Venezuelan strongman/dictator Nicolás Maduro has been insistent that Venezuela won’t accept the delivery of his own people, specifically, Tren de Aragua gang members and other criminals who are in the United States illegally. The Biden administration meekly accepted this, just as they meekly accepted millions of who-knows people across the borders. But things have changed; President Trump, on Friday, sent former Ambassador Ric Grenell to Venezuela to give El Presidente Maduro what my grandmother would have described as a “right good talking to.” Fox News’ Bill Melugin put out the word on X:
NEW: Per Senior Trump admin official, in a trip coordinated by the White House & State Department, @RichardGrenell is en route to Venezuela to meet with the Maduro regime in an effort to reach an agreement that would see VZ accept US deportations of Tren de Aragua gang members.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 31, 2025
Bill Melugin’s X post reads in full:
NEW: Per Senior Trump admin official, in a trip coordinated by the White House & State Department, @RichardGrenell is en route to Venezuela to meet with the Maduro regime in an effort to reach an agreement that would see VZ accept US deportations of Tren de Aragua gang members.
That doesn’t sound, on the surface, like all that much of a much. Maduro isn’t likely to be conducive to diplomatic discussions. But, moments later, Bill Melugin gives us the update: Mr. Grenell isn’t going down there to negotiate.
NEW: A second senior Trump admin official tells me this is not a negotiation or the spawning of a new relationship with Venezuela. Maduro will be told he will take his gang members back, that the US is telling him, not asking him, and that there is no US ambassador to VZ for a…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 31, 2025
The full post:
NEW: A second senior Trump admin official tells me this is not a negotiation or the spawning of a new relationship with Venezuela. Maduro will be told he will take his gang members back, that the US is telling him, not asking him, and that there is no US ambassador to VZ for a reason. Will also discuss the potential return of some Americans in VZ prisons. I’m told this will be a very quick trip.
This, folks, is how the game should be played. This is an America-scaled flex; an exercise in decisive and muscular foreign policy. I have no idea how El Presidente Maduro will react to being told what the new rules are but told he will be, and after that, it’s up to him to decide to defy the only global superpower in the Americas — and President Trump, who is a much different character than his predecessor. What was his name again? Oh, that’s right. Joe Biden. The guy sure didn’t make much of an impression.
See Related: Kristi Noem: Notorious Gang Leader Nabbed by ICE Was Trying to Buy Explosives—What For?
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Announces Halt to All Funds to NGOs That ‘Facilitate Illegal Immigration’
This is how you handle a despot like Maduro. Send a key person down there. Tell him, in no uncertain terms, that the rules have changed, and he better accept it. Then we start putting his people on one-way flights to Caracas, with a U.S. Marshall on board to make sure they get off — and stay off. Then they are, as they rightly should be, Venezuela’s problem.
America is back, baby.
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