A Donald Trump special envoy has flown to Venezuela to hold talks with its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, fuelling fresh speculation of a possible deal between the two governments.
Richard Grenell, a prominent Maga cheerleader and diplomat who was the US ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term, was set to land in Caracas on Friday, according to CNN.
Venezuela’s communications ministry and Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, both confirmed the meeting.
In a conference call with Latin American journalists, Claver-Carone claimed Grenell had not gone to Venezuela to negotiate with Maduro, but to deliver two “unequivocal” messages. One was about the need for Venezuela to receive US deportation flights filled with “Venezuelan criminals” and the second that Maduro should immediately release North American citizens being held in Venezuelan jails.
“If these requirements are not met obviously, as President Trump has said publicly, there will be consequences from the US government,” Claver-Carone added, insisting the talks did not relate to access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, which are the largest in the world. “There is no kind of trade-off here. There are no quid pro quos … There are no negotiations,” he claimed.
Grenell hinted at the trip last week, after the new US president’s inauguration, writing on X: “Donald Trump is President of the United States, again. And diplomacy is back. I’ve spoken to multiple officials in Venezuela today and will begin meetings early tomorrow morning. Talking is a tactic.”
Reports of Grenell’s first overseas mission rekindled suspicions that the businessman author of The Art of a Deal could be plotting some kind of agreement with Maduro, who recently extended his rule despite widespread suspicions that he lost last year’s presidential election.
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The Venezuelan dictator hinted he might accept such a deal after Trump’s re-election last November, publicly reaching out to a politician he once called “a miserable racist cowboy”.
“In his first government … Trump wasn’t good to us [but] this is a new start,” Maduro said, in reference to Trump’s attempt to overthrow him with a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions and military threats. At his 10 January swearing-in, Maduro again hinted he was open to talks, declaring: “I’m a man of dialogue. I know how to listen and I know how to learn.”
Any deal between Trump and Maduro – which would probably involve deporting Venezuelan migrants from the US, Washington turning a blind eye to the collapse of Venezuela’s democracy, and US access to Venezuela’s huge oil reserves – would prove highly controversial, not least among Republicans in Florida, which boasts more than 3 million Latino voters.
After Grenell’s trip to Caracas was reported, Republican senator Rick Scott, Florida’s former governor, wrote on X: “I hope that during today’s visit, the only thing Richard Grenell focuses on is demanding the return of the kidnapped Americans, ensuring that Maduro takes back the thugs and gang members in our country, and finding a new country for Maduro, [interior minister] Diosdado [Cabello], and anyone else involved in this thuggish regime to relocate to ASAP.”
An understanding between Trump and Maduro is far from assured. Trump’s administration contains several key proponents of his failed “maximum pressure” Venezuela policy, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and Claver-Carone.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, as he set off on a five-country tour of Central America, Rubio attacked the “illegitimate regimes” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, accusing them of “intentionally amplifying the chaos” in the Americas.
Earlier this month Trump publicly recognized Edmundo González, the apparent winner of last year’s election in Venezuela, as the country’s president-elect and called Maduro’s opponents “freedom fighters”.
Article by:Source: Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
