Trump-Maduro Call Signals Possible Détente Despite Criminal Indictments and Venezuela Strike Threats

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, November 28, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump spoke by phone last week with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the New York Times reported Friday. 

The phone call between the two leaders comes following months of a military buildup and threats by Washington toward Caracas and weeks of rumors suggesting that Trump was willing to entertain direct communication with a government that his administration does not view as legitimate.

According to multiple anonymous sources consulted by the Times, the call included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has led the charge within the White House to promote regime change and treat Maduro as the head of criminal organizations. 

Rubio’s State Department recently designated the so-called Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), alleging that the Venezuelan president and high-ranking officials lead this purported cartel.

The phone call reportedly also touched on the possibility of a future in‑person meeting in the United States, although Maduro would face arrest given the existing criminal charges. Officials likewise discarded the possible face-to-face meeting for the near future.

Neither Washington nor Caracas commented on the alleged call nor were details about the discussions revealed. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello rejected a recent report that suggested ongoing negotiations with the United States could involve Maduro stepping down in two years.

Since September, the Trump administration has engaged in one of the largest military buildups in the region in decades, moving troops and naval vessels, including the USS Gerald Ford Carrier Group, into the Caribbean, purportedly as part of a counternarcotics mission to prevent drugs from reaching the US. 

The US had struck dozens of alleged drug-smuggling boats in international waters, killing over 80 civilians in what UN experts have labelled “extrajudicial executions.”

On Thursday, Trump repeated his threat to engage in land strikes inside Venezuelan territory as part of the US bombing campaign in the region. 

“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering [drugs] by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also,” the president said during a press conference at the White House. “The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel recently told lawmakers that the legal opinion the White House currently uses to justify strikes at sea does not extend to strikes on land. The new FTO designation led analysts to speculate that it could be a precursor to a military escalation against Caracas.

Despite repeated “narcoterrorism” accusations against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials, US authorities have not provided court-tested evidence of the Cartel de los Soles’ existence or of Venezuelan leaders’ ties to narcotics activities. Reports from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have consistently found the Caribbean nation to be a marginal actor in global drug flows. 

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.