Trump aims to make Venezuela great again and revitalize its oil-based economy as an affordability crisis lingers in the U.S.
President Donald Trump has committed the U.S. to rebuilding , the key driver of the country’s struggling economy, after American forces captured and arrested dictator Nicolas Maduro.
At a press briefing on Saturday, Trump stated to enable a transition to new leadership, and he didn’t hesitate to deploy troops there.
He asserted that Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is “basically ready to do what we believe is needed to make Venezuela great again” and will follow U.S. directives.
“We’ll get this right,” he promised. “We won’t just handle Maduro and then leave like everyone else—walk away and say, you know, let it fall apart. If we just left, it would have no chance of ever recovering. We’ll manage it properly. We’ll run it professionally.”
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, yet production has declined and its economy has collapsed due to U.S. sanctions and Maduro’s mismanagement.
Trump indicated the U.S. would utilize Venezuela’s oil resources to fund the mission and compensate American firms that previously operated there but had their assets nationalized by the socialist government.
“We’ll rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars,” he stated. “Oil companies will pay for it directly, and they’ll be reimbursed for their efforts. But it will be funded, and we’ll get the oil flowing again.”
Energy analysts have projected it will take several years—maybe nearly a decade—.
Trump seemed to recognize that modernizing the country’s oil sector won’t be easy, noting the infrastructure is “rotted” and extraction is risky.
“We’ll replace it, and we’ll extract a significant amount of money to help the country,” he explained.
Although he highlighted the profits U.S. oil companies are set to earn, Trump added that the Venezuelan people will be the primary beneficiaries of Maduro’s removal.
However, Trump ran on an “America First” platform and pledged to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts. Though he has attempted to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump faced backlash from his MAGA base after the U.S. joined Israel’s conflict with Iran last summer by bombing critical nuclear sites.
Simultaneously, voters dealt Republicans significant losses in the off-year elections, citing that Trump hasn’t done enough to improve the cost of living.
This led the Trump administration to reduce tariffs on some grocery essentials, as well as propose sending tariff “dividend” checks and lowering housing costs through 50-year mortgages. On New Year’s Eve, he after indicating tariffs on certain Italian pastas would be far lower than initially planned.
When explaining the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated, “This is America First.”
When asked how managing a South American nation aligns with “America First,” Trump responded: “It does because we want to be surrounded by good neighbors. We want stability around us, and we want energy resources nearby. That country has enormous energy potential. Protecting it is very important. We need it for ourselves, we need it for the world, and we want to ensure we can safeguard it.”
However, Trump’s critics quickly noted the gap between his campaign promises and the recent military actions.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—once a fervent Trump ally who has since distanced herself from the president— that “Americans are constantly dealing with rising costs of living, housing, and healthcare” while tax money is spent on “foreigners both at home and abroad.”
Days before leaving Congress, she stated that Americans are tired of waging wars and supporting foreign conflicts, but establishment Republicans and Democrats “kept the Washington military apparatus funded and operational.”
“This is what many in the MAGA movement believed they voted to stop,” she added. “Boy were we mistaken.”
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Trump for attacking Venezuela without congressional approval or a reliable plan for life after Maduro.
“To distract from the skyrocketing costs Americans are facing and the historic cover-up of the Epstein files, Donald Trump is trying to plunge Americans into more global chaos and uncertainty,” he .