Trump Holds First Call With Venezuela’s Interim President, Stresses “Partnership”

[Financial News] Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president who took power this month after the United States of America (U.S.) seized President Nicolás Maduro, announced that she had held a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump. She said they discussed future cooperation.
On the 14th (local time), Rodríguez wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), “I had a long and courteous phone conversation with the president of the United States in an atmosphere of mutual respect,” adding, “We discussed a bilateral cooperation agenda for the peoples of both countries and unresolved issues between our two governments.” It was the first time a call between the two leaders had been officially confirmed since Rodríguez took office. President Donald Trump said, “We are making tremendous progress as we help Venezuela regain stability and recover,” noting that “many topics were discussed, including oil, minerals, trade and national security.” He went on, “The partnership between the United States and Venezuela will be a great relationship for everyone,” and declared, “Venezuela will soon once again be a great and prosperous nation, and it may even do better than ever before.”

Rodríguez initially expressed a will to resist the U.S. after it captured Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro on the 3rd. However, on the 4th she struck a much softer tone, saying, “Our country longs to live without external threats, in an environment of respect and international cooperation,” and she mentioned working with the U.S.
On the 5th, the day Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president, Trump told reporters that he was working with her and that she “communicates fluently in Spanish with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Their relationship is very strong,” he said. In a report on the 12th, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noted that the U.S. has come to see limits in its traditional approach of toppling hostile regimes outright, as in Iraq or Afghanistan, and then installing Western-style democratic governments. The paper argued that Washington is now testing a strategy of “managing” regimes by replacing only the leadership within an existing hostile government.
Rodríguez, who inherited Maduro’s power, defended negotiations on oil exports to the U.S. in a presidential office press release on the 7th, insisting that “trade between the two countries should not be regarded as something exceptional.” On the 14th, she held her first press conference in the capital Caracas since taking office as interim president and said, “We are inviting all sectors of society to take part in a new democratic dynamic based on openness and respect, completely excluding violence and intolerance.” Referring to the recent release of political prisoners, she stressed, “Within the framework of a new national accord, 406 inmates have been released so far.” She added that this situation was not the result of a one-off decision, but rather a policy outcome “stemming from Maduro’s will for peace, his tolerance and his vision of unity.”

pjw@fnnews.com Park Jong-won Reporter