Trump says US military operation in Colombia ‘sounds good to me’
More now on Donald Trump’s comments about Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s leftwing president: Trump said the country was being “run by a sick man” and accused him of producing and selling cocaine to the US, adding: “He’s not going to be doing it very long.”
According to an audio recording of Trump talking to media aboard Air Force One on Sunday, when a reporter asks if that means there will be a US operation in Colombia, the president says: “It sounds good to me.”
The US and Colombia have had ongoing tensions for months amid the US military build-up in the Caribbean and Petro has been one of Trump’s harshest international critics.
The Colombian leader has said his government has been seizing cocaine at unprecedented rates and last month he invited Trump to visit the country – the world’s largest producer of cocaine – to see government efforts to destroy drug-producing labs.
At the weekend Petro called the US action in Venezuela an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America that would lead to a humanitarian crisis.
Petro’s criticism of the US campaign against Venezuela, and its targeting of small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, has infuriated Trump, who on Saturday said the Colombian leader should “watch his ass”.
Key events
Asian stocks have risen in Monday trading, while oil prices fluctuated, as investors weighed the impact of the US ouster of Nicolás Maduro.
The Venezuelan president’s removal will add to geopolitical risk on global markets, but traders appear to have chosen to focus on the long-running artificial intelligence boom and hopes for more US interest rate cuts.
Oil shifted between gains and losses after the US strikes on Caracas. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and more Venezuelan crude in the market could exacerbate oversupply concerns and add to recent pressure on prices.
Trump has said the US will send companies to fix the country’s dilapidated oil infrastructure. But analysts say that alongside other major questions about the South American country’s future, substantially lifting its oil production will not be easy, quick or cheap.
Venezuela’s president was captured, flown to the US and is now facing trial in New York. What does the audacious ouster of Nicolás Maduro’s mean for the country – and the world?
Find out in our podcast here:
More on Donald Trump’s comments to reporters aboard Air Force One: the president said elections in Venezuela would have to wait.
“We’re going to run it, fix it, we’ll have elections at the right time, but the main thing you have to fix is it’s a broken country,” he said.
Trump had harsh words for other US adversaries, saying Colombia’s leader was “not going to be doing it very long”, Communist-ruled Cuba was “ready to fall” and that Iran’s leadership would be “hit hard” if protesters were killed, AFP reports.
Trump earlier threatened that acting Venezuelan president Delcy Rodriguez would pay a “big price” if she did not cooperate with the US.
Trump says second Venezuela strike possible and US ‘in charge’ of country
Donald Trump has said the US might launch a second military strike on Venezuela after President Nicolás Maduro’s capture if remaining members of the government did not cooperate with his efforts to get the country “fixed”.
Trump also insisted to reporters aboard Air Force One that the US was “in charge” of Venezuela after the weekend ousting but was also dealing with the new leadership in Caracas.
“We’re dealing with the people who just got sworn in,” the US president was quoted as saying when asked if he had spoken to interim leader Delcy Rodriguez. “Don’t ask me who’s in charge because I’ll give you an answer and it’ll be very controversial.”
Pressed on what he meant, Trump said: “It means we’re in charge.”
Trump said Rodriguez might pay a bigger price than Maduro “if she doesn’t do what’s right”, according to the Atlantic magazine.
The Trump administration has said it is willing to work with the rest of Maduro’s government as long as Washington’s goals are met, particularly opening Venezuela’s oil reserves to US investment.
Asked whether the operation was about oil or regime change, Trump replied: “It’s about peace on Earth.”
More now on Delcy Rodriguez’s call for a “balanced and respectful” relationship with the US: Venezuela’s acting president also said that its relations with Washington should be based on “sovereign equality and non-interference”.
“These principles guide our diplomacy with the rest of the world,” Rodriguez posted in a statement on Telegram, also addressing Donald Trump directly and saying that “our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war”.
We invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence.
Dozens of Cubans killed in US raid on Venezuela, says Havana
Sibylla Brodzinsky
Thirty-two Cubans were killed in “combat” during the US raid on Venezuela, the Cuban government announced on Sunday
A decree issued by the office of President Miguel Díaz-Canel declaring two days of national mourning said the Cubans present in Venezuela “fell after fierce resistance in direct combat against the attackers or as a result of the bombing of installations”
Díaz-Canel wrote on X:
Honor and glory to the brave Cuban combattants who died facing terrorists in imperial uniform, who kidnapped and illegally removed from his country the president of Venezuela and his wife.
The Cubans were “carrying out missions in representation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the interior ministry” at the request of Venezuela, according to the decree.
Cuba has long provided security advisers and intelligence agents to Venezuela in support of the Maduro government.
Rodriguez calls for respectful relationship with Trump
Venezuela’s interim leader has reportedly asked Donald Trump for a balanced and respectful relationship.
Delcy Rodriguez has also, as mentioned, held her first cabinet meeting since the US seized leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday.
State channel VTV showed Rodriguez at a table in the Miraflores presidential palace alongside two other key Maduro loyalists, defence minister Vladimir Padrino and interior minister Diosdado Cabello.
Trump says US military operation in Colombia ‘sounds good to me’
More now on Donald Trump’s comments about Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s leftwing president: Trump said the country was being “run by a sick man” and accused him of producing and selling cocaine to the US, adding: “He’s not going to be doing it very long.”
According to an audio recording of Trump talking to media aboard Air Force One on Sunday, when a reporter asks if that means there will be a US operation in Colombia, the president says: “It sounds good to me.”
The US and Colombia have had ongoing tensions for months amid the US military build-up in the Caribbean and Petro has been one of Trump’s harshest international critics.
The Colombian leader has said his government has been seizing cocaine at unprecedented rates and last month he invited Trump to visit the country – the world’s largest producer of cocaine – to see government efforts to destroy drug-producing labs.
At the weekend Petro called the US action in Venezuela an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America that would lead to a humanitarian crisis.
Petro’s criticism of the US campaign against Venezuela, and its targeting of small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, has infuriated Trump, who on Saturday said the Colombian leader should “watch his ass”.
Donald Trump is being quoted as saying Operation Colombia “sounds good to me”.
Reuters is also quoting the US president as saying Colombia is run by a sick man and that he won’t be doing that for very long.
We’ll bring you Trump’s exact quotes as we get them.
Donald Trump is reportedly saying he is looking more at getting Venezuela “fixed” than holding an election there right now.
He is also being quoted as saying “we’re in charge” in Venezuela.
More on this as it comes to hand.
As just posted, British cabinet minister Darren Jones – a close ally of PM Keir Starmer – has called for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela to be reached “quickly”.
Transfer Venezuela power ‘quickly’, says UK minister
A British cabinet minister has called for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela to be reached “quickly”, after Donald Trump declared the US would “run” the country until a new government took over.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, declined to say whether he thought the American strikes on Caracas early on Saturday were legal, insisting it was for “international courts” to judge, PA Media reports.
The UK was reportedly not informed of the operation that saw Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro captured and flown to New York before it was carried out.
“The United Kingdom was not involved in any way,” Jones told Sky News.
We were not informed of it beforehand. So it’s not for us to judge whether it’s been a success or not. That’s for the Americans to speak to.
The minister and close ally of Starmer added:
I think the important thing now, given the events that have unfolded over the last 48 hours, is that we are quickly able to get to a point where we can get to a peaceful transition to a president in Venezuela that has the support of the people of Venezuela.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, appeared to dismiss the idea of imminent elections when asked how soon a vote could take place later on Sunday, telling NBC: “I think it’s premature at this point.”
