As US President Donald Trump has suggested willingness for talks with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro says Caracas is open to face-to-face dialog while rejecting “threats or use of force.”

Maduro added that Venezuela would engage with any nation willing to talk but warned against foreign aggression. The comments came after Trump told reporters that his administration might speak with Maduro at a certain period of time to address the rising tensions. Trump, however, did not rule out the possibility of putting American forces on the ground in Venezuela.

Since early September, the US military has launched at least 20 strikes against vessels in the Pacific and southern Caribbean. Washington has alleged, without presenting evidence, that the boats were engaged in drug trafficking. Caracas, however, has rejected the claims, saying the strikes are aimed at toppling the Venezuelan government. Analysts now argue that Trump’s claim of openness to talk to Maduro is in line with Washington’s carrot and stick policy and is NOT genuine. 

PressTV: Mr. Koenig, what is your take in this new situation?

Peter Koenig (PK): Of course, Trump’s approach and promise is not genuine. It hardly ever is. And people around the world start noticing, that much of what he says is to bolster his ego; and second, to make propaganda for the goodness of MAGA, a good country that is willing to talk with the “enemy”, so to speak.

Trump is losing credibility all over the word. In his own country it is down to about 30% and falling. Maybe he does not care. He is just very willingly fulfilling his mandate, given to him by the oligarchs pulling the strings behind his administration.

Venezuela is not an enemy. To the contrary. President Maduro has long ago said he wants to make a deal with the US, selling petroleum to them. Trump so far has not reacted or refused.

Why? Because he wants American oligarchs to take over the enormous, world’s largest, hydrocarbon reserves of Venezuela and privatize them, for the benefit of the US elite.

Not for the benefit of Venezuela.

The Maduro Government will never allow that. And it should not.

The truth is that Trump does not want to have serious talks.

If he was truly interested in improving relations, he – or the Pentagon on his orders – would not have gone on a rampage of extra-judiciary killings in the last couple of months.

More than 80 People have been killed in more than 20 drone attacks on small boats, the Trump Administration pretends are drug traffickers – there is absolutely no proof for that.

To the contrary, Drug Traffickers would be smarter than crossing the Caribbean with narcotics smuggle-ware.

This will not happen.

For those who are not aware, or may have forgotten, because it is not covered by the mainstream media, Russian and Chinese war ships are also “hanging out” in the Caribbean.

What a coincidence!

PressTV: Let us assume Trump does indeed manage to talk to Maduro, how do you think the conversation would go?

PK: Well, Trump would certainly not talk about how to get a hold of Venezuela’s hydrocarbon and gold riches. He would continue his fake lies and pretexts about Venezuela’s drug smuggling through the Caribbean which Maduro and his Government would continue to vehemently deny.

So, the talks would fail, as could be expected, and this “failure” – failure between quotes, because it was never Trump’s true intention – might give Trump more reason to put American boots on the ground in Venezuela.

But it will not happen. For several reasons. The US cannot afford another active, hot conflict, and as I said, it is not a coincidence that that Russian and Chinese war fleets are also stationed in the Caribbean.

This is the link to the full interview.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.