The US is receiving full cooperation from Venezuela’s regime and will control the country and its vast oil reserves for years, Donald Trump has claimed.

Caracas was giving Washington “everything that we feel is necessary” and the US would remain a political overlord there for an indefinite period, the US president said.

“We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,” Trump told the New York Times. “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil.” Asked how long the White House would demand direct oversight of Venezuela, he said “only time will tell”. Asked if it would be longer than a year, he replied: “I would say much longer.”

His comments came after Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, defended plans to open up her country’s oil market to Washington.

Rodríguez said on Wednesday that the US attack to remove her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, had put a “stain” on the countries’ relations, but that it was “not unusual or irregular” to trade with the US, adding that Venezuela was “open to energy relations where all parties benefit”.

In his New York Times interview Trump made a similar claim, saying: “We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.”

Trump did not answer questions about why he endorsed Rodríguez – a veteran member of a government he has accused of “narco-terrorism” – as Venezuela’s new leader instead of backing María Corina Machado, the opposition leader who led a successful election campaign in 2024 and won the Nobel peace prize.

He declined to say if he had spoken to Rodríguez but said his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, did so “all the time”. The president made no commitments about when Venezuela might hold elections.

On Thursday, Rodríguez’s powerful brother, the congressional president, Jorge Rodríguez, announced the release of “a significant number of Venezuelan and foreign individuals”, which he said was intended to “contribute and collaborate in the effort we must all make towards national unity and peaceful coexistence”.

It is unclear exactly how many detainees will be released, but Alfredo Romero, the head of Foro Penal, a leading civil society organisation that has estimated there are more than 800 political prisoners in the country, posted: “We already know of some people on their way to freedom, including foreigners.”

The announcement, however, is being treated with caution. In the days leading up to the US operation, the regime said it would release 187 people who were detained after protesting against Maduro’s theft of the 2024 election, but organisations were only able to independently verify the release of some of that total.

The NGO Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, which also monitors political detentions, said it welcomed the announcement of the releases but was waiting for them to be “effective, immediate and verifiable”.

“It is essential to reiterate that freedom is not a benefit or a concession granted by those in power: freedom is a fundamental human right. No one should be deprived of it for legitimately exercising rights such as freedom of expression, political participation or the defence of human rights,” the organisation wrote.

US forces seized a pair of sanctions-hit tankers on Wednesday and the administration announced it would manage all sales of Venezuela’s future crude production and oversee the sale of the country’s petroleum worldwide.

Chris Wright, the US energy secretary, said: “We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela.”

On Thursday, Wright said there would be room for China to have a role in Venezuela’s commercial relations, but only as long as the US remained “the dominant force there”.

“Within that framework, where Venezuela’s main partner … is the US, can there be commerce with China? Sure. Are we going to allow Venezuela to become a client state of China? Absolutely not,” he told Fox Business Network.

In another interview on Fox News, the US vice-president, JD Vance, said Venezuela would be able to sell its oil only if it served the interests of Washington. “We control the energy resources, and we tell the regime: you’re allowed to sell the oil so long as you serve America’s national interest, you’re not allowed to sell it if you can’t serve America’s national interest,” Vance said.

On Tuesday, Trump announced a deal to access to up to $3bn worth of Venezuelan crude, a sign that Venezuelan government officials are responding to Trump’s demand that they open up to US oil companies or risk more military intervention.

On top of the ongoing embargo on oil, the US energy department has said the “only oil transported in and out of Venezuela” will be through approved channels consistent with US law and national security interests.

That level of control over the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil could give the Trump administration a broader hold on oil supplies globally in ways that could enable it to influence prices. Since the capture of Maduro, Trump has continued to pledge that the US will “run” the country, despite pushback from Rodríguez.

On Wednesday, Trump said Venezuela would only buy US-made products with the profits it makes from any deal with Washington to sell oil. In a social media post, he wrote: “I have just been informed that Venezuela is going to be purchasing ONLY American Made Products, with the money they receive from our new Oil Deal.”

Trump is scheduled to meet the heads of major oil companies at the White House on Friday to discuss ways of raising Venezuela’s oil production.

The Financial Times reported that oil executives were expected to press the president on providing strong legal and financial guarantees before they agreed to commit capital to Venezuela. US officials had in recent weeks told US oil executives they would need to return to Venezuela quickly and invest significant capital there to revive the damaged industry, Reuters reported earlier this week.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the US had begun scaling back its naval presence in the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast, moving the USS Iwo Jima and the USS San Antonio to waters north of Cuba in the Atlantic and reducing troop numbers from about 15,000 to 12,000. It remains unclear, however, whether this marks the beginning of a de-escalation or a temporary reduction.

On Thursday night, Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said the death toll from the US attack had reached 100 – including Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers as well as civilians – with a similar number injured. While the regime has held funerals for 24 Venezuelan troops and Cuba has released the names of 32 Cuban soldiers, few details are known about the remaining victims, aside from a handful of civilians identified so far, including Rosa Elena González, an 80-year-old woman killed in her apartment near a military base hit by a missile.

Cabello, who has reportedly been warned by the Trump administration that he could be next to fall if he does not support Rodríguez, called Maduro’s capture a “barbaric, treacherous and terrible attack”.

The minister also claimed – without providing evidence – that the original US plan did not include capturing Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores. “When they were taking away brother Nicolás Maduro, they were not going to take Cilia, and Cilia told them: ‘If you take my husband, you have to take me too, you have to take me too,’” said Cabello.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse