Trump’s vague claims of the US running Venezuela raise questions about planning for what comes next

President Donald Trump’s has made broad but vague assertions that the United States is going to “run” Venezuela after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro but has offered almost no details about how it will do so. That has raised concerns among some lawmakers and former officials about the level of planning for the country after Maduro was gone. Seemingly contradictory statements from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested at once that the U.S. now controls the levers of Venezuelan power or that the U.S. has no intention of assuming day-to-day governance and will allow Maduro’s subordinates to remain in leadership positions for now. The result has been confusion.