President Donald Trump has sent his envoy for special mission Richard Grenell to Venezuela, to deliver a personal message to the country’s socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, demanding he accept members of the Tren de Aragua gang after they were deported from the U.S. this week.
According to Fox News, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the U.S. special envoy to Latin America, said the conversation between Grenell and Maduro will be centered around Maduro taking back Tren de Aragua members and all other Venezuelan criminals that have been deported, “and to do so unequivocally and without condition.”
Grenell is also likely to ask for the release of any Americans who have been held hostage in Venezuela, according to Claver-Carone. At least 10 Americans are currently being detained in Venezuela, three of them have been accused of being part of a plan to destabilize the country.
However, the remaining number of Americans being detained is still unknown after the Biden administration negotiated a prisoner swap in 2023, in exchange for Colombian businessman Alex Saab, who was a close ally of Maduro. Saab was accused of being part of a $350 million bribery scheme and was arrested during Trump’s first term in office.
Claver-Carone said the trip “focuses on two very specific issues. That we expect that Venezuelan criminals and gangs will be returned, as they are, to every country in the world, without conditions, and two, that American hostages need to be released immediately, unequivocally. This is not a quid pro quo. It’s not a negotiation in exchange for anything. President Trump himself has made that very clear.”
Fox News further reported the U.S. does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, after he lost the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. Maria Corina Machado, the country’s opposition leader, has called on citizens to demand Urrutia be installed as the rightful president.
