‘No elections for 30 days’; Donald Trump to pick Stephen Miller to oversee Venezuela, says report—What we know so far

The White House's plans for Venezuela may put Stephen Miller in a pivotal role, with US President Donald Trump reportedly considering appointing the hardline, anti-immigration deputy chief of staff to take charge of the country's future.

According to a report by The Washington Post, citing a source, Trump is “weighing” the move in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Trump has taken control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves—the largest globally—and has told reporters that he plans to “run” the country.

Trump on elections

The Trump administration said it will not hold elections in Venezuela within the next 30 days, with Trump telling NBC News on Monday that the country must first be stabilised and rebuilt.

We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump said in the NBC News interview.

“No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have, we have to nurse the country back to health,” Trump added.

Trump told NBC News that the project to have US oil industry companies expand their operations in the country could be “up and running” in less than 18 months — a timeframe starkly at odds with estimates from energy industry experts, while oil companies have been largely silent about their willingness to reinvest in Venezuela.

“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump told NBC. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue.”

On Saturday, 3 January, Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” adding, “So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”

Trump offered almost no details on how the US would “run” a sovereign nation when its vice president, legislature and military were still in place and publicly opposing the US move, according to a Bloomberg report.

He said it would include deploying US oil companies to the country, though he indicated that his embargo “on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect” and that US forces would stay on alert.

“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,” Trump said.

(With inputs from agencies)