Macri, Trump discuss region on phone

Buenos Aires, Feb 16: US President Dold Trump has chatted briefly with his Argentine counterpart, Mauricio Macri, on telephone discussing the region and Venezuela “in particular”, a media report said. During the five-minute call on Wednesday, Trump reiterated his invitation to Macri to visit Washington and also said that he was “very happy” because new jobs were being created in the US, the Argentine President’s office said in a statement.

This was the second of such calls between the two leaders since Trump won the November 2016 election. Argenti said that the two leaders’ talk was very cordial, but provided no further details, Efe news reported.

The US and Venezuela got into their first diplomatic spat earlier this week when Washington blacklisted Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami on drug charges, a move he called “imperialist aggression.”

Macri and Trump, who have known each other for several years through the latter’s business dealings with the Argentine leader’s father, agreed that the US Secretary of State and the South American tion’s Foreign Minister, who on Thursday will meet in Germany during a G-20 meeting, will coordite the scheduling for a visit by Macri to Washington.

The centre-right Argentine leader took the call from Trump at the Olivos presidential residence accompanied by his Cabinet Chief Marcos Pe, who on Wednesday morning said that the conversation occurred at the request of the US.

In November, in their first telephone contact after Trump’s election win, the two men “recalled their ... persol relationship and promised to work on a common agenda for the growth of the two countries,” the Argentine President’s office said at the time.

Trump said after that first conversation that Argenti is a great country and he was looking forward to having the closest relationship ever between the two governments. (IANS)