The United States will remain and "run" Venezuela until a "proper transition" can take place with its government, President Donald Trump said in his news conference Saturday, following the overnight strikes on Venezuela and the arrests of President Nicholas Maduro and his wife.
"We're there now, but we're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place, so we're going to stay until such time as we're going to run it essentially," Trump said.
He pointed out that "as everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time."
"They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place," Trump said. "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."
The latest strike, he added, may not be the only one that will be undertaken.
"We are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so," said Trump.
"We actually assumed that a second wave would be necessary, but now it's probably not the first wave, if you'd like to call it that," he said.
"The first attack was so successful, we probably don't have to do a second, but we're prepared to do a second wave, a much bigger wave, actually," Trump said.
"This was pinpointed, but we have a much bigger wave that probably won't have to do."
Meanwhile, the removal of Maduro and the ensuing results "will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe, and it will also make the many, many people from Venezuela that are living in the United States extremely happy," said Trump.
"They suffered," he said. "So much was taken from them. They're not going to suffer anymore."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.