{"id":266586,"date":"2026-01-04T10:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T10:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/266586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T10:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T10:07:07","slug":"maduro-in-custody-at-new-york-detention-centre-as-trump-says-us-will-run-venezuela-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/266586\/","title":{"rendered":"Maduro in custody at New York detention centre as Trump says US will run Venezuela \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro<\/a> was in a New York detention centre on Sunday after president Donald Trump<\/a> ordered an audacious US \u200draid to capture the South American leader and take control of the country and its vast oil reserves.<\/p>\n

As part of the dramatic operation early on Saturday that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas and included strikes on military installations, US Special Forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia \u200dFlores, and transported them via helicopter to a US Navy ship offshore before flying them to the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,\u201d Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.<\/p>\n

For months, his administration criticised Maduro, 63, over what it called his involvement in shipping drugs to the US. It ramped up pressure with a massive military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats.<\/p>\n

While many Western \u200callies oppose Maduro and say he stole Venezuela\u2019s 2024 election, Trump\u2019s boasts about controlling the nation and exploiting its oil revived painful memories of past US interventions in Latin America, Iraq and Afghanistan. <\/p>\n

Some legal experts questioned the legality of an operation to seize the head of state of a \u2060foreign power, while Democrats who said they were misled during recent Congress briefings demanded a plan for what is to follow. Trump said as part of the takeover, major US oil companies would move back \u200cinto \u200bVenezuela, \u200dwhich has the world\u2019s largest oil reserves, and refurbish badly degraded oil infrastructure, a process experts said could take years.<\/p>\n

He said he was open to sending US forces into Venezuela. \u201cWe\u2019re not afraid of boots on the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A plane carrying Maduro landed near New York City on Saturday night, and he was helicoptered to the city before being taken by a large convoy to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn under a heavy police guard.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump says US will \u2018run\u2019 Venezuela after capture of MaduroOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump shared a photo of captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Photograph: TruthSocial <\/p>\n

Images released by US authorities showed the leader handcuffed and blindfolded during the flight, and later \u2060being led down a hallway at the offices of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was heard wishing a \u201chappy new year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indicted on various federal charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, Maduro expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on \u2060Monday, according to a Justice Department official. It is unclear how Trump plans to \u2060oversee Venezuela. US forces have no control over the country, and Maduro\u2019s government appears not only to still be in charge but to have no appetite for co-operating with Washington. Maduro\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on Venezuelan television on Saturday afternoon with other top officials to decry what she called a kidnapping.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe demand the immediate release of president Nicolas Maduro and his wife \u200dCilia Flores,” Rodriguez said, calling Maduro \u201cthe only president of Venezuela.\u201d A Venezuelan court ordered Rodriguez to assume the position of interim president.<\/p>\n

Trump did not say who will lead Venezuela when the US cedes control, but appeared to rule out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, widely seen as Maduro\u2019s most credible opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t have the support within or the respect within the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA member of the National Guard stands guard at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, in Caracas on January 3rd, following a ‘large scale strike’ by the US on the South American country. Photograph: Federico Parra\/ AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

In Venezuela, the streets were mostly calm after a rush for groceries and fuel. Soldiers patrolled some parts and small pro-Maduro crowds gathered in Caracas.<\/p>\n

Others expressed relief. \u201cI\u2019m happy, I doubted for a moment that it was happening because it\u2019s like a movie,\u201d said merchant Carolina Pimentel, 37, in the city of Maracay.<\/p>\n

Many Venezuelan migrants around the world erupted in celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are free. We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country,\u201d said Khaty Yanez, who lives in the Chilean capital Santiago, one of an estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans – 20 per cent of the population – who have left \u200cthe country since 2014. The UN Security Council planned to \u200cmeet on Monday to discuss the actions, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as \u201ca dangerous precedent.\u201d Russia and China, both major backers of Venezuela, criticised the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina firmly opposes such hegemonic behaviour by the US, which seriously violates international law, violates Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty and threatens peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean,\u201d China\u2019s foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments about an open-ended military presence in Venezuela echoed the \u200crhetoric around past invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which ended in American withdrawals after years of costly occupation and thousands of US casualties.<\/p>\n

A US occupation \u201cwon\u2019t cost us a penny\u201d because the United States would be reimbursed from the \u201cmoney coming out of the ground,\u201d Trump said, \u2060referring to Venezuela\u2019s oil reserves, a subject he returned to repeatedly during Saturday\u2019s press conference. Trump\u2019s focus on foreign affairs provides fuel for Democrats to criticise him ahead of midterm congressional elections in November, when control of both houses of Congress is at stake, with Republicans controlling both by narrow margins.<\/p>\n

Opinion polls show the top concern for voters is high prices at home, not foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Trump also runs the risk of alienating some of his own supporters, who have backed his \u201cAmerica First\u201d agenda and oppose foreign interventions. – Reuters <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Protesters \u2018horrified\u2019 by US actions to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s MaduroOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro was in a New York detention centre on Sunday after president Donald Trump ordered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,968,5,7,8,4450,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-266586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-venezuela","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115836278823836905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}