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Spokesman: Argentina’s Macri, Trump Discuss Venezuela in Call

Argentina's President Mauricio Macri speaks by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 15, 2017. Argentine Presidency/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY.

BUENOS AIRES –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 reporters.

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.”

In this file photo, Venezuela’s Vice President Tareck El Aissami attends the swearing-in ceremony of the new board of directors of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela January 31, 2017. Photo: Reuters /Marco Bello

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.