Venezuelan President Maduro open to talks with U.S. about combatting drug trafficking: ‘We’re ready’

Amid a monthslong pressure campaign by the Trump administration that has included dozens of strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats and a recent drone strike on Venezuelan soil, President Nicolas Maduro says he’s open to talks.

In a pre-taped interview aired Thursday, the Venezuelan leader said he is willing to negotiate an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking.

But the South American president declined comment on a CIA-led strike last week at a Venezuelan docking area that the Trump administration believed was used by cartels, the Associated Press reported.

“The U.S. government knows, because we’ve told many of their spokespeople, that if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we’re ready,” Maduro said in an interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet.

“If they want oil, Venezuela is ready for U.S. investment, like with Chevron, whenever they want it, wherever they want it and however they want it.”

Chevron Corp. is the only major oil company exporting Venezuelan crude to the U.S. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

But Maduro also reiterated during the interview that the U.S. pressure campaign is driven by the Trump administration’s desire to force him out of office — while gaining access to its vast oil reserves, according to The Associated Press report.

“What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose themselves through threats, intimidation and force,” Maduro said, later adding that it is time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”

U.S. military-led boat strikes in region continue

The Maduro interview was taped on New Year’s Eve.

That same day, the Pentagon said U.S. forces had struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over a two-day period — killing eight people while others jumped overboard and may have survived, according to the BBC.

The latest attacks bring the total number of known boat strikes to 35 and the number of people killed to at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration. Venezuelans are among the victims.

And last week, the United States carried out a drone strike on a port facility off the coast of Venezuela — marking both the first known U.S. attack inside the country and a significant escalation in the ongoing pressure campaign.

The drone strike, which Trump initially acknowledged in a radio interview, reportedly targeted a dock where the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was believed to be storing drugs and loading them onto boats to be transported into the United States and other countries.

The CIA was reportedly behind the drone strike.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said. “They load the boats up with drugs. So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement.”

There were no casualties from the drone attack, and officials say no one was present on the port at the time, according to CNN, which first reported the strikes.

Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. The boat strikes began off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Other top officials in his administration have described those attacks as being similar to targeting terrorists, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth comparing the alleged drug traffickers to al-Qaida.

“These narcoterrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere,” Hegseth said at the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month. “And we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al-Qaida.”

When asked this week about the drone strike on Venezuelan soil, Maduro said he could “talk about it in a few days.”