US President Donald Trump said that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has said she is ready to work with Washington, after the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro was seized to face trial in New York.
Mr Trump told reporters that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio “just had a conversation with her, and she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
The US president also said that Washington was “not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to” after the spectacular nighttime raid.Trump says US oil firms to head into Venezuela
US President Donald Trump said he would allow American oil companies to head into Venezuela to tap its massive crude reserves after a US military operation that seized the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Mr Trump told a press conference.
Mr Trump also said “the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect.”
As part of a weeks-long military pressure campaign against Venezuela in the run-up to the raid, US forces seized at least two oil tankers that Washington said were subject to US sanctions.
Mr Trump also warned other political and military figures in Venezuela, saying that “what happened to Maduro can happen to them.”
Venezuela has been under US oil sanctions since 2019. It produces about a million barrels of crude per day. It sells most on the black market at steep discounts.
Mr Trump claims Caracas is using oil money to finance “drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping.”
