Maduro to Trump: Call Me, Maybe … Please?

It’s not the first time that Nicolas Maduro has signaled a readiness to talk with Donald Trump about ending the escalating conflict in the Caribbean. The Venezuelan dictator may be worried that it will be the last time.

Six weeks ago, Maduro claimed readiness to discuss the US-Venezuela conflict “face to face,” hoping to stave off the effort to collapse his Chavista junta. Trump, who had suggested talks at the same time, had instead impressed upon Maduro the necessity of an exit. Trump then began ordering the seizure of tankers carrying Venezuelan oil under sanction, and then escalated again this week with a strike on a suspected cartel location in Venezuela itself:

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.

Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.”

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

For Maduro, this must look like the scene from an old horror movie: The call is coming from inside the house! Trump has made it clear that he wants drastic changes in the Western Hemisphere, and that he sees Maduro as the linchpin to his new “Donroe Doctrine.” With his oil revenue cut off and the cartels coming under fire, Maduro has now begun to beg Trump to pick up the phone, according to Axios:

The big picture: Maduro acknowledged during the interview the months-long U.S. militarized pressure campaign targeting suspected “narco-terrorists” and was asked directly about President Trump’s comments that the U.S. military had “knocked out” a dock that Venezuelan drug boats allegedly used.

What they’re saying: “If they want to talk seriously about an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we are ready,” Maduro said during the interview that was taped Wednesday, per an English transcript that Latin American network TeleSUR published.

• “If they want Venezuelan oil, Venezuela is ready for U.S. investments like with Chevron, whenever they want, wherever they want, and however they want,” he said of the only major American oil firm that’s allowed to lift Venezuelan oil.

Maduro is also ready to talk about the cartels, according to Fox News:

In a pre-taped interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet that aired on state television, Maduro said Venezuela is “ready” to discuss a drug-trafficking deal with the U.S. He called on the countries to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”

The problem for Maduro is that Trump is not worried about oil, and not even all that worried about the drugs. The US has returned to its position as the top oil producer in this hemisphere, and to the extent we rely on imports, we mainly receive those from Mexico and Canada. Venezuela’s exports to the US generally require far more refining effort to make its crude useful; in fact, Venezuela relied on the US for that capability. 

So what does Trump want? He wants Iran, Russia, and China out of the Western Hemisphere, especially Iran. Hugo Chavez allowed Hezbollah to set up shop in Venezuela as far back as 1999, and Maduro followed suit. The Iranian proxies now run oil and drug distribution, which funds Iran’s terrorism both in this hemisphere and in the Middle East. Trump wants to rip Hezbollah out of South America and crush Iran’s attempts at global hegemony through terrorism, and wants to keep Iran, Russia, and China from using Hezbollah to back leftist insurgencies in this hemisphere. 

If Maduro wants to “talk” with Trump “face to face,” he’d better brush up on the real topics of conversation. And he’d better do so quickly, because the Iranian regime on which he’s relied to prop up his regime looks like it’s facing an existential crisis of its own. 

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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