'Trump’s foreign policy toward Venezuela remains unclear, with actions edging dangerously close to a red line'

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00:00I'm just listening to that press conference of the Nobel Peace Laureate, Maria Corina Machado,

00:05the opposition leader from Venezuela. Philip Charles has been listening in on that as well.

00:10Philip, give us some more context here actually on where Maria Corina Machado stands in regard

00:15not just to President Maduro, but to U.S. President Trump.

00:19There have been suggestions that she is a supporter of Donald Trump. It's unclear exactly

00:26where the line lies right now. Judging from reports, as I was telling you earlier in the Wall Street Journal,

00:33which had been reprinted by the magazine Le Point here in France, when she was on her way to the ceremony

00:42and also didn't get there in time yesterday, was trying to get out of Venezuela,

00:45she got some help from the U.S. administration and there was a call to the U.S. Army to make sure

00:53that while she was trying to get across the sea to get to the U.S. that they didn't intervene.

00:59Because remember right now there are many attacks by the U.S. Army against fishing boats coming from Venezuela

01:04and they certainly didn't want her boat to be a victim of a missile attack.

01:09That went as far as the Trump administration, who then managed to set up someone to take her from Miami

01:17to Oslo by plane. That was someone who was a professional in picking up people

01:26and making sure they are taken out of a dangerous situation in one piece.

01:31So there was collusion. There was an effort by the Trump administration to help Maria Carina Mercado

01:38get out of the country and get to Oslo. And that has also said that she is someone who supports

01:47the Trump administration, saying that she devoted her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump.

01:53So yes, there is reason to believe that she is a supporter of the Trump administration in the United States.

02:00Philip, thank you for that. France 24's Philip Torrell.

02:02We're going to get a bit more analysis now from Latin America expert Eduardo Rios,

02:05who joins me now live. Eduardo, previous to this press conference, we had heard the new

02:11Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Carina Mercado, speaking out in favor of Donald Trump.

02:16As Philip was just saying a moment ago, she talked about massive opportunities for U.S. companies

02:20to get their hands on what she said could be $1.7 trillion worth of Venezuela's oil, its gas, its gold.

02:27How is her liberalization program perceived within Venezuela itself? What do people think of her?

02:32Yeah, that's a very good question. I think that Machado had a very interesting result

02:39in the elections last year to the point where she won because she is positioning herself as an

02:46anti-socialist candidate. And in that sense, being forcefully against socialism, the socialism that

02:55is being promoted by Nicolás Maduro resonates. Now, the important bit is that it doesn't matter

03:01how you apply the policy in Venezuela, the state will be the owner of the oil in the ground. So if

03:12you tax it or you explore it or you do it by the private sector, public sector of both, the state

03:18in Venezuela will still be the actor taking oil from the companies of the oil companies and moving

03:25into the rest of the people. So that structurally, what she is going to do is not going to change

03:30much in the short term. And that's an important point. That's why I don't think there's a lot

03:34of fear about what she's going to do, because she is going to be using the Venezuelan oil state

03:38in a really similar way as other many other people have.

03:42So given all of that, talk to us a bit more about what she represents to the Venezuelan people.

03:48Could she be the face of change in Venezuela?

03:51So that's a very interesting question. I think that there are two ways of understanding this.

03:55The first one is that she already won an election with a lot of votes. So she represents a real

04:02possibility of change. Now, the second point is that she has a very strong anti-socialist message

04:10in a country where there is a very strong socialist candidate. So she represents a message of change,

04:18and she represents a message of change that already has won elections in a very wide margin. So yes,

04:24she can. Now, the question I think that you're trying to get at is, is she this extremist

04:31candidate in Venezuela? And the answer is, I don't think she is. I think that she has a very strong

04:38anti-Maduro point of view, but I don't think she's like this extreme candidate that a lot of people want

04:44to see her as. And we can talk as to why in a second.

04:46Well, dude, tell us a bit more about that. Why?

04:50Yeah, why? Well, because first of all, she is the candidate in a country that has gone through 20

04:58years of socialist candidates. And so she will need to have a redistributive policy. She will need to

05:04be a very interventionist in the country, in the economy in the country, because the state will own

05:10the oil and it will have to be redistributed. She is the main person right now in an alliance of

05:17parties that by no means skew to the far right of politics in Venezuela. And she will have to

05:25negotiate with a military that is very much in line with what we're doing right now. So I don't think

05:32that if she gets to power, she will be the sole decision maker. And therefore, she will not be able

05:38to, as Trump is in the US or Millet was in Argentina or is being in Argentina, able to

05:43coordinate a political movement that can act in an extreme way. So she's very, she's going to be

05:47tempered by political, by the political scenario in Venezuela. That's an important point.

