Trump says US needs 'total access' to post-Maduro Venezuela

Catherine Lucey and María Paula Mijares Torres, Bloomberg News on Jan 4, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

President Donald Trump said the U.S. needs “total access” to Venezuela as questions mount about the country’s leadership following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro.

“We need total access. We need access to oil and to other things in their country that will allow us to rebuild their country,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday as he returned to Washington from spending the holidays at his Palm Beach estate.

With Maduro facing drug, weapons and terrorism charges in New York City after his weekend capture, Trump said that U.S. oil companies will spend billions of dollars to rebuild Venezuela’s crumbling energy infrastructure.

Trump said the U.S. will work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez but said he hadn’t spoken to her. “We’re in charge,” he said. On elections in the short term, he said, “Well, it depends,” before adding, “We have to do one thing in Venezuela — bring it back.”

Rodriguez said in a statement late Sunday she was inviting the U.S. to work with her “on a cooperation agenda, aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence.”

Trump’s assertion that the U.S. was in charge in Venezuela came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on a series of Sunday television shows that the U.S. was focusing on the oil industry and watching for signs of opposition to U.S. policies in Rodriguez’s government.

“It’s running policy,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it’s good for the people of Venezuela, it’s in our national interest.”

Trump also repeated a warning he had earlier issued to Rodriguez in an interview with The Atlantic. He told the magazine: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” On Air Force One, he again said that “she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro.”