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Donald Trump reportedly gave Nicolás Maduro an ultimatum to relinquish power immediately during their recent call – but Venezuela’s authoritarian leader declined, demanding a “global amnesty” for himself and allies.
On Sunday, the US president confirmed the call had taken place, telling reporters: “I wouldn’t say it went well or badly, it was a phone call.”
Neither the US nor Venezuelan government have offered further details of the topics discussed during the highly unusual conversation, which is thought to have happened on 21 November.
But sources told the Miami Herald the US president had sent a “blunt message” to his South American counterpart, who is the focus of a four-month pressure campaign in which Trump has ordered a massive naval deployment off Venezuela’s northern coast.
“You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly said, offering safe passage for Maduro, his wife and his son “only if he agreed to resign right away”.
However, Venezuela’s president reportedly refused to step down immediately and allegedly made a series of counter-demands, including worldwide immunity from prosecution and being allowed to cede political control but keep control of the armed forces.
The newspaper said there had been no further direct contact between Trump and Maduro, although Maduro reportedly requested a second call last weekend after Trump declared Venezuela’s airspace “closed in its entirety”. “The Maduro government … received no response,” the Miami Herald claimed, saying the first discussion had been brokered by Brazil, Qatar and Turkey.
Despite the leaked claim that Trump had given Maduro an ultimatum, many observers are sceptical the US president intends to back those threats up with large-scale military action.
“Maduro and most of his cohorts view the US military threats as a bluff,” a source with regular contact with top Venezuela officials told the Wall Street Journal last month.
Since his election in 2013, the Venezuelan leader has survived a succession of crises, including Trump’s first-term “maximum pressure” campaign, several rounds of mass protests, a historic economic meltdown, a 2018 assassination attempt and apparent defeat in last year’s presidential election, which Maduro is widely believed to have lost to the former diplomat Edmundo González.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal urged Trump’s administration to continue ramping up the pressure on Venezuela and said it believed “deposing Maduro is in the US national interest”. Its editorial board said: “If Maduro refuses to leave, and Trump shrinks from acting to depose him, Trump and the credibility of the US will be the losers.”
In an attempt to find a peaceful solution, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, offered the Colombian city of Cartagena as a possible location for talks between Maduro’s regime and Venezuela’s opposition.
In a letter to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that was published by Venezuelan state media on Sunday, Maduro accused the US of seeking to “appropriate Venezuela’s vast oil reserves – the largest on the planet – through the lethal use of military force”.
