Argentina's Macri, Trump discuss Venezuela in call: spokesman

Reuters
Argentine President Mauricio Macri reacts as he meets the president of Brazil's Supreme Court Carmen Lucia Rocha (not pictured) in Brasilia, Brazil February 7, 2017. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's President Mauricio Macri and U.S. President Donald Trump shared their "concern" over Venezuela in a Wednesday phone call, Macri's spokesman told Reuters. Trump also invited Macri to visit the United States, the office of Argentina's presidency said in a statement. The two leaders spoke broadly about Latin America and on "Venezuela in particular" in the five-minute-long call, the statement said. Venezuela's socialist government had its first diplomatic flare-up with the Trump administration this week after the U.S. blacklisted Venezuela's Vice President Tareck El Aissami on drug charges, a move El Aissami decried as "imperialist aggression." Macri, a center-right leader who took office in late 2015 following more than a decade of leftist rule in Argentina, also spoke to Trump in November. Macri, a former businessman, met Trump decades earlier while working on a real estate deal for his father, Franco Macri. The leaders agreed their foreign ministers, who are scheduled to meet on Thursday in Germany, would determine the dates of Macri's visit, the statement said. (Reporting by Maximiliano Rizzi; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by David Gregorio and James Dalgleish)