Trump declares openness to meeting with Maduro
US President Donald Trump has kept the door open for the possibility of a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro, despite blaming him for the tension between the two countries.
This came in press statements as he headed from Washington to Florida on Tuesday for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Trump reiterated his accusation that Maduro’s government is responsible for the tension between the two countries, but at the same time stressed that he is still open to meeting with him.
Asked why he was willing to meet with Maduro even though Washington has listed an organization in Venezuela as a “foreign terrorist organization” and considered Maduro at its head, Trump replied: “If we can save some lives, if we can resolve things easily, that would be great”.
“But if we have to solve it the hard way, that’s not a problem either,” he said.
On Monday, the US State Department announced in a statement that the Venezuela-based Cartel de los Soles had been added to the list of foreign terrorist organizations, claiming that Maduro was the leader of the group.
On the possible goal of the meeting, Trump said, “You probably know what that goal is,” explaining that the United States wants to solve “the problems stemming from Venezuela”.
In August, Trump issued an executive order to increase the use of the military in the name of fighting drug cartels in Latin America.
In this context, Washington announced the dispatch of warships and a submarine off the coast of Venezuela, while US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the military is ready for operations, including regime change in Venezuela.
In response, Maduro announced that he had mobilized a force of 4.5 million people in the country and that he was ready to repel any attack.
The US military’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, allegedly smuggling drugs and directly targeting people on board, have sparked a debate about extrajudicial killings in the international community.
