Venezuela After Maduro: Can Trump Control Caracas From Afar?

27:47No, I totally agree, Cara. I mean, Venezuela used to produce 3.5 million bars per day. It is producing 1 million bars per day. So you have seen a collapse of the oil industry, but it still produces 1 million bars per day. If you were to redirect those oil exports from illicit routes to, for example, the U.S. Gulf Coast, you can triple foreign currency revenues just by doing that. You don't really need to, while you wait for an increase in oil production. I would agree that it's going to take a while. It's going to take a lot of investments in order to rebuild the oil industry. So Alejandra, you said that Delcey Rodriguez may have been backchalleling with the Trump administration in order to sell out Maduro in exchange for its backing.

28:28That could be one reason why the Trump administration has sidelined Nobel Prize winner Maria Karina Machado. Although, according to one report, it's because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, even though she dedicated it to him and recently said again that he deserved it. But explain why you think Rodriguez may have sacrificed Maduro to save herself and where are the power centers and how will she navigate them in order to maintain this position? What we're seeing today in terms of the oil deals that the Trump administration seems to be exacting on this interim government are no different from the reports that Maduro had been giving to the United States if they could stay in power.

29:10And so in terms of the reporting before Saturday and the kind of negotiations that were going on behind the scenes, the only sticking point was, are you going to give yourself up? Are you going to end up in a golden exile, et cetera, et cetera? And so at some point, if you think about the conditions on the ground and what was on the table, the fact that Maduro was the sticking point must have seemed to those in power that we are not willing to go down with this figurative ship if we can just get rid of him and then do the same thing that we were offering before. Now, to David's point, absolutely, and Luisa as well, it all will depend on whether Recy Rodriguez and the rest of the power players in Venezuela play ball.

29:55But they have a stake in playing ball. Right. If there is a kind of if they're able to thread this line between doing Trump's bidding, but at the same time maintaining a kind of sense of sovereignty and independence, there could be significant short term and quick improvements in the lives of Venezuelans that then they could reap the benefit of. if eventually there were some snap elections, you know, six months, nine months, 12 months down the road, and they can say, hey, we still have the primary leverage here. And that is that we control the institutions, we control the armed forces, we control the police, we control the paramilitaries, right?

30:27Do you want chaos or do you want this continued ramp of upward improvement? Because there are a lot of paramilitary. Absolutely. And so, you know, to my mind, yes, of course, the U.S. is the most powerful army in the world. They have all this counterintelligence operations, both covert and conventional. Now, as I was watching the videos, you have to assume that at least one soldier somewhere might have tried to shoot a little AK-47 against one of the helicopters that was low-flying. There was none of that. No. It felt like that. Right. It felt rather cooked. So, David, speaking of that, Trump and Rubio might be able to achieve their goals through Rodriguez.

31:05Perhaps maybe she kicks the Chinese, Iranians, and Russians out, stops sending oil to Cuba, stops cocaine traffickers, and lets in American oil companies. But it's also not hard to imagine total economic collapse and descent into chaos and violence. What happens then? I mean, is the American military prepared to occupy a Latin American country? Well, I think one of the things we've learned about President Trump is he does not like the idea of leaving American troops on the ground, right? Though he did mention it. He's like, I have no problem. He has mentioned it. He's willing to use the threat.

31:38He said, I'm not scared of it, right? But the fact of the matter is he got a lot of blowback from the MAGA forces when he was doing the Iran attack. And the Iran attack was the most standoff attack you could imagine. We were aiming at three facilities, hit them from afar, buried the uranium, went home, had dinner. Right. Right. Doing this to a country, though, where you've decapitated it and you have a long-term project of the kind we've been discussing here, one that is not going to be a matter of months, but a matter of years by every description I've heard, that's a different thing. Because when that's going out of your control, the temptation is to say, well, the only way we can control this is by sending in troops or advisors or something like that.

32:29And that's how we got down the long, slippery road to Vietnam, right? We had a government that we thought was friendly and in place, but they needed advice. and then they needed military help, and then we needed to launch our own operations. I'm not saying that this is going to turn into the next Vietnam, but there is a slippery slope risk that did not exist when you're taking out nuclear sites. When you're doing Iran, right, that you're not being specific. So, Luis, at what extent are American oil companies willing to make these long-term events? As I referenced it before, in a risky political environment like this, it includes the possibility of violence.

33:04I would assume they would want guarantees to move forward. Okay, that's an excellent question because it is not only about assurances of security. It is about rule of law. It is about sanctity of contracts. It is about governance. It is about having visibility. These are 10-year, 20-year types of investments. You don't make investments just because in the next six months, it seems that it's going to be stable. You actually need to have this ability all throughout the project. And these are really very large capital investments that need to be made. You also need assurances that your people are going to be safe.

