The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: In the early hours of Saturday morning Jan. 3, Venezuelans were awoken by the sounds of bombs falling.

Videos shared widely over WhatsApp and social media are shocking. US helicopters whirl overhead, missile strikes, explosions across the capital Caracas and in surrounding states.

Hours of chaos, fear, and uncertainty.

President Donald Trump would post over social media that the US had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, amid a “large-scale” strike against the country.

That news was confirmed by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who would soon be sworn in to serve as interim president.

This is the first unilateral US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the United States kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. 

The Trump administration used the same excuse to detain Maduro despite a lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking. 

Trump’s attack on Venezuela marks a return to a terrifying not-so-distant past when the United States felt emboldened and entitled to carry out unilateral military action against sovereign nations to achieve its goals.

But with this strike, the United States has taken an unprecedented step: this is the first time the United States has used its own military to invade a South American country.

Now people across Venezuela and the region are trying to figure out what it all means, and what happens next… 

That… in a minute 

[THEME MUSIC]

This is Under the Shadow — An investigative narrative podcast series that looks at the role of the United States abroad in the past and the very, very present.

This podcast is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.

I’m your host, Michael Fox — Longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist. The producer and host of the podcasts Brazil on Fire and Stories of Resistance. I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years in Latin America.

I’ve seen firsthand the role of the US government abroad. And most often, sadly, it is not for the better: invasions, coups, sanctions. Support for authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years. It still does…. 

This is Season 2 of Under the Shadow: Trump’s Attack.

If you listened to Season 1 about the US role in Central America, you know that in each episode I take you to a location where something historic happened, diving into the past to try and decipher what it means today. I’ll still do that here. But Season 2 is also going to be a little different. Because my goal is to respond in real time to the Trump Administration’s onslaught in Latin America.

Today that is, unfortunately, more important than ever.

Just in recent months, we’ve seen the boat strikes, threats of a US invasion of Venezuela, the seizure of multiple tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, US intervention in the Honduran election, tariff war, and on early Saturday morning, a US invasion of Venezuela. The United States deployed 150 aircraft. More than 40 people were killed. Buildings destroyed. The president and his wife, kidnapped.

In the last episode — The first of this season — I looked at the Trump administration’s new National Security Doctrine and how Trump is now justifying intervention in the region with his new “Trump Corollary” of the Monroe Doctrine.

Today, I take you to Caracas to look in-depth at the Jan. 3 US invasion of Venezuela. You’ll note that today is a little different than usual. In order to respond quickly to the US attack, I’ll be speaking this whole episode with Caracas-based reporter Ricardo Vaz.

RICARDO VAZ [CLIP]:  I’m an editor at Venezuela Analysis, a political analyst and journalist here working on the ground in Venezuela.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]:  I spoke with Ricardo on the afternoon of Sunday, Jan. 4, the day after the invasion. He spoke from his home in Caracas, where his electricity has just returned. Power was presumably cut by US forces across Caracas during the invasion. Here is our conversation in its entirety.

[MUSIC]

MICHAEL FOX:  Ricardo, let me just start by saying thank you so much for being with me today. I really, really appreciate it.

RICARDO VAZ:  Hey, Mike, thanks for the invitation. It’s actually, I’m a bit calmer and better right now. I mean, yesterday it was just, it still feels a bit like a surreal dream, and I had no electricity, and trying to deal with the whirlwind of news and speculation. Now it seems things are settling down a little bit and maybe we can start to take stock at least of some things that have happened.

MICHAEL FOX:  Exactly. Well, let’s just start off with right now, what is the feeling on the ground in Venezuela?

RICARDO VAZ:  There are still a lot of questions to be answered. First of all, how many people died in the US bombing campaign? We still don’t know that. There have been, obviously information starts to circulate and there are pictures, gruesome pictures, of people killed and maimed in these attacks. Some preliminary reports of at least 40 killed, although other people suggest that the figure might end up being a lot higher.

But it seems that there is an effort from the government here, Delcy Rodríguez taking over to kind of restore normalcy. So, she had the Supreme Court endorse her in a way or so saying that she is the one, according to the constitution, that should take over as interim president. The armed forces have issued a statement backing her. So, there is a sense of trying to get things back to normal as quickly as possible while we try to process everything.

MICHAEL FOX:  Wow. It’s just crazy, Ricardo. It’s just crazy.

