Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday that allegations by the US regarding narcotics trafficking, democracy and human rights were “falsehoods”. She said that “energy greed” was the real motive behind the external pressure.
“You all know that the energy greed of the North wants the resources of our country. All the falsehoods about drug trafficking, democracy and human rights were the excuses,” she said.
All the lies about ‘drug trafficking’, ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’. They were the excuses. It was always about the oil,” she said.
Speaking on energy ties between the US and Venezuela, Rodríguez said the country was “open to energy relationships where all parties benefit, where cooperation is clearly defined in a commercial agreement”.
“There is a stain on our relations such as had never occurred in our history,” she said, acknowledging the rift in relations between the two countries.
The Venezuelan leader’s remarks came hours after US President Donald Trump said Venezuela would use revenue from a new oil agreement to purchase goods made exclusively in the US, El Cooperante reported.
Trump has said that Venezuela has agreed to buy only American-made products using proceeds from a new US-brokered oil deal, describing the arrangement as a major shift in Caracas’s economic orientation and a boost for American manufacturers, farmers and exporters.
“I have just been informed that Venezuela is going to be purchasing only American Made Products, with the money they receive from our new Oil Deal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
