Meanwhile, the country\u2019s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she’d face an outcome worse than Maduro\u2019s if she does not \u201cdo what\u2019s right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with US interests, including by granting access to American energy companies.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, delivering an address today before government agricultural and industrial sector officials, said, \u201cpersonally, to those who threaten me: My destiny is not determined by them, but by God\u201d.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s Attorney General Tarek William Saab said overall \u201cdozens\u201d of officers and civilians were killed in the weekend strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a \u201cwar crime\u201d. He didn\u2019t specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans.<\/p>\n
In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba\u2019s government previously confirmed that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government says the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the country\u2019s two main security agencies.<\/p>\n
Seven US service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two were still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a US official who was not authorised to comment on the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
A video tribute to the slain Venezuelan security officials posted to the military\u2019s Instagram account featured faces of the fallen over black-and-white videos of soldiers, American aircraft flying over Caracas and armoured vehicles destroyed by the blasts. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the streets of Caracas, deserted for days following Maduro’s capture, briefly filled with masses of people waving Venezuelan flags and bouncing to patriotic music at a state-organised display of support for the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,\u201d the military wrote in an Instagram post. \u201cIt reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions about the future of Venezuelan oil<\/p>\n
With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday (local time) could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The US goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela\u2019s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n
Despite Venezuela having the world\u2019s largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the US average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October.<\/p>\n
The press office for Venezuela\u2019s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n
![\"According](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a-look-at-venezuelas-massive-crude-oil-reserves-NBFXD6DPYVF6DKHLQNH4UMH3WE.png\")
<\/p>\n
According to OPEC, the South American country is sitting on around 303 billion barrels, the most in the world, with about a fifth of global reserves. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
ExxonMobil is developing a mammoth offshore oil deposit in the waters off Guyana, Venezuela\u2019s neighbour to the east. The company\u2019s major oil discovery in 2015 prompted Venezuela to revive a century-old territorial dispute with Guyana and take steps to annex the remote region known as Essequibo, which comprises about two-thirds of Guyana\u2019s land mass.<\/p>\n
The development has also led to wide-ranging accusations from Venezuela\u2019s government, including Rodr\u00edguez, against Guyana\u2019s leaders and ExxonMobil. Two years ago, Venezuelan lawmakers even considered banning any future operation in Venezuela of oil companies working in Guyana.<\/p>\n
Earlier today, Trump pushed back against Democratic criticism of this weekend’s military operation, noting that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had also called for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader on drug trafficking charges.<\/p>\n
Trump in remarks before a House Republican retreat in Washington grumbled that Democrats were not giving him credit for a successful military operation, even though there was bipartisan agreement that Maduro was not the rightful president of Venezuela.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States, accused in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy. White House officials have noted that Biden’s administration in his final days in office last year raised the award for information leading to Maduro’s arrest after he assumed a third term in office despite evidence suggesting that he lost Venezuela\u2019s most recent election. The Trump administration doubled the award to $50 million in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, at some point, they should say, \u2018You know, you did a great job. Thank you. Congratulations.’ Wouldn\u2019t it be good?” Trump said. \u201cI would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different. But if they did a good job, I\u2019d be happy for the country. They\u2019ve been after this guy for years and years and years.\u201d<\/p>\n
What US opinion polls show<\/p>\n
Americans are split about the capture of Maduro \u2014 with many still forming opinions \u2014 according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the US military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure.<\/p>\n
Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the US taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.<\/p>\n
Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a US courtroom on Monday. US forces captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday in a raid on a compound where they were surrounded by Cuban guards.<\/p>\n
In the days since Maduro’s ouster, Trump and top administration officials have raised anxiety around the globe that the operation could mark the beginning of a more expansionist US foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. The president in recent days has renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of US security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is \u201cin a lot of trouble\u201d.<\/p>\n
Colombia responds to Trump<\/p>\n
Colombia\u2019s Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said today she\u2019ll meet with the US Embassy\u2019s charge d\u2019affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Trump said he wasn\u2019t ruling out an attack on Colombia and described its president, who\u2019s been an outspoken critic of the US pressure campaign on Venezuela, as a \u201csick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
Villavicencio said she\u2019s hoping to strengthen relations with the United States and improve cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is necessary for the Trump administration to know in more detail about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom today joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland\u2019s sovereignty. The island is a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreenland belongs to its people,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIt is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said today that Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[138,28708,65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-221425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-business","tag-central-south-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}