Donald Trump goes cold on his pick for Venezuela leader

Donald Trump has said he would consider meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Nicolas Maduro has survived US attempts to unseat by diplomacy and sanctions. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump has said he would consider meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and played down his earlier decision to recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate leader.

“I would maybe think about that. Maduro would like to meet. And I’m never opposed to meetings,” Mr Trump told online news site Axios in an interview published on Monday AEST, a move that would upend his “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at ousting the Socialist president.

“But at this moment, I’ve turned them down.”

Mr Trump had expressed an openness in 2018 to meeting Mr Maduro, who had also made overtures for talks, but nothing materialised and the US instead ratcheted up the pressure. Mr Trump’s latest comments were possibly the clearest sign yet of what some US officials have privately said was growing frustration over his administration’s failure to unseat Mr Maduro through sanctions and diplomacy.

The President also indicated flagging confidence in Mr Guaido. The US, Australia and most other Western countries have recognised Mr Guaido as the OPEC nation’s interim president since January last year, regarding Mr Maduro’s 2018 re-election as a sham, but Mr Maduro has retained the support of the military as well as the backing of Russia, Cuba, China and Iran.

Asked whether he regretted having thrown his weight behind Mr Guaido, Mr Trump was quoted by Axios as initially saying “Not particularly” but then went on to say: “I could have lived with it or without it, but I was very firmly against what’s going on in Venezuela.”

Mr Trump said at the point he made his decision: “I think that I wasn’t necessarily in favour, but I said — some people that liked it, some people didn’t. I was OK with it. ... I don’t think it was very meaningful one way or the other.”

Reuters