Walk me back to yesterday. I’m sure for you, it must seem like a week ago, but it was literally just a day ago. Can you describe the invasion? Were you awake for it? What happened?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, so my New Year’s resolution was to go to bed a bit earlier, but I’m still working on that. So it was 2:00 AM. I had actually just shut off work for the day. And I was just, you know, doing some last minute errands in the house. And then suddenly… Power went out and I mean, of course, hindsight is 20/20, but I had a feeling something was going on. And then there was a huge boom, like something I’d never felt before. I’d never been in a war zone or anything like it. So it was clear. This was no remnant of New Year’s fireworks. So there was a loud boom and then a sequence of others. So, I mean, I have a balcony, I immediately went out, I couldn’t actually see it, it was not in my line of sight.

But then, I mean, you go on social media and there are immediately lots and lots of reports, Caracas is being bombed, airplanes are flying. And we we continue to hear these explosions. And then we see photos of Fuerte Tiuna, that’s the largest military installation here in Caracas with fires and large columns of smoke. Also that the Francisco Miranda Air Base in La Carlota had also been bombed.

And then other that other bombings that turned out not to be confirmed. One of them was Miraflores Palace, also the Cuartel de la Montaña, where Chávez’s mausoleum is being held. And we were trying to to make sense of it.

And then the scariest part was videos of helicopters, helicopters flying in Caracas and bombing targets on the ground around Fuerte Tiuna. So, what are these helicopters? Analysts saying, this is the 160 SOAR [Special Operations Aviation Regiment] special operation tactical team. What are they here for? And then, so this was from 2:00 AM to around 3:30 when we stopped hearing bombings.

And then what happened to the helicopters? Are they still here? Have they left? Are there troops on the ground? Who knows? And then 5:00 AM there was this announcement from Trump that they had captured Maduro and First [Lady] Cilia Flores. So, there were five minutes where people were wondering if this was fake until it was confirmed by other sources. And that was basically the end of the bombing campaign and the operation.

We saw first Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino come out. I think he made this statement before he had any idea that Maduro had been captured, saying that we are preparing resistance, we reject this cruel and illegal attack, and then Diosdado Cabello also called on people to go out on the streets. So that was, let’s say, the night portion of, or the early portion of the events.

MICHAEL FOX:  Crazy. How big was people’s responses? Did many people hit the streets? Did you go see some of the protests that were happening yesterday during the daytime?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, so I walked around for a bit. People went out from the early hours, but there wasn’t a lot of them. I mean, a crowd in the hundreds, maybe low thousands around Miraflores Palace. But also, keep in mind, there was no public transportation, so it wasn’t that easy to get around. But people made a point of showing up, and that’s always the gathering point where to protect the Bolivar Revolution. It’s around Miraflores Palace.

But there was a few hours of really not knowing what was going on because people started together in the morning and then the question is, where is Delcy Rodríguez? Is she going to say something? There were rumors that turned out to be false that she was in Russia. And then we had this, I mean, all Trump press conferences are inexperienced, but this press conference where Trump’s saying he’s going to run the country and the people behind him, presumably Rubio, is going to run the country, and we’re going to take all the all the oil, and we’re going to get back what they owe us. 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]:  We’re there now. We’re ready to go again if we have to. We’re going to run the country right. It’s going to run very judiciously, very fairly. It’s going to make a lot of money. We’re going to give money to the people. We’re going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of. We’re going to take care of everybody.

RICARDO VAZ: I mean, just a sequence of bluster. But with the “triumph” of having secured Maduro’s arrest in this special operations raid. And then the most critical part of what he said regarding what happens next, it was very surprising that he was so forceful in dismissing far-right leader Maria Corina Machado, just saying, you know, oh, we like her, but she basically has no prospects of holding power right now. I think he said she doesn’t have the respect of the country, something like this.

[CLIP BEGINS]

PRESS [CLIP]:  Is the US aware of the location of opposition leader Machado, and have you been in contact with her? 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]:  No, we haven’t really. I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.

[CLIP ENDS]

RICARDO VAZ:  And then he talked about Delcy Rodríguez, saying that she’s the one in charge right now. She was sworn in. She actually wasn’t sworn in. And [Marco] Rubio talked to her and she said she’s going to do everything we demand. I’m kind of paraphrasing, but it was something to this effect.

