President Donald Trump says the U.S. has not ruled out the possibility of launching a second strike in Venezuela, but that all depends on the Latin American country’s conduct in a post-President Nicolás Maduro capture.
“If they don’t behave, we will do a second strike,” Fox News cited Mr Trump as saying aboard Marine One during a trip from Mar-a-Lago to the White House.
U.S. special forces captured Mr Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Saturday and forcibly transported them to New York to stand trial for a raft of allegations, including drug trafficking.
The U.S. president considered Mr Maduro a dictator and ring leader of a drug cartel accused of shipping cocaine into the U.S. Mr Maduro will be arraigned on Monday before a federal court in Manhattan.
Mr Trump declared the U.S. will “run” Venezuela and commandeer its oil sector, a move that interim President Delcy Rodríguez resisted.
She said Venezuelans would “defend our natural resources”.
The abduction of the Maduros, codenamed ‘Operation Armour Shield’, has drawn kudos and knocks from nations around the world who celebrated Mr Maduro’s capture as long overdue, while Russia, Ghana, and others argued that Venezuelans should decide their own political leadership without interference.