33:44You need assurances that the corruption that has been linked to this industry is going to be in check. There's American industries, a lot of these industries or these companies are publicly listed. They have really, really significant commitments on many of these practices. And so simply they need more than just assurances. And it's going to take a while. And also it depends on markets. It depends on the price of oil and the visibility about all demand and all of these kinds of things. And by the way, they do have other places to invest. There are many opportunities, even in the region. Venezuela is not even the first producer or producer in Latin America.

34:24It is the number five. Yeah, 100. It's just baffling to think about what would be required not only to jumpstart or re-jumpstart the oil industry, but as Lisa was saying, all the assurances in the rule of law, in safety personnel. Now, to me, it seems, and I'd love to hear Lisa's thoughts on this, that the key player, of course, is the military. And the military is so entrenched in every sector of Venezuela's economy, certainly the oil industry, that the tradeoff here for them is, are we willing to not take a cut of the entire patrimonial state that we've had before? Are we willing to take a cut from the corruption as long as we're able to stay in power?

35:09Again, the only leverage, it seems to me, that the Venezuelan authorities have now is that they can keep control. If they cannot do that, then what is the point of even having this pretense of staying in regime? Right. So one of the things that's lost here to me in this whole thing is the people of Venezuela. There's no timeline for elections, and Trump seems uninterested in restoring democracy. He never even mentioned it. Usually they do, even if it's a pretense. Just because it sounds good. It sounds good. And you never believe it. They did it in Iraq. They did it in Iran. They've done it in Afghanistan.

35:45Rodriguez launched a crackdown under a state of emergency announced Monday, arresting journalists and repressing any celebrations over Maduro's arrest. She's done a little tough guy stuff. David, first, your assessment of how Venezuelans living inside the country would react to all these scenarios, a prolonged Rodriguez presidency and American occupation and then free elections, which would bring back the candidate who did win the election. Well, you have two real Venezuela experts. And also Machado is sort of the wild card. You have two real Venezuela experts here, so I will not pretend to be an expert on its inner workings.

36:23But there are a lot of people in Venezuela who are perfectly happy to see the back of Maduro. And I'm sure we're delighted to see him walking in cuffs into the hearing and the arraignment. But those same people may also react poorly just a few months from now if they believe that, in fact, this was all done in order to steal what they consider to be the one great resource of the country. You know, in the George H.W. Bush presidency and the George W. Bush presidency, both were accused of going to war in the Middle East in order to get oil. And neither of them actually got any oil. Right. Right.

37:09In this particular case, the president has been the one who has actually laid that out as an objective himself. And it seems rather remarkable. But to him, it's unremarkable because what's American power for? It's for our commercial benefit. Right. Which has been a theme throughout. Go ahead, Luisa and Alejandro. Alejandro. Yeah, no, I appreciate David's comments. I think it would be very important for Venezuelans as in the days and weeks to come that they feel that they can return to the country, that they feel that they're... These are expatriates. Expatriates, yes. I mean, 25 % of the population.

37:55So there are people that are in exile that don't even for one or two months. It's a very influx kind of population. But I would say that the lives of the day-to-day people, that they can go out to the streets, that they can find food, that they can feel that they don't live in a police state. Venezuela, since last year's elections, the repressive apparatus of the state has gone into steroids. And so it is extremely relevant for both Venezuelans at home and Venezuelans abroad to believe that there are steps taken to dismantle the police apparatus of the state and that we are heading towards, as I said, that this is a transition and we're heading towards a different kind of political system.

38:48I do think that Venezuelans are going to give the benefit of the doubt about announcing elections today. But that has a window of opportunity that is not, in my view, not very large. Yeah, I wonder about how large that window of opportunity is. And I do think just from the expressions of support or opposition over the last few days to the events over the weekend, And as I was mentioning before, how deep this new fissure might be between Venezuelans abroad, some Venezuelans abroad, I should say. I mean, as I think Lisa was pointing to, there's a huge variegation of expat Venezuelans. Yes, some exiled, some have to lead by force.

39:41Some who left more recently are darker skinned, poorer, and they don't really align very much with the lighter skin, wealthier, more professional. Venezuelans who left 10, 15, 20 years ago. And so there is that to think about. And I do wonder to what extent La Liga and Trump in particular, because of their primarily material interests, are thinking, well, that window could be extended. And in fact, it may be to our interest to extend that window, but we can show some kind of economic recovery to the point that Lisa was making about being able to better access food, to better access services, et cetera, et cetera.

40:23If there's a sense of material improvement, I do wonder that it may not backfire on Maida Corina Machado and others that they haven't, for instance, condemned or even slightly said much about a U.S. intervention in Venezuela. We'll be back in a minute.

40:45I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, Autobotulinum Toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk.