And then still we had to wait at least a couple more hours before Delcy herself gave a press conference. And her tone was very defiant, saying that Maduro is the president and we demand Maduro’s release and return, and that a lot of emergency mechanisms that had been set in place before were activated. This state of external commotion and this National Defense Council is also active. And basically she emphasized that the situation is calm.

I think that’s one of the priorities for the government is not having any kind of internal chaos that can inspire loss of control. So, basically getting things to work. And a good sign, also from my narrow perspective, was the restoration of electricity in parts of central Caracas, because that’s always an issue and always a worry whether the state retains functions, retains the capability to do these important things. And it seems that at least there’s some sense of normalcy returned.

MICHAEL FOX:  So Ricardo, can you just tell me again who Delcy Rodríguez is? She’s now the acting interim president.

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, so this is, let’s say, the final step in a very strong and quick ascendancy for Delcy Rodríguez. So she wasn’t, I mean, she’s also younger, but she wasn’t very prominent during the Chávez presidency. But under Maduro, she has taken an ever more important and ever present role. So first, she was foreign minister. And she was foreign minister when Venezuela had these recurring battles in the OAS [Organization of American States], as you’ll remember. And then she actually was president of the Constituent Assembly in 2017. And then she became vice president. And a few years later, she also took over as finance minister and then as oil minister.

So, she is clearly the strongest person when it comes to Venezuela’s economic policy and the oil industry, which, for better or worse, is still the heartbeat of the Venezuelan economy. So, she is clearly a key person in that regard.

And as vice president, she and the Supreme Court gave this interpretation. She’s the one that takes over as interim president in the, they call it temporary absence of the sitting president, which is Maduro.

So for Delcy, she was already calling the shots in many regards in terms of international relations. She was the one that went very regularly to India, to China, to talk with counterparts and try and negotiate investment deals. And also inside, it’s no secret that, under these crushing sanctions, the Venezuelan government has offered plenty of concessions to the private sector and also undoing some of the regulations. And Delcy is the person who has had this rapport with the private sector guilds, with Fedecamaras.

So, she’s the one that has the relations right now, both domestically and abroad, to take over the reins of the country. So in that sense, it wasn’t any surprise. And now, I mean, of course, it’s different to be sitting on the big chair as opposed to advising and having someone else have the final word. But I mean, let’s see now what Delcey does in terms of policy. Also, how does she handle this US, not pressure, it’s outright blackmail, while also denouncing the kidnapping and this illegal trial against Maduro? So she has a lot on her plate. So let’s see how she handles it.

MICHAEL FOX:  This is one of the things that I thought was really interesting also, because you saw Trump’s press conference and it’s like, basically, we’ve taken over Venezuela. These are the guys who are going to run it. Like you said, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, the defense minister.

But then on the flip side, when it comes to Venezuela, then you see Delcy Rodriguez and she’s very strongly defiant. What does that tension mean for the US-Venezuela relationship going forward, what does that mean for Venezuela’s path ahead?

RICARDO VAZ:  I mean, it’s clearly a very tricky path ahead, but we now have a bit more clarity. Marco Rubio gave some statements just a while ago. And again, surprising that Marco Rubio would dismiss the opposition’s prospects. He basically said, you know, ‘we like them, but they’re basically all abroad. So then there’s nothing they can do right now.’ And he said, I mean, he kind of explained what this run the country is going to mean. So he said, ‘we are in touch with the new authorities and we hope they will make the right decisions. And if not, we have,’ I think he said, ‘levers of leverage.’ So these economic sanctions, this naval blockade that he said was going to remain in place. So basically they want to coerce the new administration and they have this threat of just coming back and bombing again if it doesn’t go according to what they want. And basically what they want, and I’m not guessing anymore, it’s just Trump in his own words, I mean, they want the oil. So they want some very favorable oil arrangements for US corporations.

MICHAEL FOX:  Do we have any idea of a timeline of what things could look like in the coming weeks, in the coming months? Did Delcy give any sense of if US oil corporations might actually get the beneficial treatment and things like that?

