00:00Yes, I think the closest comparison is probably in Panama a few decades ago.
00:07But really, in recent years, compared to Latin America policy from the United States in the last decade and a half, this really is unprecedented.
00:17And I think that the level of coercive messaging that this sends to the rest of the region is really significant,
00:22because essentially what the U.S. president has said, and frankly almost said it verbatim in his press conference a few hours ago,
00:30is that those leaders of Latin American countries who are not on board can face this type of military action.
00:37That is a very stark message, and I think stands to really reconfigure security arrangements throughout the region.
00:43Yeah, it certainly is interesting. I do remember during the press conference, there was a brief mention of Cuba and Cuba's government as well.
00:49But before we get into that, I want to talk about the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,
00:54who came out to say that the legal assessment of American action in Venezuela will take time.
01:02What could be the international legal implications here that the U.S. may have to face in carrying out this mission?
01:10You know, I think there are legal implications at home within the United States and then also those abroad.
01:14At home, I think there are already a lot of questions from the U.S. Congress about why this action did not,
01:19why the president did not seek congressional approval beforehand.
01:23And in fact, I think resistance to the president's military campaign in the Caribbean,
01:27for example, the attacks against small trafficking speedboats that were allegedly carrying drugs,
01:32has already faced significant questions in Congress.
01:35So that, I think, is one layer here.
01:37You know, on an international scale, certainly, you know,
01:40the justification of force to remove another government does seem to go against sort of the U.N. charter
01:47and norms that have governed the world, really, since, you know, since World War II.
01:52I think in terms of some of the other details around this, and they're not details, frankly,
01:57they're huge aspects of this, but we just don't know.
02:00Are details, for example, about how many civilians were killed,
02:03what sort of infrastructure might have been damaged,
02:05the extent of follow-up from the strikes is really not known at this point.
02:10The question now, too, is what happens next now that Maduro is on his way to the United States
02:17to face charges there?
02:20What do you make of President Trump saying that the United States will be running Venezuela
02:24until such time a transition of power can be executed?
02:28Of course, we have no details of what that might actually look like now,
02:32but what do you make of those comments?
02:35This is a truly befuddling statement,
02:36because one of the first things that we noticed learning the details of this operation
02:40is, of course, that, yes, Maduro and his wife were removed,
02:45but they were just one part of a larger government system
02:48that is really a broader organism,
02:51a web of contexts and interests and alliances,
02:55held together, frankly, by patronage,
02:57by the spreading of corrupt rents throughout, up and down the system.
03:01All of that was left intact.
03:03The ministers were left there.
03:04The vice president, who has now been sworn in as the interim leader,
03:08all of that remains intact.
03:09And so I think, you know, while this was a removal of the head of state,
03:14it was certainly not, from all indications, a change of regime,
03:18because the regime goes much deeper.
03:19What the United States means by running Venezuela
03:25truly seems to disregard the history of U.S. military intervention in recent years
03:32in places like Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan,
03:36where governing the day after has proven far more challenging
03:39than the initial military operations to remove a particular party from power.
03:45So I think for us, this is the question.
03:47What happens next? What sort of planning is in place?
03:50What deal really has Washington struck with the interim leader, Delcey Rodriguez?
03:55And where do we go from here?
03:56Who will control, for example, basic services, the energy grid, provision of water?
04:01I think those are the things to watch in the coming hours
04:03to see really who is holding the reins of power in practice on the ground
04:08and what the U.S.'s role and influence may or may not be.
04:12You mentioned there the Vice President, Delcey Rodriguez.
04:17President Trump said that she'd been sworn in,
04:20given the vacancy that Maduro has now left.
04:24She has come out to speak on state TV to say that there is only one president,
04:29and that is Nicolás Maduro.
04:31I wonder, we also know, too, that she's had at least two conversations
04:36with the U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio as well.
04:41I wonder what her role may be in a transition of power.
04:45This is a very delicate situation, and I think that's exactly the question that we all need to ask.
04:49What is this arrangement?
04:51What sort of power sharing or influence will the U.S. have?
04:55And a key factor here is the control of Venezuela's military apparatus,
05:00so the security forces, which, again, up to this point,
05:03have proven extremely resilient to efforts to fracture them.
05:06In repeated efforts at coups, at destabilizing the regime,
05:11the military has held together,
05:13and that is due to efforts during the government of Maduro
05:15and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez,
05:17to coup-proof this military against precisely these sorts of fissures.
05:22We don't know now where they stand.
05:24Are there splits?
05:25Is there a part of the military that's willing to have a transition?
05:28Is there a part that will resist?
05:30I imagine that Delcey Rodriguez is also in a very delicate situation
05:33in terms of managing those internal dynamics to which she is also subject.
05:38And I think we can't disregard the complexity of this situation,
05:42which is, again, going back to the question about sort of U.S. control,
05:45really the primary question at this moment is if the U.S. understands the level of complication
05:55that may enter into its attempts to establish now order
05:59once the situation sort of comes to a calm.
06:03Another interesting angle to this story, of course,
06:08is in relation to the opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.
06:16Now, the U.S. had seemingly been supportive of her.
06:20Apparently, they'd helped smuggle her out of Venezuela,
06:23where she was in hiding,
06:25in order for her to get to Norway to get her Nobel Peace Prize.
06:28But what do you make of President Trump dismissing her as potential leader of Venezuela?
06:35She, you know, he had said that she does not have the support of Venezuelans.
06:40Well, the point of departure here that's quite interesting is that Maria Corina Machado
06:43has been a proponent of U.S. military action in Venezuela.
06:47After years of attempts at nonviolent protest in elections
06:51and trying to unseat this government through peaceful means,
06:54and elections in 2024 that the opposition won,
06:57but that Maduro failed to recognize,
07:00I think Maria Corina leads a faction of the opposition
07:02that was looking for this sort of outside intervention.
07:06And she had formed what looked like an alliance with the Trump administration.
07:10The declaration by Trump in his press conference
07:13sort of dismissing her possibility to lead
07:15is certainly a blow to those ambitions.
07:18And we'll see if that is really a definitive statement
07:21or if we have a reconfiguration of these alliances going forward.
07:24It's quite interesting, in fact, in the context of which
07:27Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader, of course,
07:30also put out a statement just hours before Trump's press conference
07:35saying that she would announce future plans for the people of Venezuela in the coming hours.
07:42It is interesting.
07:43I want to go back to that brief mention of Cuba during the press conference there
07:49that President Trump had given.
07:51I wonder if that was a veiled warning to the Diaz-Canada government there.
07:56And how do you think Havana may be viewing the current toppling of President Maduro?
08:01I think not just Cuba, but the broader region are really viewing this action with a lot of trepidation.
08:08Cuba, I think, of course, has long been on a priority list,
08:11particularly from Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
08:14in terms of destabilizing or even unseating the regime there.
08:18This is a significant political constituency within the United States
08:22of those who have escaped from Cuba in recent decades
08:25who have advocated for that policy for some time,
08:28advocated for the embargo, and have advocated for more aggressive U.S. actions.
08:32So there is certainly reason to believe that this could be a precursor
08:35to more significant U.S. policy and intervention, frankly, across Latin America.
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