41:16Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

42:09It's about to power down. Limited time offer for new clients on federal returns. Participating locations only. Terms at jacksonnewitt.com slash 149. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three month plan equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available.

42:43Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at mintmobile.com. So I want to wrap up talking about some of the larger implications of the new reality. Trump coined this gunboat diplomacy as the Danmo Doctrine, as I mentioned. How is that going to affect the U.S.'s ability to constrain China and the Pacific, specifically in Taiwan? This has implications all over the world, presumably of sort of carving up the world, which does seem like a history lesson I had in 11th grade. First, it's true for all second-term presidents, but particularly presidents that lose control of one or both houses, that they turn to foreign policy, right?

43:19It's the place where they can set a legacy, and it's a place where they feel like they have the least constraints. And if we've learned anything about Donald Trump, it's he doesn't like constraints, right? And now has none. And for now has none. But if he gets some in Congress and his domestic agenda gets stalled out, he's going to become the all foreign policy president. And it's happened to others before. The second is I thought that his very specific warning to the president of Colombia sounded pretty menacing. For Cuba, it was sort of interesting. His answer was, oh, I don't need to do anything there because after we've cut off their funding from Venezuela, they're toast anyway.

44:02So we're just going to let them collapse on their own. And he may not be wrong on that one. You guys will have to correct me on that. And Greenland? So Greenland, I spent some time there this summer, this past summer. There's nothing to invade. It is a giant ice cap with a series of population centers, pretty small, along the coast. The president, if he really wanted to take control of Greenland, has a legal, easy way to do it that does not require the use of the Delta forces. He can actually exercise provisions that are in the treaty signed in 1951. We had a series of, I think, 16 or 17 bases there at the height of the Cold War.

44:53We abandoned most of them. I went to see some. It's not pretty what happens to buildings in a Greenland winter if they're unoccupied. It would take some money to go get these air bases back and running. But the United States has the right under the treaty to go do that. And one of the astounding questions is, why haven't we done that? not during Trump, but earlier. And so there's an easy way out. It's interesting that he would rather inflame the NATO allies by describing all the non-easy ways out. Which is typical, correct? So Trump has threatened Colombia and Rubio is very clear about using Venezuela to affect regime change in Cuba.

45:37They seem keen to remake Latin America in their image. How does that compare to earlier periods of U.S. intervention? What lessons should we be paying attention to, first Luisa, then Alejandro? What I've seen, and this is more from the financial and economics point of view, is that President Trump has given a lot of benefits to those that he considers his allies. And we saw it with the rescue package to Argentina that really made a difference for President Milley. I have to say that he also used tariffs indistinctively. So it was not clear to me that he was making too much of a difference. But it is clear that there is much more interest now in Latin America in its natural resources.

46:32And it's not about oil and gas. To me, we're seeing now a different kind of natural resource come to bear, which is critical minerals and mining. We have seen how China has used this ample reserves and control over critical minerals and refining of mining, which has a huge monopoly or very big monopoly position or big position against even against the U.S. And in that sense, it has become a weak point of U.S. productive capabilities. And so I do think that we are seeing Latin America not only a place where of U.S. political influence, but also a place of natural resource opportunities. And that will continue to play out, including how to think about Latin America from an infrastructure and logistical perspective, because we saw it with the Canal of Panama.

47:31And so there are things that are now entering into the sphere of national security that were not necessarily there in past presidencies. Alejandro, briefly? Yeah, I mean, that's such a good point because the other major player here, and I think David referenced him before, is Marco Rubio, specifically having to do with the Western Hemisphere. In fact, he was asked in the Sunday talk show, I was like, what's your interest in Latin America? Well, I've always been interested in the Hemisphere. It's my thing. And now, of course, it's the broader world, the Secretary of State. I think the issue here is that there are these two visions, right?

48:06There's one that's primarily material and it involves everything that Lisa was saying, not just hydrocarbons, but other types of minerals and resources that are drivers of the 21st century. Yeah, Lutnik kept bringing them up. He'd chirping them. Exactly. But there's another one that I think is more vestigial, and it's strange that it would be coming from Rubio rather than from Trump, which I do think, and I'm happy to be contradicted, that it has less to do with materials and it has much more to do with ideology. I think that if you read really closely the national security strategy document that they released a few weeks ago, it is primarily an ideological document.

48:44It is about remaking the hemisphere in particular and then the world more broadly, not just in our image, but basically to say that we assert our dominion, our power, our dominance over this part of the world. You heard Stephen Miller screaming about it. Yeah, no, exactly. And so, I don't think, it's not limited to material interest. I do think that there's this larger ideological project led by people like Miller, specifically Rubio, that say, hey, we can get rid of Venezuela's government, we can get rid of Cuba's government, any leftist government in the region. That is going to be a clarion call for the rest of the region that the left cannot come to power.