RICARDO VAZ:  She didn’t give anything specific, but she did say something that seemed a bit out of place. I mean, she said that Venezuela was prepared to have relations with the US so long as they are based on respect, which is something a bit unusual to say, you know after the US has just bombed your country and kidnapped your president. But I mean, that has been a common line in the Venezuelan discourse. So maybe it’s not that out of place. If there are going to be deals, I would expect them to be maybe not in the next week, but maybe very, very soon. And it will take some effort to kind of… I mean there will be, I’m sure there are negotiations going on right now, but then they will have to realize how they’re going to, you know on both sides, how they’re going to present it because it is undoubtedly a concession. So even though you can try to say that, oh, you know, the US companies are coming in and they’re bringing investment, it’s still something that was forced upon you, forced upon Venezuela on the back of missiles. So that’s the tricky balance that the Venezuelan government and Delcy Rodriguez in particular now being in charge has to navigate.

MICHAEL FOX:  Ricardo, just real quick, because I feel like this is one of the things that is not well-understood. Trump keeps repeating that this is our oil and it was stolen from us. Can you just give some context to that? Like, what’s the actual reality and why is that just ridiculous?

RICARDO VAZ:  Trump says something and then there are propagandists who come and try and explain what Trump should have said. So Trump says, you know, it’s our oil and they stole it from us. And then I think it was… one of one of one of the administration officials who said, oh, you know, the Venezuelan oil industry was built by US investment and ingenuity. And US corporations were involved almost from the start, but I mean, they had such a favorable arrangement of just taking the oil and not paying anything that, I mean, on the look of it, I mean, actually Venezuela could charge for illegal profits retroactively. But what Trump is referring to, and again, this is a guess because Trump doesn’t really bother to make sense.

So what Trump is referring to is probably the 1976 nationalization, which was a partial nationalization that was then partially reversed in the 1990s with what’s called the oil opening, the Abertura Petrolera that allowed, again, great benefits for foreign corporations. And then the Chavez government, first with the hydrocarbons law of 2001, and then with the decrease in 2007, reasserted, let’s say, the state’s hegemony over the oil industry by demanding that Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA hold at least a majority stake in oil in oil joint joint ventures and perhaps 60% stake in in some of them. And there were corporations that accepted the new rules. Chevron was one of them, and then they are still around. But others, and the most important ones are ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, rejected.

But they didn’t just have their assets confiscated. I mean, confiscated is a word that doesn’t make any sense in this context. So there were offers of compensation. Some companies accepted it. These two in particular and others, many others did not.

And they took Venezuela to international arbitration. you know, this state investor courts that somehow always rule in favor of the investors. And so Exxon Mobil was already paid. I mean, they wanted 20 billion in compensation, Venezuela appealed and it was brought down to one billion, which was seen as a major victory. And that was paid. Venezuela doesn’t owe anything to ExxonMobil. And ConocoPhillips, there were some settlements already achieved. There were others that were not able to be fulfilled because of sanctions.

But ConocoPhillips is one of the companies that’s going to profit from the corporate plunder of Citgo. So in a sense, these corporations are already or have either been compensated or in the process of being compensated for these nationalizations. So Trump’s discourse doesn’t make any sense. It’s not really about looking back and getting back what was quote unquote owed because there is nothing owed. And also, I mean, the oil is a sovereign resource. It’s about going forward and securing a strategic a resource that’s very close and in the most favorable and affordable conditions. to you know bolster US hegemony and prepare for future, perhaps inevitable confrontation with China.

MICHAEL FOX:  You know, there was something that someone said in my last episode of Under the Shadow that was along the lines of the fact that this is no longer America first for US interests or for the people of the United States. This is America first for corporations.

This is neoliberalism on steroids. This is not just a return to the Monroe Doctrine of the past, but rather a Monroe Doctrine that is explicitly defending US corporate interests. And it’s fascinating how Trump speaks that language, right? When he’s there on the tarmac speaking about oil, he doesn’t say, ‘well, this was US oil companies’ oil,’ and then these things happen. He says, ‘this is our oil,’ as if the US oil companies is the United States.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]:  You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil from not that long ago. And we want it back. But they took it. They illegally took it.

MICHAEL FOX:  I just think that’s a, it’s like this really terrifying, but also really interesting nugget of truth in this moment as Trump is pushing, not just in Venezuela, but in so many other places. Ricardo, what is like, what are people feeling now? What are Venezuelans that you’re talking to or on the streets? Are there concerns of a new Trump bombing? Are people just shocked? What’s the feeling on the ground in that sense?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, I mean, there’s still a lot of shock and still trying to process everything that went on, as you can imagine. And there is, of course, now a looming fear that this might happen at any moment because it happened without any warning and in the middle of the night when people were really not expecting it. So that’s clearly you know on the back of people’s minds. 

