US President Donald Trump says the United States will “run” Venezuela until a political transition can occur, after the spectacular US military operation to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from the country.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump tells a press conference, adding that US forces were ready to conduct a second, “much bigger” wave of strikes if necessary.
Trump adds that the US military caused a blackout in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, so it could carry out the operation.
“It was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” Trump says.
He also says he will now allow American oil companies to head into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump says.
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