Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro indicated Monday that he is open to direct talks with the Trump administration, calling for diplomacy instead of confrontation as the U.S. Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier joined almost a dozen other American warships off his country’s shores in a tense standoff.
The administration accuses Maduro of facilitating drug trafficking into the United States, but the Venezuelan leader says the U.S. is trying to overthrow him.
“Those who want to speak with Venezuela will speak,” Maduro said in Spanish, adding in English: “Face-to-face.”
The Venezuelan leader made the remarks on his television program, which aired in Venezuela on Monday. He was asked by an interviewer about reports that President Trump was considering speaking with him.
Pedro Mattey/Anadolu/Getty
“Venezuela’s position is unwavering: Absolute respect for international law. We firmly reject the threat or use of force to impose rules between countries,” Maduro said. “We reaffirm what the U.N. Charter, our Constitution, and our people say: Only through diplomacy should free nations understand each other. Governments must seek common ground on mutual interests only through dialogue.”
Maduro’s comments came hours after President Trump said he would be willing to talk with the Venezuelan leader, while not ruling out deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Venezuela.
Mr. Trump accuses Maduro of working in conjunction with drug cartels that traffic narcotics into the U.S., and the Venezuelan leader has been indicted in a U.S. court on narco-terrorism charges. President Trump recently told CBS News’ 60 Minutes that he believed Maduro’s days in power were numbered.
Maduro has denied all accusations that he works with cartels and said he believes the drug trafficking claims are a pretext for a U.S. military operation to remove him from power.
Maduro has “done tremendous damage to our country, primarily because of drugs, but really because we have that problem with other countries too, but more than any other country, the release of prisoners into our country has been a disaster,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday. “He’s emptied his jails. Others have done that also. He has not been good to the United States. So we’ll see what happens. At a certain period of time, I’ll be talking to him.”
The Trump administration has presented no evidence to date to substantiate claims that Venezuela has deliberately sent criminals to the U.S.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump told reporters that “we may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like, they would like to talk.”
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni/U.S. Navy via Getty 
U.S. forces have been stepping up military exercises across the Caribbean for weeks, and CBS News national security correspondent Charlie D’Agata said the USS Gerald R. Ford — the most advanced aircraft carrier in the world — was within striking distance of Venezuela as of Tuesday morning.
The Ford arrived as the U.S. moved to designate the “Cartel de Los Soles” group as a foreign terrorist organization — a shift Mr. Trump said could open the door to targeting Venezuelan assets and infrastructure.
D’Agata reported Tuesday that there are now about 15,000 U.S. troops at sea in the region and on land in Puerto Rico, where U.S. F-35 stealth fighter jets have been seen flying nearly around the clock.
The U.S. military has conducted strikes against at least 22 vessels that the Trump administration alleges were transporting drugs to the U.S. from South America, killing at least 83 people.
Maduro has condemned those strikes — the legality of which has also been questioned by rights groups, the United Nations, other countries in the region, and some lawmakers in the U.S. — since they began in September.