But I think there is a sense of outrage even from from Venezuelan opposition figures of you know what is a very blatant violation on one hand of international sovereignty but then of our international of international law, but in what concerns Venezuela of national sovereignty, of of just you know going into another country and bombing without any kind of mandate and kidnapping the country’s sitting president. So even people who wanted Maduro out of power, unless they are really US agents, they cannot tolerate something like this because you know who’s to say that it doesn’t happen again tomorrow. And the same goes for other Latin American countries, who’s to say that at some point Trump will not flip a switch and do this to them. So I think it’s also important, and there are signs in that direction, that there be a unified response in condemning this. and also not just condemning, because these statements only take you so far, but actually demanding some action in return.

So that’s that’s so certainly a feeling right now on the ground and it was very it was kind of a common thread in the people who took the mic yesterday in these spontaneous demonstrations saying that you know what are international agencies going to do? Are they just going to stand by is this going to be the new normal i mean the line has been crossed a while ago i mean at what point do we see a reaction And actually, there’s a UN Security Council meeting, I think, today, and there were two of them before that only produced statements and condemnation of US escalation. you know I would guess very generously that a red line has already been crossed. So is there at least going to be a resolution that forces the US to to use its veto?

MICHAEL FOX:  Right, exactly. For you, could how shocking was this US invasion? Could you have imagined it even with all of the talk and the rhetoric about the potential of the United States invading going back 20 years and all of the buildup in the Caribbean? Was it still like a shock when it was actually rolling out and was actually happening?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, I mean, of course, we all made our predictions based on what we had seen and where things were going. I actually thought that this was no longer really on the table after the US imposed this, what they called an oil quarantine and the naval blockade. I saw that as perhaps an admission that this kind of thing was not possible. And so they were going back to the kind of slow death asphyxiation to, you know, extract whatever concessions they want in also, I mean, also in the near term, but with a different approach. So it was definitely unexpected.

And I mean, we had spent a lot of time watching these radars and seeing the US warplanes waltzing around close to Venezuelan shore. So maybe that created a false sense of security that it was just you know one show of force after another. But there were no signs that this was actually on about to happen. I mean, we knew that the US aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, was relatively close. But again, I mean, and also, I mean, we have to talk about the reaction or the response from the Venezuelan armed forces because there was supposed to be some kind of deterrence. You know, some kind of force that would make the US think twice before not just bombing, but, you know, doing this kind of land incursion. And in the end, perhaps there was so much preparation and Venezuelan armed forces were caught off guard, but there was really not much resistance put when these helicopters came in and then executed the operation to kidnap President Maduro.

I’m guessing we’ll know more details in the coming days and weeks. But that’s, I mean, I think I was caught by surprise as an outside analyst, but by the looks of it, the Venezuelan armed forces were also not ready to confront it.

MICHAEL FOX:  Yeah. Ricardo, what do we know right now about the tankers and the oil sanctions? I know Trump has said he’s going to continue with those sanctions and continue blocking the tankers in the blockade. But is there hope that that might be rolled back in the coming weeks?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, so I’m guessing that if US corporations are going to come in, there’s going to have to be some kind of relaxation. So at least the lifting of this physical naval blockade. Right now, I think everyone is still in a wait and see pattern. So, there are oil operations going on, of course, but we haven’t seen neither and another attempt to seize a tanker nor you know anything blatant like a blacklisted tanker going in and out. I’m guessing in the coming days, we’re going to see if there’s a new pattern emerging here on this front. 

My guess is that… I mean, Trump already has his political victory. I mean, he already did this very daring raid and did something that, I mean, it’s the most blatant violation of international law you can think of. You know, he kidnapped another country’s sitting president. So in one sense, he can already gloat about it and do his victory lap. And perhaps he can loosen a bit the naval blockade as he prepares to force the entry of US corporations.

MICHAEL FOX:  Have we heard anything from Maria Corina Machado and any response? I know she was a big supporter of actual US intervention. And then of course, like you mentioned, Trump kind of really gave her the sidestep during his speech on Saturday.

