Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a phone call with US President Donald Trump, which was conducted in a respectful and friendly tone and facilitated dialogue between the two countries.
“I received a phone call and spoke with US President Donald Trump. I can say that the conversation was respectful, even friendly“, Maduro said on Venezolana de Televisión. He stressed that the nature of the conversation demonstrated “steps towards a respectful dialogue between the two countries“.
The Venezuelan leader said that “he does not like diplomacy on the microphone and important things should remain secret until they become reality“. He welcomed the diplomatic dialogue with the United States and noted Venezuela's desire for peace. "Long live dialogue, diplomacy and peace!" Maduro said in English.
It was previously reported that the phone call between Trump and Maduro took place on November 21.
The United States will release all available materials regarding the actions of American troops who, according to media reports, intentionally killed survivors of a boat attack in the Caribbean in September.
This was stated by US President Donald Trump while answering questions from reporters at the White House.
"I don't know what they have, but we will make everything we have public, no problem with that," he said. Trump gave this answer to a journalist's question about whether the US administration was ready to release videos of the second strike on the aforementioned boat.
The Washington Post previously reported that in early September, Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered "no one to be left alive" during a strike by US forces on a boat in the southern Caribbean. The boat in question, according to the Americans, was transporting drugs from Venezuela. According to the newspaper, the US military carried out two strikes on September 2. The first was to destroy the boat, which was carrying 11 people, allegedly members of the transnational criminal group Tren de Aragua. The second strike was carried out to kill two survivors who were in the water, clinging to the wreckage of the boat.
Trump was asked if he supported the decision to strike the boat again to finish off the survivors. "No, I support the decision to destroy the boats," he replied. Trump also expressed confidence that the people operating such boats were "guilty of attempted murder" of Americans, as they were believed to have been transporting drugs to the United States.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on December 1 that the Pentagon should release available video footage to clarify the circumstances under which the boat was hit.
The White House has previously said it considers the actions of the US military to be legal. As White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt emphasized, the Trump administration believes that members of “narco-terrorist groups must be destroyed“. Washington has classified a number of drug cartels operating in Latin American countries, including Tren de Aragua, as such groups.
As The New York Times reported in August, Trump signed a classified directive to begin using military force against Latin American drug cartels. Significant additional US military forces were then deployed to the Caribbean, and Washington began airstrikes against boats that the US government says are transporting drugs across the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific to the United States.
According to CNN, US forces have destroyed more than 20 boats off the coast of Latin America in recent months under the pretext of combating drug smuggling, killing more than 80 people. After one of these strikes, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that the US operation had killed a fisherman from his country, not a drug dealer.
Washington accuses Caracas of failing to adequately combat drug trafficking. According to The New York Times, Trump has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. American media have repeatedly reported that the US may soon begin striking drug cartel targets in the country.