Trump rolls the dice on nation-building with vow to ‘run’ Venezuela

After an audacious overnight operation that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and removed him from power, President Trump on Saturday embraced an open-ended nation-building effort of a kind he once said he would avoid.

- Vera Bergengruen, Juan Forero & Alex Leary

Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela, a country of 29 million people with a faltering economy, for an indefinite period.

(BLOOMBERG)

Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela, a Latin American country of 29 million people with a faltering economy, for an indefinite period.

“We're going to run it, essentially, until a proper transition takes place,” he said.

He provided few details about how the White House would take control of the country without putting large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground—an option he didn’t rule out. Trump said even less about whether a viable plan was in place for governing Venezuela after deposing its president and sending him to the U.S. to face criminal charges, other than to insist the U.S. would seize the oil industry and sharply increase production.

For a president who has for years denounced his predecessors for seeking to transform foreign countries they didn’t understand, it was a stunning about-face. The move left open the possibility of a deeper—and expensive—U.S. effort, particularly if the remnants of Maduro’s regime choose defiance instead of accepting Trump's demands.

Even if a U.S.-backed government takes over in Caracas, extending its control over the rest of the country will likely pose numerous challenges.

The Trump administration might need to contend with a violent backlash while delivering on Trump's demands for the country to restore former U.S. oil assets.

“Out with the old is one thing, in with the new is something very different,” said Richard Haass, a former State Department official who engaged in Venezuela diplomacy during the George W. Bush administration. “Now we own it.”

Trump framed his plan as a benevolent intervention that would take account of ordinary Venezuelans’ needs and encourage millions of exiles to return.