US vice-president JD Vance has addressed the apparent disconnect between the Trump administration’s military operations in Venezuela and justifications based in part of an effort to curb the trafficking of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the US.

In a post on X on Sunday, Vance said he wanted to address claims that Venezuela “has nothing to do with drugs because most of the fentanyl comes from elsewhere”.

“First off, fentanyl isn’t the only drug in the world and there is still fentanyl coming from Venezuela (or at least there was). Second, cocaine, which is the main drug trafficked out of Venezuela, is a profit center for all of the Latin America cartels,” he wrote. “If you cut out the money from cocaine (or even reduce it) you substantially weaken the cartels overall. Also, cocaine is bad too! Third, yes, a lot of fentanyl is coming out of Mexico. That continues to be a focus of our policy in Mexico and is a reason why President Trump shut the border on day one.”

Outgoing Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene raised the question of why the US was striking Venezuela if part of the purpose was to reduce fentanyl deaths in the US. (The administration said it was moving to list the synthetic opioid as a weapon of mass destruction.)

“The majority of American fentanyl overdoses and death come from Mexico,” Greene said. “Those are the Mexican cartels that are killing Americans. And so my pushback here is if this was really about narco-terrorists and about protecting Americans from cartels and drugs being brought into America, the Trump administration would be attacking the Mexican cartels.”

In his remarks, Vance said he’d seen “a lot of criticism” about oil.

He added: “About 20 years ago, Venezuela expropriated American oil property and until recently used that stolen property to get rich and fund their narco-terrorist activities. I understand the anxiety over the use of military force, but are we just supposed to allow a communist to steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing? Great powers don’t act like that. The United States, thanks to President Trump’s leadership, is a great power again. Everyone should take note”.

Here are some more angles of Nicolás Maduro heading to a Manhattan courthouse in his first appearance before a US federal judge. He’s seen here arriving at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport near Wall Street.

Here is some more from my colleague Victoria Bekiempis, who is in New York:

David Cardenas, a Venezuelan who said he’s a member of an opposition group, was outside waiting for proceedings.

“We were waiting for this it seems like 20 years ago, 25 years ago – since [Hugo] Chavez.”

Cardenas described Maduro’s capture as a turning of the tables. “He was laughing about me and my group, he said please don’t cry when [they] come for you … who is crying now?”

Hours before Nicolás Maduro’s expected appearance in Manhattan federal court for alleged narco-terrorism, the sidewalk outside this courthouse was busy with press eager to snag a seat in the courtroom.

Just after 7 am, the line of journalists extended one block down Worth Street, a queue comparable to that of other large cases such as the murder proceedings against Luigi Mangione, or the sex trafficking trial against Ghislaine Maxwell.

As of 30 minutes ago, there weren’t any visible demonstrators or even members of the public with signs voicing their opinions about Maduro’s capture. But, it’s also bone chillingly cold.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the German government has said that the US ‍must “explain ⁠to the international community on what basis the actions we have ​witnessed ‌over the last few days should be judged, ‌and this has ‌not yet ⁠happened”.

Germany’s foreign ministry has said it has been in close contact with the embassy in Caracas and a travel warning has been issued.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz previously said that Nicolás Maduro had “led his country to ruin”, but called the deadly US military operation legally “complex”.

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been urged by opposition parties and many of his MPs to condemn the US military action in Venezuela.

Starmer, who has a background as a human rights lawyer, has been repeatedly accused of kowtowing to the Trump administration, wanting to keep on side of Washington for economic and security reasons.

He has refused to condemn the military operation, or comment on its legality, saying he needs all the “facts'” at his disposal before coming to a judgment.

Emily Thornberry, a senior Labour MP and chair of the foreign affairs committee told the BBC the attack was “not a legal action”, adding that the UK and its allies should jointly say “we cannot have breaches of international law like this. We cannot have the law of the jungle.”

“We condemn Putin for doing it. We need to make clear that Donald Trump shouldn’t be doing it either,” Thornberry said.

Jason Rodrigues is a researcher and writer in the Guardian’s research department

President Donald Trump has made no secret of the US’s intention to exploit Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world.

Reported in the Guardian in 1979 (below), untapped oil from the Orinoco River oil belt was estimated at 500bn barrels by the Venezuelan state owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela in a paper submitted to a UN energy conference in Montreal.

At the time of the discovery, total global proven oil reserves were thought to be around 600bn barrels.

The significant find was seen by Venezuela as a way out of the country’s long term economic decline, with productivity forecast to drop significantly over the following decade.

This optimism was tempered, however, by oil experts who were keen to point out that huge investment would be required to exploit the Orinoco belt, due to the difficult terrain and the unusually heavy oil, which requires costly refining.

To date, Venezuela has only pumped a fraction of its potential production, say industry experts.

Denmark’s prime minister. Mette Frederiksen, yesterday urged Donald Trump to stop threatening to take over Greenland after the president said the US “absolutely” needs the territory.

On Sunday, Trump, who sees Greenland as strategically important for defence and as a future source of mineral wealth, told The Atlantic magazine in an interview: “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One this morning, the president said he would revisit the topic in a few weeks.

