Enemies Not Allowed To Control Large Oil Reserves: US Ambassador To United Nations

Via Middle East Eye

The US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday said that enemies of his country cannot be allowed to control vast oil reserves, such as the ones in Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro.

Mike Waltz spoke less than two hours before Maduro made his first court appearance, not far from UN headquarters in Manhattan. Maduro is charged with narco-trafficking, among other charges, and has pleaded not guilty. “We’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be used as a base of operation for our nation’s adversaries,” Waltz said. “You cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States, under the control of illegitimate leaders, and not benefiting the people of Venezuela.”

He insisted, however, that despite the US president himself saying that his administration will be “running” Venezuela, the US will not be “occupying” the Latin American nation. “There is no war against Venezuela or its people,” Waltz told the UN Security Council (UNSC). “We are not occupying a country.” 

US President Nicolas Maduro entered a not guilty plea in a federal courthouse in New York City on Monday, following his abduction by the US in the early hours of Saturday morning. 

US attorney general Pam Bondi said Maduro has been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States”. 

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against him and his wife, Cilia Flores, in 2020, under the first Trump administration. Five other defendants were named in the document, but not Flores. 

Bondi has since shared an unsealed indictment that charges Flores and the couple’s son, who was not abducted with them, with trafficking drugs. Flores is also accused of ordering kidnappings and murders, and accepting bribes.

In the US, an unsealed indictment is effectively the withholding of formal criminal charges until the suspects have appeared in court. On Monday, Flores also appeared in court next to her husband and pleaded not guilty. 

Maduro’s stunning abduction from Venezuela by US forces in the early hours of Saturday has been condemned by allies Russia and China, both of which are among the five permanent and veto-wielding members of the UNSC. 

But the US also has that power, meaning there will likely be no accountability at the UN for its actions. The body’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has already said he fears there may have been a violation of international law in abducting a head of state from a sovereign country.

UN member states must “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”, the body’s charter says. 

A statement from Guterres on Monday, read by UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo to the UNSC, said he is “deeply concerned about the possible intensification of instability in [Venezuela], the potential impact on the region, and the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted”. 

He added that the UN will support all efforts at dialogue between the US and Venezuela. For his part, Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, said the abduction was “an illegitimate armed attack lacking any legal justification”.

The death count from the US attack on Venezuela has risen to 80, including civilians and members of security forces, according to a senior Venezuelan official who said the number could rise further, The New York Times reported on Monday. 

The Trump admin’s talking points on what was behind the Venezuela intervention have been shifting…

Pete Hegesth, “We spent decades, purchased in American blood and got nothing economically in return”

“Now we can ensure we can access to additional wealth”

In case you had any doubt, it’s all about oil pic.twitter.com/cac90Iid8x

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) January 5, 2026

US special forces abducted Venezuela’s president from the capital, Caracas, early on Saturday, as American fighter jets bombed key military installations and bases across the country. Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, said the US seizure of Maduro had “Zionist undertones”. 

Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president, has been appointed by the Supreme Court to lead the country on an interim basis.