Trump says a second military strike on Venezuelan possible if leaders don’t cooperate

US President Donald Trump said that the United States might launch a second military strike on Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro if remaining members of the administration do not cooperate with his efforts to get the country “fixed”.

Trump’s comments to reporters aboard Air Force One raised the possibility of further US military interventions in Latin America, and suggested Colombia and Mexico could also face military action if they do not reduce the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.

“Operation Colombia sounds good to me,” Trump said. He also said that Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela, “looks like it’s ready to fall” on its own without US military action.

Maduro held in US custody

Maduro is in a New York detention center awaiting a Monday court appearance on drug charges. His capture by the United States has sparked deep uncertainty about what is next for the oil-rich South American nation.

Trump said his administration will work with remaining members of the Maduro regime to clamp down on drug trafficking and overhaul its oil industry, rather than push for immediate elections to install a new government.

Top officials in Maduro’s government are still in charge and have called the detentions of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores a kidnapping.

“Here, there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said in an audio recording released by the ruling PSUV socialist party.

Images of the 63-year-old Maduro, blindfolded and handcuffed stunned Venezuelans. The operation was Washington’s most controversial intervention in Latin America, since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago.

Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino said on state television that Venezuela’s armed forces have been activated to guarantee sovereignty, and that the US attack killed soldiers, civilians and a “large part” of Maduro’s security detail “in cold blood”.

The Cuban government said 32 of its citizens were killed during the raid.

Rodriguez steps in as interim leader

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez – who also serves as oil minister – has taken over as interim leader with the blessing of Venezuela’s top court and has said Maduro remains president.

Rodriguez has long been considered the most pragmatic member of Maduro’s inner circle. But she has publicly contradicted Trump’s claim that she is willing to work with the United States.

Trump said Rodriguez may pay a bigger price than Maduro “if she doesn’t do what’s right,” according to an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

Trump cites Venezuelan migrant influx

Once one of the most prosperous nations in Latin America, Venezuela’s economy tanked in the 2000s under President Hugo Chavez and nosedived further under Maduro, sending about one in five Venezuelans abroad in one of the world’s biggest exoduses.

Trump said that the influx of Venezuelan emigrating to the United States also factored into the decision to capture Maduro.

“What really played (into the decision to capture Maduro) is the fact that he sent millions of people into our country from prisons and from mental institutions, drug dealers, every drug addict in his country was sent into our country,” Trump said.

The Venezuelan government has said for months that Trump was seeking to take the country’s natural resources, especially its oil, and officials made much of a previous Trump comment that major US oil companies would move in.

“We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed – it was revealed that they only want our oil,” Cabello said.

US Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the White House has failed to say how long the US intends to be in Venezuela and how many American troops might be required.

“The American people are worried that this is creating an endless war – the very thing that Donald Trump campaigned against,” Schumer said on ABC’s ‘This Week’. He said lawmakers would weigh a measure to constrain further Trump administration action in Venezuela, though its prospects could be uncertain given that Congress is controlled by Trump’s Republicans.