After the US intervention in Venezuela, Republican US lawmakers said on Monday that President Donald Trump does not have any plan to occupy Venezuela.
After the US intervention in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicoloas Maduro, Republican US lawmakers said on Monday that President Donald Trump does not have any plan to occupy Venezuela.
“We do not have US armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country,” Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters after the classified session with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior officials.
“If anybody wants to use the term nation-building, or anything like that, it doesn’t look like anything anybody has seen under President Trump,” said Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“They are not the protracted war administration,” Mast told reporters after the briefing, which lasted more than 2-1/2 hours, when asked how he would reassure Americans they did not face another ’endless war,’ like the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan.
Maduro found not guilty
Trump sent US troops in Venezuela early on Saturday to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who pleaded not guilty in the US court earlier on Monday to drug trafficking charges.
Maduro said, “I am the President of Venezuela, I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured at my home in Caracas.”
Maduro’s capture rattled world leaders
The capture of Nicolas Maduro rattled world leaders as Trump’s warning came a day after specifying that if the same actions continue, will lead to another strike. Caracas was left scrambling and angered some US Democrats, who said Rubio and other Trump administration officials had lied to them by insisting they were not planning regime change in Venezuela.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate’s Democratic leader, told reporters Monday’s briefing had been extensive but posed more questions than it answered.
“Their plan for the US running Venezuela is vague, based on wishful thinking and unsatisfying,” he said.
Trump administration accuses Maduro
Trump’s administration accuses Maduro of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombia’s FARC rebels and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela’s oil riches. US oil companies’ shares jumped on Monday, fueled by the prospect of access to those vast reserves.
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