Donald Trump’s presidential envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, speaks with Politico journalist Dasha Burns at CPAC 2025.
Guacamaya, February 23, 2025. Richard Grenell, Donald Trump’s envoy for Venezuela, said on Saturday that the president is not considering forcing a regime change in Venezuela.
Grenell made this statement in two interviews during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “Donald Trump is someone who doesn’t want to do regime change. He wants to do everything possible to make the American people stronger and more prosperous,” he told host Jan Jekielek.
In a second interview at the same event, with Politico journalist Dasha Burns, he repeated the same assertion. “We don’t do regime change. Our criterion is not how we make that country better, but how we make America better, stronger, and more prosperous for the people who live here.”
The U.S. ambassador was appointed as presidential envoy for special missions by Trump in January. Among his responsibilities are negotiating with the governments of Venezuela and North Korea.
On January 31, Grenell arrived in Venezuela to meet with Nicolás Maduro. According to official sources, the meeting resulted in agreements to release six American prisoners and resume repatriation flights to Venezuela. These will be funded by the government in Caracas, which the presidential envoy described as significant in his first CPAC interview.
The first Trump administration had a clear objective of regime change in Venezuela, supporting the “Interim Government” of Juan Guaidó and imposing sanctions on the financial and oil sectors. The Biden administration shifted to a strategy of negotiations to achieve competitive elections in 2024. Now, with the Republican president back in power, Venezuela’s internal politics would no longer be the focus of attention in government negotiations, according to Grenell.
