{"id":220696,"date":"2026-01-04T23:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/220696\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T23:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T23:25:09","slug":"trump-warns-venezuelas-new-leader-to-meet-us-demands-or-pay-a-very-big-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/220696\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump warns Venezuela\u2019s new leader to meet US demands or pay \u2018a very big price\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today\u2019s newsletter:<\/p>\n

Washington warns Venezuela\u2019s new leader<\/p>\n

China targets online vendors in tax crackdown<\/p>\n

Inside Hong Kong\u2019s car scene <\/p>\n

Donald Trump has warned Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, Venezuela\u2019s de facto leader, that she must meet US demands after Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s capture, as Washington signalled its intent to dictate policy in Caracas rather than physically govern the country.<\/p>\n

What to know: The US president\u2019s message to Rodr\u00edguez came in an interview yesterday with The Atlantic magazine<\/a>. \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,\u201d Trump said. Speaking to CBS yesterday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio suggested the US did not intend to occupy or administer Venezuela, but would dictate policy to Caracas \u2014 and suggested people had become \u201cfixated\u201d on Trump\u2019s comment on Saturday that the US would \u201crun\u201d the country.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, after capturing Maduro in a night-time raid on Caracas and transporting him to the US to face criminal charges, Trump had said the US would \u201crun\u201d Venezuela until further notice but indicated that Rodr\u00edguez was \u201cessentially willing\u201d to heed Washington\u2019s diktats. Trump\u2019s more aggressive tone towards Rodr\u00edguez came as his administration offered little additional detail on Washington\u2019s next plans for the Latin American country after toppling Maduro. <\/p>\n

Oil markets prepare for turmoil: Traders are bracing themselves for upheaval when the oil market reopens this morning. Venezuela produces less than 1 per cent of global oil output but holds about 17 per cent of the world\u2019s proven crude reserves, giving it the potential to increase supply significantly. Here\u2019s what traders expect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We have more coverage of Trump\u2019s intervention in Venezuela: <\/p>\n

\u2018We will not be anyone\u2019s colony\u2019: The Maduro regime sought to maintain its grip<\/a> on Caracas in the hours after US forces captured the authoritarian leader.<\/p>\n

How will Trump \u2018run\u2019 Venezuela?: The US president has committed to establish the country of 28mn as a temporary protectorate. But critics fear a dangerous power vacuum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s downfall: The authoritarian leader withstood previous attempts<\/a> to oust him, but presided over the collapse of the country\u2019s economy. <\/p>\n

Opinion: After ousting Maduro, what happens in Venezuela from now on will be on Trump\u2019s account<\/a>, writes Edward Luce.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what else we\u2019re keeping tabs on today: <\/p>\n

Economic data: Vietnam reports December inflation, trade, industrial output and fourth-quarter GDP data.<\/p>\n

Monetary policy: Thailand\u2019s central bank releases minutes of its last meeting.<\/p>\n

South Korea-China relations: Chinese leader Xi Jinping meets South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Results: Foxconn reports fourth-quarter revenue.<\/p>\n

Five more top stories<\/p>\n

1. Chinese authorities are raking in more tax from online vendors as part of a crackdown triggered by Beijing\u2019s desire to bolster revenues to compensate for slowing economic growth. A new law that came into effect in October has contributed to a 12.7 per cent rise in tax revenues from ecommerce platforms<\/a> in the third quarter from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

2. British and French war planes have bombed an underground facility in Syria that was used by Isis militants to store weapons, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. The joint UK-French strike comes after the US launched a wave of strikes in December amid a recent uptick in attacks by Isis-affiliated or extremist militants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Denmark\u2019s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called on Trump and his allies to stop making threats to seize control of Greenland as tensions flared between the Nato allies following the US intervention in Venezuela. Frederiksen made her most significant rebuff of Trump after he said \u201cwe do need Greenland\u201d<\/a> in an interview with The Atlantic.<\/p>\n

4. More than three-quarters of economists expect the US to maintain or widen its productivity lead over the rest of the world, because of AI, deep capital markets and relatively low energy costs, an FT survey has found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. German authorities suspect a leftwing group is behind a power outage in south-west Berlin. The outage is expected to last until Thursday<\/a>, leaving tens of thousands of households, hospitals and nursing homes without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures.<\/p>\n

Interview: Sparx founder Shuhei Abe\"SparxSparx founder Shuhei Abe: \u2018One of the biggest catalysts for the coming years will be changes of management attitude\u2019 \u00a9 Ko Sasaki\/FT<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s executives have to change their mindset and exert more pricing power as the country moves on from an era of deflation, one of its biggest independent asset managers has said. Shuhei Abe, founder of asset manager Sparx, said managers of the previous era had \u201csuffered from the trauma of the past bubble\u201d and had it instilled in them to cut debt and hoard capital rather than raise prices. Read the full interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also reading\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n

Hong Kong: Car ownership is considered a luxury in the city, where parking alone costs a premium. But that has not stopped Hong Kong\u2019s car enthusiasts<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A \u2018new kind of social network\u2019: Two Silicon Valley veterans behind Twitter and Pinterest have launched a new app<\/a> that is designed to be an antidote to social media. <\/p>\n

Bin the bucket list: It\u2019s the spontaneous moments that make life rich and exciting, not the ones for which you have sky-high expectations, writes Jemima Kelly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chart of the day<\/p>\n

China plans to reinforce its dominance of global manufacturing, despite persistent deflation at home and growing complaints from abroad about soaring Chinese trade surpluses.\u00a0Here\u2019s why Beijing is doubling down on its export-led growth model<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"LineTake a break from the news\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n

Check out FT Weekend\u2019s 2026 cultural calendar<\/a>, where our critics share what they\u2019re most looking forward to this year in film, TV, theatre, classical, art, gaming, pop and dance. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy New Year and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today\u2019s newsletter: Washington warns Venezuela\u2019s new leader China…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-220696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}