Caracas, Venezuela • Nicolas Maduro’s government backtracked on an order that gave U.S. Embassy personnel 72 hours to leave Venezuela, defusing tensions between the countries just hours after their top diplomats traded heated rhetoric at a special U.N. Security Council meeting to address the South American country’s crisis.
Maduro gave American diplomats three days to leave the country, but the Trump administration refused to obey his order, arguing that the leftist leader was no longer Venezuela's legitimate president. That set the stage for a potentially violent showdown at the hilltop Embassy compound on Saturday night, when the deadline was to expire.