Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has proposed “serious talks” with the United States on combating drug trafficking and has offered American companies access to the country's oil reserves. In an interview broadcast on state television on New Year's Day, he described Venezuela as a “brother country” and a “friendly government”, recalling that Donald Trump had addressed him as “Mr. President” during their last conversation in November.
The remarks were filmed on New Year's Eve and showed Mr Maduro walking through a militarised zone of Caracas before taking the wheel of a car with the interviewer and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the back. Commentators interpreted the gesture as an attempt to project confidence amid fears of a US strike, despite the president having scaled back his public appearances in recent weeks.
The offer marks a shift in tone from Mr Maduro since Washington launched a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean. Mr Trump has accused the “illegitimate” Venezuelan leader of running a narco-state and has threatened to remove him from power.
Mr Maduro has vehemently denied any links to crime and maintains that the US wants to oust him to control Venezuela's vast oil and rare earth mineral deposits. Shortly before Christmas, he urged Mr Trump to focus on domestic challenges, saying: “Honestly, if I speak with him again, I will tell him that each one should attend to their internal affairs.”
In the latest interview, Mr Maduro said: “To the people of the United States I say what I have always said, Venezuela is a brother country... a friendly government. We must start to speak seriously, with the facts in hand. The US government knows that, because we have said it a lot to their interlocutors, that if they want to speak seriously about the agreement to battle drug trafficking, we are ready to do that. If they want Venezuela's oil, Venezuela is ready to accept US investments like those of Chevron, when, where and how they want to make them.”
