President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One that he spoke with Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro over the phone.
“I don’t want to comment on it. The answer is yes,” President Trump said when asked about a report published Friday by the leftist publication the New York Times, which has published Maduro as a contributor, stating that Trump had recently spoken with Maduro.
While President Trump did not disclose details on the call, he stressed, “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call.”
President Trump’s remarks come hours after he wrote in a Truth Social post that the airspace around Venezuela should be considered closed amid rising tensions between both countries over the Venezuelan government’s active role in trafficking drugs to the United States.
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” President Trump wrote.
Asked by reporters why the airspace above Venezuela should be considered closed, President Trump said, it is “because we consider Venezuela to be not a very friendly country.”
President Trump continued:
They send millions of people, really, and probably a number in excess of that. And a lot of those people shouldn’t be in our country, from jails, from gangs, from drug dealers, from all of the people that came into our country, shouldn’t have been in our country, causing a lot of problems — and drugs.
When asked if his warning meant that an airstrike is “imminent,” he stressed, “Don’t read anything into it.”
The Maduro regime responded to President Trump’s announcement in a three-page statement published by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil on Telegram condemning the “colonialist threat” of President Trump’s post which, according to Gil, constitutes a “new extravagant, illegal, and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela.”
The statement read in part:
Such statements constitute a hostile, unilateral, and arbitrary act, incompatible with the most basic principles of international law, and are part of a permanent policy of aggression against our country, with colonial intents over our region of Latin America and the Caribbean, in violation of international law.
The Miami Herald, citing unspecified “sources familiar with the exchange,” reported on Sunday that President Trump delivered an “ultimatum” to Maduro during the call, demanding Maduro and his top brass leave Venezuela immediately and allow the restoration of democracy in the country in exchange for safe passage for Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores, and Maduro’s son. The Maduro regime rejected the offer and instead offered handing control of the country to the opposition but retaining command of the armed forces.
“First, Maduro asked for global amnesty for any crimes he and his group had committed, and that was rejected,” the unnamed source told the Miami Herald. “Second, they asked to retain control of the armed forces — similar to what happened in Nicaragua in ’91 with Violeta Chamorro. In return, they would allow free elections.”
The alleged conversation reportedly occurred days after the United States designated the Cartel of the Suns (Cartel de los Soles) a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The Cartel is an intercontinental drug trafficking operation run by members of the Venezuelan military and the ruling socialist regime. Maduro stands accused by the United States of leading the Venezuelan drug cartel and was indicted by U.S. courts on multiple narco-terrorism charges.
The United States has an active $50 million reward on information leading to Maduro’s arrest and/or conviction. Other members of the Maduro regime, such as Interior Minister and long suspected drug lord Diosdado Cabello, also stand accused of being leading members of the Cartel of the Suns.
Wanted poster for Nicolas Maduro. (State.gov)
“The conversation unfolded amid growing signs that the Trump administration is preparing a more assertive phase of operations targeting Venezuela’s so-called Cartel de los Soles, which Washington says is headed by Maduro and other top officials,” the Miami Herald wrote.
Over the past months, the United States military has carried out a series of precision strikes in Caribbean waters against roughly 20 drug trafficking vessels as part of President Trump’s efforts to curb the flow of drugs entering America. Dictator Maduro has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. operations are in reality part of a purported plot to “invade” Venezuela, oust him from power, and “steal” Venezuela’s oil. On Sunday, Maduro repeated the accusations against Trump in a letter addressed to Haitham al-Ghais, Secretary-General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
On Thursday, speaking to U.S. military service members, President Trump said that the United States will “very soon” start taking action to stop suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers on land.
“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” Trump said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Read the full article here