White House seeks to reassure Republicans over Venezuela’s future

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Senior US officials sought to ease Republican fears of protracted involvement in Venezuela as Democrats blasted the White House for lacking a strategy after toppling the country’s leader.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio and other officials, including defence secretary Pete Hegseth, held a classified briefing that lasted more than two hours with top lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the operation, which has opened a new chapter of US interventionism in the western hemisphere.

Following the military operation this weekend to capture Nicolás Maduro and transport him to the US to face trialPresident Donald Trump has pledged that officials in Washington would now “run” and be “in charge” of the country, without elaborating on how they would do that.

“I’m very concerned about what happens next, about the leadership, about democracy, about the willingness of [the administration to] making sure that the people of Venezuela will be involved in that democracy,” said Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee.

Trump critics on Capitol Hill have attacked the White House for failing to notify Congress of the operation to capture Maduro, and turning his back on his campaign vows not to start new conflicts.

Republican congressional leaders after Monday’s briefing played down the idea that the US would run Venezuela, as Trump has suggestedor commit troops.

“This is not a regime change. This is a demand for change of behaviour by a regime,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. “We don’t expect troops on the ground. We don’t expect direct involvement in any other way beyond just forcing the new, the interim government to get that going.”

Brian Mast, chair of the House foreign affairs committee, said: “[Trump] had a very limited operation in Iran against their nuclear infrastructure, and now a very limited operation in Venezuela, and again, we were gone by breakfast. Protracted war is not the MO of this administration.”

Trump’s claims that the US would control Venezuela came even as Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s second-in-command, replaced the captured leader at the helm of the regime.

Asked on Monday if the US would let Rodríguez and the remainder of Maduro’s administration remain in charge, Johnson said: “There are more questions ultimately about how it will resolve, probably, than answers at the moment. That’s to be expected.”

Removing the rest of the regime “would leave a vacuum”, Mast said.

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said the White House plan “for the US running Venezuela is vague, based on wishful thinking, and was unsatisfying”.

He added: “I did not receive any assurances that we would not try to do the same thing in other countries.”

Speaking to NBC earlier in the day, Trump stressed that the US was not “at war” with Venezuela.

“We’re at war with people that sell drugs. We’re at war with people that empty their prisons into our country and empty their drug addicts and empty their mental institutions into our country,” he said.

Trump also insisted that US access to Venezuelan oil was a key demand and said Washington could reimburse oil companies that invest in the country.

The president on Monday acknowledged that US drillers would need to spend a “very substantial amount of money” to upgrade Venezuela’s decaying energy infrastructure but insisted they would “do very well”.

He added: “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us, or through revenue.”

Oil companies led Wall Street advances on Monday, on bets that the US intervention would lead to a windfall for energy groups. US oil major Chevron rose 5.1 per cent, refiner Valero Energy added 9.2 per cent and ConocoPhillips climbed 2.6 per cent.

Trump has said that US oil companies — most of which left the country in recent decades following expropriations by Caracas — would return and take “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground”.

But despite Venezuela holding the world’s largest crude reserves, big oil groups have been reluctant to rush to commitments with the country’s leadership in upheaval.

Trump said on Monday that the oil industry could get new operations “up and running” in less than 18 months. “I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money.”

The US president’s pledge to potentially reimburse oil companies for investing in Venezuela could amplify criticism of the intervention from both Democrats and the isolationist wing of the Republican party as well as Trump’s own “Maga” base.

Trump has already faces pushback for prioritising control of Venezuela’s natural resources over a transition to democracy and neglecting domestic concerns such as inflation and the cost of living by focusing on his foreign policy goals.

Speaking to NBC, Trump insisted that he would not suffer much of a backlash among his supporters, saying: “Maga loves it. Maga loves what I’m doing. Maga loves everything I do.”