After a meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro In Caracas to discuss the release of Americans in the country, Richard Grenell, the envoy of President Donald Trump, is announced for special missions X Friday evening that he returned to the US with six of them.
“They just spoke with @realdonaldrump and they could not stop thanking him,” Grenell said in his post without identifying the six men, four of whom were dressed in light blue Venezuelan prison outfits.
It has been reported that at least nine Americans were held by Venezuela, where Maduro’s officials have accused the most of them that they are involved in terrorism or act as ‘mercenaries’.
On a phone call earlier on Friday with reporters, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the American special envoy on Latin America, said that “American hostages must be released immediately, unambiguously.”
But he added that “this is not a quid pro quo. It is not negotiation in exchange for anything. Trump himself made that very clear.”
This photo released by the presidential press office of Venezuela shows Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Right, who shakes Richard Grenell, the special envoy of President Donald Trump, in Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday 31, 2025. President of the National Assembly (Venezuela’s presidential press office, via AP)
The Venezuelan government said in a statement that the meeting between Maduro and Grenell took place in the presidential palace “with mutual respect and various issues that were important for both countries”, including migration, sanctions and retained Americans, as Reuters reported.
Less than a month ago, Maduro was sworn for a third term of six years as the president of Venezuela. However, the US government does not recognize him as the legitimate head of state of the country and believes it instead Edmundo GonzálezThe candidate of the opposition coalition won the recent elections with more than two-on-one margin.
On the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said that he is “a very big opponent of Venezuela and Maduro.”
“They didn’t treat us so well. But they have treated the Venezuelan people very badly, more importantly.”
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Grenell’s hours of Friday visit to Venezuela was also intended to force Maduro to accept the return of around 400 members of the Venezolaan Aragua Bende Trainwhose attorney general of the country, Tarek Saab, said it was dismantled in 2023.
The deportations must occur “without conditions” and were “non-considerable,” Claver-Carone said.
