CNN’s Alayna Treene highlighted a “significant” comment made by President Donald Trump in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times about his administration’s plans for Venezuela.
The 79-year-old president told the New York Times during a nearly two-hour interview he expected the U.S. to run Venezuela for the foreseeable future and praised the interim government, which is made up of loyalists of ousted leader Nicolás Maduro, for so far “giving us everything that we feel is necessary.”
The network’s White House correspondent said that remark “stood out” to her.
“One of the quotes that the president gave the New York Times and the in this interview that really stood out to me was when he said that the interim government in Caracas, which is, of course, right now made up of all loyalists to the now captured Nicolás Maduro, he essentially said that they are ‘giving us everything that we feel is necessary,’” Treene said.
“The reason I find that to be so significant is because of the reporting that we were reporting out all day yesterday,” she added, “which is essentially that the Trump administration has laid out conditions to Venezuela’s interim government that essentially, you know, what they need to do in order to continue pumping oil, and I should note, as well, that the Trump administration does not believe that, you know, Caracas can last financially for many more weeks. They think they only have a few more weeks without selling oil that they can really be financially viable moving forward. But some of those conditions included severing ties with U.S. foreign adversaries, countries like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba.”
Trump will meet Friday with executives from U.S. oil companies who are wary of a lengthy and costly investment in rebuilding Venezuela’s neglected energy infrastructure.
“They also said that they want Caracas to have an exclusive partnership with America in all of these oil sales,” Treene said. “All to say, it comes ahead of the president’s meeting tomorrow with oil executives. Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and also as they’re trying to convince these oil companies to go in and invest in Venezuela and rebuild their infrastructure, something we actually heard from the energy secretary, Chris Wright, yesterday, that is going to be a big challenge, something that they are acknowledging.”
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