The president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the leader in charge of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, held a telephone conversation this Wednesday that both characterized as positive. Trump stated that Rodríguez is “a fantastic person” and that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had also been in contact with her.
Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, described the conversation as long, productive and cordial, and noted that both addressed a bilateral agenda for the benefit of both countries. All this despite the position that the Venezuelan government has publicly maintained, which has accused the Trump Administration on several occasions of “kidnapping” the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and had demanded his return.
Rodríguez assumed the presidency on an interim basis earlier this month after the US military captured Maduro and transferred him to the United States to stand trial on alleged drug trafficking and weapons charges. Trump stated in a social media post that the two discussed oil, minerals, trade and security, as the United States works to “help Venezuela stabilize and recover.”
The call softens relations between both countries after months of growing tensions, which included US military attacks against suspected drug trafficking vessels and sanctions aimed at the Venezuelan oil sector, while the Trump Administration focuses on the country’s vast crude oil reserves.
A new political moment for Venezuela
“The message is a Venezuela that opens to a new political moment that allows understanding from divergence and from political and ideological diversity,” stated the president in charge of the South American country, who appeared before national and foreign journalists flanked by her brother and the Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello. At the same time, he assured that his Executive had released more than 400 political prisoners.
Meeting at Trump and Corina Machado
This call occurs on the eve of the meeting between the president of the United States and the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, who will have lunch this Thursday at the White House to address the situation in Venezuela. According to the official agenda of the American president, the lunch will be held at 12:30 Washington time (17:30 GMT) in a private dining room of the White House and will take place behind closed doors, without access for the press.
So far, Trump has excluded Machado and the Venezuelan opposition from the transition process in Venezuela. Machado has publicly expressed his desire to share the Nobel Peace Prize with Trump, who aspires to obtain that award, as an attempt to bring closer positions with the president, although the Nobel Committee has warned that the prize is non-transferable.
