'Only one president in this country': Venezuela's Rodríguez denies deal with US, counters Trump

Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez has firmly rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that she had agreed to work with Washington to help “run” the country, New York Times reported. She struck a defiant tone in a live, nationally televised address.

“There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” Rodríguez said to loud applause, insisting that Maduro remains Venezuela’s legitimate leader. Her remarks came despite US assertions that Maduro has been captured and taken into American custody.

Rodríguez said Venezuela was open to maintaining relations with the Trump administration, but only on the basis of “respect” and “within the framework of international and Venezuelan law”.

Directly responding to Trump’s comments, she said any engagement with Washington could take place only “within the framework of law”, following what she described as a military attack on the country. “That is the only type of relationship I will accept, after they have attacked and militarily assaulted our beloved nation,” Rodríguez said.

She accused the United States of invading Venezuela “under false pretences”, calling the operation “an unprecedented military aggression” that would leave “a terrible stain on the development of bilateral relations”.

According to Rodríguez, the US action had laid bare Washington’s true intentions. “With the invasion, the masks had fallen off,” she said, arguing that there was “only one objective: regime change in Venezuela”. She claimed such a move was aimed at enabling the seizure of the country’s “energy, mineral and natural resources”, adding: “This is the true objective, and the world and the international community must know it.”

Rodríguez ended her address with a strongly nationalist message, vowing resistance to foreign control. “If there is one thing that the Venezuelan people and this country are clear about,” she said, “it is that we will never again be slaves, that we will never again be a colony of any empire, whatever its nature.