Does Trump run Venezuela now?

特朗普现在是否统治着委内瑞拉?

Today in Focus

2026-01-05

28 分钟
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The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was captured, flown to the US and is facing trial in New York. What does it mean for the country – and the world?. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, the capture of Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro.

  • In the early hours of Saturday morning, scenes unfolded on the streets of the Venezuelan capital,

  • Caracas, that could have come from a blockbuster movie.

  • The power was cut, explosions ripped through the city, and the US military swept him.

  • The country's president, Nicholas Maduro, was snatched from his home and from power.

  • Julian Borger, the Guardian's senior international correspondent, was stunned by what he saw.

  • The way this operation has been described makes it look like a kind of made-for-TV adventure.

  • The game plan was clearly to create a bit of shock and awe by...

  • bombing a number of places at the same time and just generally create a bit of confusion

  • while they went in to seize Maduro.

  • By all accounts they had some inside informant telling them where Maduro was and so they knew exactly where to find him and according to the accounts given by US officials he had almost got to a safe room with a steel door and was in the process of trying to close it when he was grabbed and whisked away.

  • By Saturday, Maduro was a prisoner on US soil,

  • accused of being a narco-terrorist and paraded in front of the cameras, blindfolded and handcuffed.

  • It's almost part of the sort of ritual humiliation of an enemy of Trump and of Washington to see him in handcuffs like that.

  • All these images are part of the orchestration of the whole operation and will no doubt in Trump's mind be sort of part of his highlights reel from his tenure in office.

  • But as the world reeled from the US military going into Venezuela in the dead of night and taking the president,

  • Donald Trump was not done.

  • We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.

  • He announced that the United States would now run Venezuela and take control of its vast reserves of oil.