What the Maduro government said after Trump’s victory
The government of Nicolás Maduro, which broke diplomatic relations with the United States during Donald Trump’s first presidency, declared this Wednesday that it was willing to “establish good relations” with Washington in the return of the Republican to power.
“Venezuela will always be willing to establish good relations with the US governments, framed in a spirit of dialogue, respect and common sense,” said the Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, in a statement.
The government of the leftist Nicolás Maduro “congratulates the people of the United States of America on the presidential elections” and “to the President-Elect, Donald J. Trump, for his victory in said process,” he added.
The relationship of the Maduro government with Trump
Caracas broke relations with Washington in 2019, when the White House recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as “interim president,” after the opposition boycotted the Venezuelan presidential elections a year earlier because it considered that there were no conditions for transparent elections.
In his first government (2017-2021), Trump led an international offensive to try to remove Maduro from power and imposed sanctions that included an embargo on Venezuelan oil.
The sanctions were relaxed in the Joe Biden administration, which granted licenses to energy transnationals to operate in the country.
Trump even said that “all options,” including the military, were on the table in the Venezuelan case.
Now, Trump’s victory coincides with allegations of fraud in Maduro’s re-election for a third six-year term (2025-2031). The opposition claims the victory of the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, exiled in Spain after an arrest warrant against him.
The statement this Wednesday from the government of Venezuela does not expressly mention the sanctions promoted by Trumpbut calls for “recognition of the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.”
«The people of Venezuela share historical ties with the people of the United States, with whom we aspire to walk a path of peace and social justice, where war, exclusion, discrimination have no place, and where cooperation and mutual respect between nations are the banner of international relations,” the document states.
The Biden administration has not recognized Maduro’s re-election.
On Monday, Maduro had said that the winner of the US elections, whoever it was, would have to “speak, dialogue, understand” with his government.
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