The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said Friday (31.01.2025) that he will not allow the purchase of oil to Venezuela as his predecessor, Joe Biden, who raised a series of sanctions.
“Biden went and bought millions of barrels of oil. I will not allow something that stupid to happen again,” Trump said in media statements in the Oval Office of the White House.
The president was asked about Friday’s visit of his special envoy Richard Grenell to Nicolás Maduro at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Biden “revived the dictator”
Grenelll’s visit aims, according to Washington, that Maduro’s government accepts deportation flights of migrants -one of the priorities of the Trump administration -as well as getting the release of US prisoners in Venezuela.
“We want to do something with Venezuela (…) Now we want to see what we can do so people return to their country safely and free,” Trump explained.
The president also shot at the previous Democratic Administration of Joe Biden (2021-2025), which for a time lifted sanctions to the Gas and Petroleum sector of Venezuela.
“I was very surprised to see that Biden agreed to buy a lot of oil from Venezuela, because Venezuela was about to get rid of the dictator. And when that happened, he revived it,” he said.
The White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said Friday that the United States still does not recognize Maduro as president of Venezuela despite Grenell’s visit today.
Maduro asks for “new start” with the USA.
Meanwhile, in Caracas, Maduro advocated “a new beginning” in bilateral relations with the United States, after the visit of the special envoy Grenelll to Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government issued a statement after completing the meeting of the Chavista president with the special envoy Richard Grenelll, and in which the vice president of the Rodríguez and the head of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, also participated
The Chavista administration revealed that during the meeting, held at the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, Maduro “raised the construction” of a “zero agenda for a new beginning in bilateral relations”, broken since 2019.
However, Washington said that Grenell’s mission in Caracas is “very specific” and aims to get Caracas to accept deportation flights of undocumented migrants and achieve the release of US citizens detained in Venezuelan prisons.
GS (EFE, AFP)