05:54Eduardo, I was just going to say, do stay with us. Of course, this comes in the context of those

05:58rising tensions between the US and Venezuela, with the US now saying it seized an oil tanker off the

06:03coast of Venezuela just yesterday. We're going to take a closer look at that with Morgan Aaron.

06:07I'm going to come back to you just after that.

06:11This is the daring moment US forces dropped from a helicopter to seize an oil tanker off

06:16Venezuela's coast. US media reported that the tanker is called the Skipper. Washington sanctioned

06:22it in 2022 over its ties to Iran and Hezbollah. Donald Trump confirmed the seizure, saying it was for

06:28a very good reason. As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,

06:37a large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually. And other things are happening.

06:45So the US Attorney General said the tanker had been used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela

06:51and Iran. For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its

06:56involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.

07:04By going after Venezuela's oil, this marks a significant push by the Trump administration

07:09to pressure Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, who it has charged with narco-terrorism.

07:14Maduro has denied any involvement in the drug trade and says the US just wants a regime change

07:19and Venezuelan oil. The country has the largest proven oil reserves in the world,

07:25which reached around 303 billion barrels in 2023. This view was shared by a US Democratic Senator,

07:32Chris Van Hollen, who said that by seizing the oil tanker, it casts doubt on the White House

07:37claims that it's stopping drugs and its real goal is to oust the current Venezuelan regime.

07:44Let me bring back in Latin American expert Eduardo Rio. What are your thoughts

07:49on this seizure of the Venezuelan oil tanker and Donald Trump's

07:52overall strategy in the region at the moment? Is he determined to see regime change?

07:57Yeah. Okay. So this is the important bit. Okay. There are three things happening right

08:00now in Venezuela and the three are happening at the same time. The first one is there is a debate about

08:06who stays in power. Maria Corina Machado won the election. Maduro doesn't want to lead,

08:11doesn't want to recognize. First point, regime change in Venezuela. Second point,

08:16it is about oil. Venezuela has the oil reserves. Trump has an oil policy. The third point is about

08:21internal political, internal politics within the US. Trump won the Latino vote by a fair margin and is

08:28losing support dramatically in the Latino community because of two things. The economy is not going as

08:34well as he expected and as they expected. Sorry. And the immigration policy has hit home. So what is

08:41happening right now is that any person telling you that it's one, the other or the third one is pushing

08:48a political message. Is this about regime change in Venezuela in the sense that there is a debate about

08:55Austin Maduro that has been happening for the past 10 years? Yes, there is. But it's not the only

08:59explanation. Is this about oil? Yes, Venezuela has a lot of oil. But as we speak, Trump allowed Exxon

09:06Mobile to explore oil in Venezuela. So he could get oil out of Venezuela without having to oust Maduro.

09:12That's an important point. Now, what is happening is that he wants to do, he wants to look good and

09:19forceful to win Latino votes, particularly in Texas and in Florida. He wants to

09:29get more oil out of Venezuela and potentially also oust Maduro. But not all of them need to be

09:35done at the same time. And there is a way in which you oust Maduro and don't get the oil. There is a way

09:39in which you look good, but don't oust Maduro. And so all of these policies are happening simultaneously,

09:46which seems very muddled, but at the same time, don't allow you to know what is actually happening,

09:54because I don't think that there is a clarity vis-à-vis, let me rephrase this, the foreign policy,

10:00the Trump foreign policy vis-à-vis Venezuela is not clear. It's not all univocal and unidirectional.

10:06It is driven by these three main points, which are acting at the same time and have been since

10:11September when they started putting the votes in front of Venezuela.

10:13Right. But given these three points, and given that this focus we've seen mostly from Donald

10:17Trump on operations at sea, given that Donald Trump has mentioned on going in on land to Venezuela,

10:23do you think he would go that far? And can he do that?

10:28Now, when they only had 3,000 amphibian troops in September, that was unlikely. Now that they have

10:3415,000 troops and an aircraft carrier in front of Venezuela, it can happen. Now,

10:39is it the likeliest option that it will happen? No. Can it happen? Yes. This is how I think we

10:44should think of Venezuela in probabilistic terms. What is the main probability right now? The main

10:49probability is that Trump will not go for a land offensive in Venezuela because that will not sit

10:55well with people in the US. That as a polling position, that is the position that has the

11:02lowest polling in the US right now. Now, can there be a world in which the 15,000 troops that are

11:11stationed outside of Venezuela are used for what 15,000 troops can be used, which is attacking countries?

11:16Yes. So I think that you're asking a yes or no question. And I'm very sad to say that I can't

11:22provide an answer. What I can provide is saying, probabilistically speaking, an attack on Venezuela

11:28is on the table, where I don't think it was a month ago. So you're right in asking the question

11:34about how severe this is. I think that we're still in that place where they don't want to

11:38get into Venezuela. But they are really, really playing with the red line here.

11:45Eduardo, thank you for that. That's Latin American expert Eduardo Rios speaking to me live from London.

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