Frederiksen has stressed that Denmark “and thus Greenland” was part of Nato and therefore covered by the alliance’s security guarantee.

France, Norway and Spain were among the European countries who said Donald Trump had broken international rules after US troops carried out the deadly military operation on Saturday morning.

Most European statements followed a predictable line of leaders calling for de-escalation and saying they were following the situation closely, without directly commenting on the legality of the American attack.

Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni was among the outliers who publicly praised the military operation. She said the US’s actions were “legitimate”, despite previously stating that “external military action is not the way to end totalitarian regimes”.

Meloni – who has a close relationship with Donald Trump – has said she had a phone call with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Sunday (Machado has been saying for months that the opposition is ready to run the country).

Both Meloni and Machado were said to have agreed that Maduro’s exit would foster the conditions for a peaceful and democratic “transition”.

Meloni’s office said in a statement:

The President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, had a telephone conversation today with Maria Corina Machado on the prospects for a peaceful and democratic transition in Venezuela.

During the call, it was agreed that Maduro’s exit opens a new chapter of hope for the people of Venezuela, who will be able to once again enjoy the basic principles of democracy and the rule of law.

We have some comments from the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei who has given his views on the motivations behind the US attack on Venezuela.

The US operation in Caracas – viewed by many observers as an illegal action against a sovereign country – has likely caused anxiety to the government in Iran, against which Donald Trump has expressed enthusiasm for taking radical action.

Tensions are particularly high between Washington and Tehran as Trump has recently threatened to intervene in Iran if its government kills demonstrators taking part in protests over the country’s economy.

During a press conference, Baghaei has been quoted by Al Jazeera as having said: “In the past decades, interventions were justified under slogans such as democracy and human rights. Today, they openly say the issue is Venezuela’s oil.”

“Claims that another country can run Venezuela are unacceptable to any nation, including the Venezuelan people, and reflect a return to colonial-era thinking.”

A UK minister would not be drawn into saying whether his government believes the US capture of Venezuela’s president was influenced by the country’s rich oil reserves.

Asked on Sky News why he thought Donald Trump had captured Nicolás Maduro and said America would “run” Venezuela, Home Office minister Mike Tapp said:

This is for Donald Trump to answer, and I think he has said in his press conference, which I watched with interest around narco-terrorism and that threat.

Pressed by the broadcaster on whether Venezuela’s vast oil wealth may have influenced the operation, Tapp said: “It’s not for me or the British government at this point to go into that detail. It’s for the United States to lay out its legal basis for this operation.”

Tapp also would not say whether the British government believed Washington had breached international law, and said there was a need to have “all the facts” amid the “fog of war”.

Prosecutors say Nicolás Maduro is the kingpin of a cartel of Venezuelan political and military officials who have conspired for decades with drug trafficking groups and US-designated terrorist organisations to flood America with thousands of tonnes of cocaine.

As Reuters reports, Maduro was first indicted in 2020 as part of a long-running narcotics trafficking case against current and former Venezuelan officials and Colombian guerrillas.

In a new indictment unsealed Saturday, prosecutors allege that Maduro personally oversaw a state-sponsored cocaine trafficking network that partnered with some of the world’s most violent and prolific drug trafficking groups, including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, the Colombian paramilitary group FARC and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Maduro is charged with narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. He faces decades to life in prison on each count if convicted.

Legal experts said prosecutors face a difficult task, needing to show evidence of Maduro’s direct involvement in drug trafficking to secure a conviction.

Maduro has denied wrongdoing, and it could be several months before he stands trial.

Nicolás Maduro is set to appear in Manhattan federal court later today to face narco-terrorism charges.

Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, are in jail in Brooklyn after their seizure by US forces.

They are both set to appear at the hearing scheduled for Noon EST (5pm GMT ) before US District Judge Alvin K Hellerstein.

It is unclear if either had obtained lawyers, or if they would enter pleas.

Venezuela’s president was captured, flown to the US and is now facing trial in New York. What does the audacious ouster of Nicolás Maduro mean for the country – and the world?

Find out in our podcast here:

Donald Trump has threatened a second American strike on Venezuela if remaining members of its government do not cooperate with his efforts to get the country “fixed”.

In comments aboard Air Force One, the president also says the US is now “in charge” of Venezuela and praises the US forces involved in what he called a “very dangerous operation” to capture Maduro.

Keir Starmer has said when asked if he would condemn the US action in Venezuela that he wants to wait to “establish the facts” and speak to Donald Trump, while insisting the UK would “shed no tears” over the end of Maduro’s regime.

However, some of the British prime minister’s own MPs have been more outspoken, criticising America’s actions as a breach of international law.

Labour MP Kim Johnson questioned whether “we as a country still stand for international law and sovereignty”, while her colleague Richard Burgon described Starmer’s statement as “shameful and reckless”.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said that “effectively our country has been rendered up as a Trump colony”, accusing the government of “prevarication”.

In a post on X, Labour MP Clive Lewis said of the US military operation: “A clear breach of the Nuremberg principles – which the UK helped write.

Now a [Labour government] won’t even defend them. This silence isn’t diplomacy. It’s the moral equivalent of a white flag.