US oil companies to spend billions of dollars in Venezuela: Trump after Maduro's capture

While addressing a press conference in Florida, Trump said the United States was in the "oil selling" business and would provide it to other countries interested in buying.

"We're in the oil business. We're going to sell it to them (other countries). We'll be selling oil probably in much larger doses because they (Venezuela) couldn't produce very much because their infrastructure was so bad. So we'll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries, many of whom are using it now. But I would say many more will come."

Trump said that the oil business in Venezuela has been a "total bust" and will be fixed with billions of dollars of investment by oil companies in the United States to fix the "badly broken oil infrastructure". He also said that Venezuela's poor infrastructure had limited its own oil production.

"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. 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 (Venezuela)," he added.

His statement comes after the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a US military operation.

Trump said that the United States will temporarily run Venezuela to ensure peace, justice and a safe transition of power. He added that American authorities will remain in the country until a proper and stable transition takes place.

"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. We want peace, justice and liberty for the great people of Venezuela. We can't take a chance if somebody else takes over Venezuela, doesn't have the good of Venezuelan people in mind. We're not going to let that happen. We are there now but we are going to stay until such time till proper transition takes place. We're going to run it essentially until such time," he said. (ANI)