MADRID: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has extended an olive branch to US President Donald Trump, proposing serious talks on combating drug trafficking and offering US companies ready access to Venezuelan oil.
Maduro said Venezuela was a “brother country” to the United States and a friendly government. He noted that when he and Trump last spoke in November, the US president had acknowledged his authority by addressing him as “Mr. President.”
The longtime Venezuelan strongman spoke in an interview that was filmed on New Year’s Eve and aired on Venezuelan state TV on the evening of New Year’s Day.
In the broadcast, Maduro and his interviewer walk through a militarized zone of the capital Caracas. Later, Maduro takes the wheel of a car with the journalist in the passenger seat and the president’s wife, Cilia Flores, in the back — a gesture commentators interpreted as an attempt to project confidence amid fears of a US strike, despite Maduro’s scaling back of public appearances in recent weeks.
The comments represent a shift in Maduro’s tone toward the United States since the latter launched a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean. Trump has accused the “illegitimate” Maduro of running a narco-state and threatened to remove him from power.
