U.S. President Donald Trump would have sent special envoy Richard Grenell to negotiate with Maduro, but then cancelled talks after growing frustrated, according to a recent New York Times article. Photo: White House / Shealah Craighead.
Guacamaya, October 6, 2025. President Donald Trump would have called off efforts to negotiate an agreement with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, according to a New York Times article quoting anonymous U.S. officials.
Maduro would have refused to accept U.S. demands to give up power voluntarily, while he continues to insist that Venezuelan officials have no part in drug trafficking. This would have frustrated President Trump, who told special presidential envoy Richard Grenell to stop engaging with Venezuela.
In January this year, during Trump’s first days in office, he sent Richard Grenell to Caracas as special presidential envoy to negotiate the release of American prisoners and a deal to deport thousands of Venezuelan migrants. U.S. officials also told Guacamaya that Maduro would have also acceded to a greater presence of American energy companies in the country.
However, since August, Washington, DC, has been ramping up the pressure on Venezuela, ordering a large Navy and Air Force deployment in the Eastern Caribbean. The operation would be to fight so-called “narco-terrorism,” while the Trump administration has branded Maduro the leader of the “Cartel of the Suns” rather than the president of Venezuela.
The Pentagon would have already drawn up multiple plans for an escalation. While the deployed forces have only a small contingent capable of fighting on land—a 2,200-strong Marines unit—there is an impressive array of firepower, including 8 warships and 10 F-35B fighters.
The U.S. military has already struck between four to six alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea, depending on differing reports, in acts that have been branded illegal extrajudicial killings by various human rights groups.
Sources inside the administration told Guacamaya that since January 31, there have been continuous communications with Maduro, involving Grenell and the State Department. The main issue would have been to coordinate deportation flights, as over 10,000 Venezuelans have been repatriated.
Last month, Maduro wrote a letter to Trump denying his country trafficked in drugs and offering to conduct further negotiations with the United States through Grenell. Qatar has also offered to mediate between the two governments, as it has done in the past.
