Venezuela slams US attack preparations after Trump confirms call with Maduro

CARACAS – US President Donald Trump confirmed on Nov 30 he had recently spoken with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro amid soaring tensions between the two countries, while Caracas slammed what it called US preparations for an attack.

The US is piling the pressure on Venezuela with a major military build-up in the Caribbean, the designation of an alleged drug cartel run by Mr Maduro as a terrorist group, and an ominous warning from

Mr Trump that Venezuelan airspace is “closed”

.

Washington says the aim of the military deployment launched in September is to curb drug trafficking in the region, but Caracas insists regime change is the ultimate goal.

“I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call,” Mr Trump told reporters on Nov 30 aboard Air Force One.

The New York Times reported on Nov 28 that Mr Trump and Mr Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while The Wall Street Journal said on Nov 29 that the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Mr Maduro were to step down.

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin said on Nov 30 on CNN’s State of the Union talk show that the

US has offered Mr Maduro the chance to leave his country

for Russia or elsewhere.

The US accuses Mr Maduro, the political heir to Venezuela’s late leftist leader Hugo Chavez, of heading the Cartel of the Suns and has issued a US$50 million (S$64.8 million) reward for his capture.

But Venezuela and countries that support it insist no such organisation even exists.

Several Venezuela experts say what Washington calls the Cartel of the Suns refers to the corruption of senior officials by criminal gangs.

The US also does not recognise Mr Maduro as the legitimate winner of the 2024 presidential election.

Though Mr Trump has not publicly threatened to use force against Mr Maduro, he said in recent days that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon”.

Aid from OPEC?

Venezuela says it has requested assistance from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which it is a member, to help “stop this (American) aggression, which is being readied with more and more force”.

The request came in a letter from Mr Maduro to the group, read by Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also Venezuela’s oil minister, during a virtual meeting of OPEC ministers.

Washington “is trying to seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the biggest in the world, by using military force”, Mr Maduro wrote in the letter.

Since September, US air strikes have targeted alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people.

Mr Trump’s administration has offered no concrete evidence to back up the allegations behind its campaign, and numerous experts have questioned the legality of the operations.

US media reported on Nov 28 that in one strike in September, the US military conducted a follow-up strike that killed survivors of an initial attack.

The Washington Post and CNN said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a directive to “kill everybody”, but Mr Trump said on Nov 30 that Mr Hegseth had denied giving such an order.

“We’ll look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that – not a second strike,” Mr Trump told reporters. “Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”

‘Extrajudicial executions’

The head of Venezuela’s legislature, Mr Jorge Rodriguez, said he met Nov 30 with relatives of Venezuelans killed in the strikes.

He would not comment on a possible Trump-Maduro call.

But when asked about the report about the Hegseth order, he said: “If a war had been declared and led to such killings, we would be talking about war crimes.”

“Given that no war has been declared, what happened...can only be characterised as murder or extrajudicial executions,” he added.

The steady US military build-up has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier deployed to Caribbean waters, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.

Six airlines have cancelled services to Venezuela, but on Nov 29, the airport in Caracas was functioning as usual. AFP