After Maduro, a common refrain: The oil is ours

Like many other Venezuelans, Ramón Arape said the image of ex-President Nicolás Maduro in U.S. custody was a stunning - and welcome-sight.

- Mery Mogollón and Patrick J. McDonnell

ARIANA CUBILLOS Associated Press SUPPORTERS holding action figures based on President Nicolás Maduro rally Sunday in Caracas, Venezuela.

"I confess that I felt a sense of relief when I saw the photo of Maduro in the hands of los gringos," said Arape, 59, a welder and father of three.

Less reassuring, however, were President Trump's comments about Washington's determination to take over the government and the oil industry, the nation's defining natural resource.

"We've already had it with outsiders — Cubans, Iranians, Chinese — and now the Americans come along and want to name leaders and sell our oil?" said Arape, referring to a series of foreign allies sought out by the socialist governments of Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez. "It's a violation of law and sovereignty."

Many Venezuelans are hoping for a deliverance, but not, it seems, at the cost of selling off the country's riches. How that plays out with Trump's view that Venezuela "stole" a U.S.-built oil industry is one of the big questions as Washington embarks on a massive nation-building endeavor in South America.

ARIANA CUBILLOS Associated Press IN CARACAS, Venezuela, demonstrators protest after President Trump's comments about taking over the government and oil industry.

Like many other nations, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 20th century, a process begun in the 1970s under a U.S.-allied government in Caracas. Several U.S. oil giants later made claims of illegal expropriation against the government of Chávez, Maduro's mentor. But few here seemed inclined to believe in Trump's assertion, made on social media, that Venezuela must return "all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us."