49:27Right. One of the things that reminded me of when he was screaming was the man spent too much time on Roman podcasts, history of Roman podcasts. So I'll end with the last, each of you asking a comment of something historian, speaking of history, Timothy Snyder wrote, the act of war is more about regime change in the United States than it was about anything in Venezuela. It only succeeds as fascism if Americans allow it to do so. So I'd love to hear from each of you, first David, then Luisa, and finally Alejandro about what he's saying here. You've sort of referenced there's a lot to do with the United States, then Venezuela.

50:01David first. Well, this does have a lot to do with the United States. And stepping away for a moment from the authoritarian question and just sort of pointing back to what Alejandro was just saying. focusing on the Western Hemisphere makes sense to that part of the Trump base that worries about whether or not the United States has spread its arms too far. But we've shown that we know how to do adventurism within our own neighborhood here as well. But it's also a narrowing of American interests. I mean, the Monroe Doctrine was written in an era when we had a couple of dozen ships and 3 ,500 American sailors, right?

50:39That's a fifth of what we put just in the Caribbean just to do this operation, right? America's economic future remains in the Indo-Pacific. And retreating us to this region, important as a region around us, is just mystifying in a world of global power and doesn't make sense in an era of cyber power, in an era of AI, in an era of space weapons. I mean, things that do not see regional boundary. Then the second question that you're asking is, what does it say about American authoritarianism? Well, it certainly speaks to a president who both at home and abroad has had a much more expansive view of presidential power And I think history suggests that once you let that out of the box, it's really hard to stuff back in.

51:37But at some point, the president's going to run into some limits. And you're beginning to see it even within the nervousness in his own party and the split in the MAGA world. Right. And also, as Scott Galloway always says, biology is undefeated on some level. It's like there's a time frame here. Yeah. That's what you're talking about. All right, Luisa and then Alejandro. Let me give it a completely different angle. Okay. I think globalization and the multi-power competition between the U.S., China, and Russia, instead of elevating everyone towards different kinds of values, has just normalized or has led to a different kind of way to interact in the global economy.

52:27And so that's one. The second thing is to me as somebody that comes from Latin America, and let's not forget that we're talking about events in Venezuela. One of the most important deceptions or I think in my view is that the left in Latin America was supposed to be about human rights. It was supposed to be about social development. It was supposed to be about many things. And unfortunately, the recent history, and there's no other place that has exemplified this as Venezuela, has shown a completely different view of that political, of those original ideals. And so I do think it says a lot about social democracies.

53:19And so what kind of political system is stable in Latin America? Why has those experiments of social democracies that were so relevant, even in Venezuela in the 1960s and 1970s, why did they derive in authoritarian regimes? And why didn't anything that the Venezuelans tried election after election after election? Why wouldn't sanctions lead to changing in behavior? So there are a lot of things that we, I think, are encountering in terms of the limits of the tools of foreign policy or tools of economic statecraft that used to work in the future. And that tells me that there's something about how, what this new world order represents and the kinds of political systems that it derives and the kind of economic or statecraft kinds of tools that are going to be present in the future.

54:14Great. Alejandro, finish up? Yeah, that's really powerful. Although I think most of the literature from economists and others would suggest that sanctions have never been a tool of political change, maybe one or two exceptions. But I think to Snyder's point that what this shows more is regime change here than it does elsewhere, and that it's really dependent and incumbent upon the United States public, really, and not just the public, of course, but other public elected officials, how far they're willing to actually go in allowing this new kind of power play by the Trump administration, what it means for the United States and the world to go on.

54:57It's a moment. And the press conference that he gave on Air Force One with Lindsey Graham next to him, it seemed like he was literally groveling in his joy. I'm sorry, that was groveling. It was groveling, right? You know, we have, I think, been saying that the Republican Party is now Trump's party. But this really, I think what Snyder is pointing to is a moment of how far are you willing to go to sacrifice not just control over the White House, but really over the U.S. position globally. I mean, is the project of the city on the Hill dead finally forever and evermore? That's really what's at stake.

55:38How could China, if Xi Jinping tomorrow goes and takes out Taiwan, under what position of credibility could the United States say that was wrong? There's none. And Europe too, right? I mean, they're kind of wishy-washy positions on what happened over the weekend. It really calls into question the viability of everything that sort of a liberal order has been standing on. and if it's allowed to go on and continue, then absolutely it will be consolidated and we're in the throes of an entirely new world. All right. On that note, this has been really substantive. I truly appreciate all of your thoughts.

56:16Thank you so much. Thanks. Great to see you, Kari. Thank you for having us, Kari. Thanks, everybody. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Michelle Eloy, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Catherine Barner. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode and our theme music is by Trackademics. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On With Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.