Maduro urges Trump to address ‘his country’s problems’: ‘It would be better for him’

MADRID, December 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, on Monday called on his American counterpart, Donald Trump, to “address the problems of his country”, believing that “it would be better for him”, in a context of escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas due to the alleged operation against drug trafficking in the North American country and Trump’s threats to intervene militarily on Venezuelan soil.

“A president cannot think about how he is going to govern other countries. Imagine if I wasted my time, instead of being president of Venezuela, thinking about getting involved in other countries, looking for problems and problems for other countries, wanting to govern the world. I would do it very badly. It would be a mistake,” he said during an event in Caracas, broadcast by state channel VTV.

The leader defended that “we must concentrate on the governance of our country, on the resolution of its problems and on the mobilization of all the economic and social forces, of all the living forces of a country to produce, what we have done, with a plan”.

Maduro also spoke of the departure, the day before, of an oil tanker from the American company Chevron: “When we sign a contract in accordance with the Constitution, it is respected, whether it rains, whether it winds or whether there is light, as is the case with Chevron.”

In this sense, he addressed “investors who live in compliance with national regulations, the Constitution, the Hydrocarbons Law” to guarantee that “we are people of our word and of law, serious people”.

“Beyond the circumstantial and momentary conflicts that we may have with the current (American) administration, the contract is strictly respected by Chevron,” he added, after the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, announced the departure of the ship “Canopus Voyager” “with Venezuelan oil bound for the United States.”

PARLIAMENT STUDYS PUNISHMENT BY PRISON OF ONE WHO “PROMOTES THE BLOCKADE” OF TRADE

That same Monday, the National Assembly (AN) approved in first reading a bill aimed at guaranteeing freedoms of navigation and commerce against “piracy, blockades and other illicit international acts”, as Caracas described the recent actions of the US Navy.

The initiative, presented by deputy Giuseppe Alessandrello (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), aims to protect the country’s commercial relations and Venezuelans against “the predatory actions of the American government.”

To this end, it provides for the imposition of prison sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years to “any person who encourages, incites, requests, invokes, favors, facilitates, supports, finances or participates in actions of piracy, blockade or other international crimes against legal entities that carry out commercial operations with the Republic (of Venezuela) and its entities, by states, powers, companies or foreign persons”.

The project also envisages punishing these acts with fines “equivalent to 100,000 and one million times the highest exchange rate published by the Central Bank of Venezuela”.

“This people of Venezuela (…) will respond to all attacks and will win, have no doubt about it,” assured the president of the AN, Jorge Rodríguez, after the vote.