Maduro insists on telling the US that he is “ready” for a drug trafficking combat agreement

Caracas.- The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, insisted on telling the United States that he is ready for a “combat agreement” against drug trafficking, in a new call he makes to the North American country amid the military deployment against drug trafficking that Washington ordered in the Caribbean and that Caracas sees as a “threat” to a change of regime.

“We have told many of their spokespersons that if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we are ready,” said the president in an interview with the French-Spanish intellectual Ignacio Ramonet, broadcast this Thursday by the state channel VTV.

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“If they want oil from Venezuela, it is ready for American investment as with Chevron, whenever they want, wherever they want, and however they want. In the United States, they should know that if they want comprehensive economic development agreements, Venezuela is also here, as I have said it a thousand times,” added the president who was driving his car while being interviewed. Maduro said that his country has a “perfect model” for combating drug trafficking and again pointed out that the cocaine circulating in the region comes from its neighbor Colombia. “We are victims of Colombian drug trafficking. Not just today, but for decades. And we have managed, with our model, to control the impact that Colombian drug trafficking had on Venezuela in the past,” he stated. He added that his government allocates billions of “resources” to have security on the more than 2,200 kilometers of border with Colombia.

“But there is no collaboration from the Colombian side, so we have to do all the work ourselves”, added the president, highlighting that the 40 aircraft linked to drug trafficking that his country destroyed this year came from the neighboring country.

The United States has maintained a military deployment in the Caribbean Sea since last August, near Venezuelan waters, supposedly to combat drug trafficking, but the Venezuelan government denounces that it is a pretext to seek a change of regime. Tensions between Caracas and Washington escalated after Trump’s announcement to block all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, and the confiscation of two ships carrying Venezuelan crude oil in recent weeks. The U.S. president also announced last Friday an attack against a “large facility” on a pier, but did not specify whether it occurred within Venezuelan territory. The Venezuelan government has not yet commented.