

He clarified: “Oil will take some time.”

He also tried to focus more on the Maduro kidnapping operation itself, refusing to say what might have prompted him to deploy US troops in the country.

“I don’t want to tell you that,” the president said.

In response to Trump, if the Venezuelan government prevents him from accessing the country’s oil, will he bring in American troops? Will Venezuela send troops if it refuses to expel Russian and Chinese personnel, as its government has demanded? “I can’t tell you that,” he said. I really don’t want to tell you this, but they treat us with a lot of respect. “As you know, we’re getting along very well with the government that’s in there right now.”

Maduro’s allies cooperate with us

He also avoided answering a question about why he refused to appoint the man the United States had declared the winner of Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, Edmundo Gonzalez.

The US president also reiterated that Maduro’s allies are cooperating with the US, despite their publicly hostile statements.

“They give us whatever we feel we need,” he said. “Don’t forget, they took the oil from us years ago.”

Trump was referring to the nationalization of facilities built by American oil companies.

He has previously spoken to American oil executives about investing in Venezuela’s oil fields, but many are reluctant, worried that the administration’s operations will fail after Trump’s presidency ends, or that Venezuela’s military and intelligence services will undermine efforts because they are excluded from the profits.

I would like to go to Venezuela

Donald Trump concluded by saying that he would like to visit Venezuela in the future: “I think it will be safe at some point.”

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