RICARDO VAZ:  In honesty, I haven’t had time to really keep up with her. She was very enthusiastic in the early morning saying, you know, the hour of freedom has arrived. And she wasn’t shy about saying, you know, we are prepared to take power at any moment and we have a plan for the first 100 hours, 100 days and whatever. And I mean, right now, her political prospects are a bit shaky because Trump said quite openly, you know, she doesn’t have conditions to rule the country.

And the one the approval that she needs is not from the Venezuelan people because it can be imposed at the end of a gun, she needs Trump’s approval. And if Trump says she’s not being considered, then basically what does she do now? She’s abroad. I’m guessing she’s going to kind of regroup and then try and piggyback on the US success and claim that you know it’s boosting her prospects in the future.

But she has, perhaps out of everyone, she has a lot of spin, of political spin to try and become relevant once again. But it’s clear that right now the opposition is not a factor. I mean, during the bombing and late morning, there were stories, you know, Venezuelans are going out to celebrate, but I mean, that wasn’t really happening. So their mobilization capacity is very diminished right now. and the administration knows this. I mean, that’s why they say the opposition doesn’t have any conditions to take power because if it was up to them, they would put a surrogate in power without thinking twice. But for their prospects and they want stability and they want the oil, this is the scenario that they find gives them the best possibilities.

MICHAEL FOX:  Wow. Ricardo, is there anything else to add in particular having to do with kind of what this means for US imperialism, US intervention, Monroe Doctrine, kind of in the region. You know, the significance of this invasion?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, I mean, this is definitely a new chapter in the US projection of force in the region. I mean, this kind of direct intervention we haven’t seen since Panama, really. So there is, of course, a worry, and I hope that Latin American countries take it seriously, that this is going to, I mean, they have to stop it from becoming the norm once again. And even Panama was already kind of the last part. breath of the plant condor and everything we had seen in the decades prior. So it is really, I mean, it is no longer a moment when you can just call for dialogue and just look at your own narrow interests and trying to stay on the Trump administration’s good graces, because we see how quickly that can flip. you know Trump will just turn his focus somewhere else and issue threats. And now he has shown that it’s not just a bluff. I mean, it comes in and it comes in with deadly force. So that on one hand. And on the other, the other front that’s going to be open for a few weeks is Maduro’s trial. I mean, right now he’s in the US, he’s in custody.

I mean, I think everyone knows by now these quote unquote, narco terrorism charges have no ground on reality. And perhaps that’s why Trump just ditched it at a moment’s notice and started talking about the oil. But still, I mean, it’s a US court and it has sealed evidence and it has these carefully groomed witnesses. So it’s also a precedent of you know, just going in and kidnapping another country’s sitting president and forcing them to face U.S. justice when there is no jurisdiction. You know, the US justice system does not have universal jurisdiction.

So that’s going to be another precedent in terms of violations of international law that, you know, either it’s going to be imposed and no one is really going to want to do anything about it, or there’s going to be some pushback and some consequences.

MICHAEL FOX:  Can you just talk really quickly about these drug trafficking charges on Maduro? I mean, like we’ve heard from so many different people and so many analysts, they are ridiculous, but it’s still there. He’s still in a Southern court. They actually came and invaded Venezuela for this. So what’s this based on? Do we have any sense?

RICARDO VAZ:  I think the one thing to realize is how the US wants to frame this, because keep in mind that 70% of the US public, according to polls, was against any kind of intervention. And there were these two war power resolutions, in one in the House and the other in the Senate, that were narrowly rejected. And the word behind the scenes was that Rubio and Hegseth had given assurances to Republican congressmen that something like this was not going to happen.

So their effort is to say that this was not an act of war. I mean, it’s absurd, but I mean, it’s the discourse. This was not an act of war, but an act of law enforcement. You know, we went in to apply US law and bring to justice someone who had been accused of doing whatever.

So that, I mean, in one part is the construction of a legal, very narrow and a very dubious, to say the least, legal argument. But as for the charges themselves, I mean, they accused Maduro of conspiring to flood the US with drugs. And this is absurd on many counts. But on one hand, just the overall reality is that drugs that enter the US don’t really come from Venezuela. It’s just a very small fraction of cocaine that flows through Colombia to Venezuela and then through the Caribbean. But then even that most of it goes to Europe. It doesn’t actually reach the US.

That on one hand. On the other, the whole war on drugs reloaded was about fentanyl. And there’s nothing. Venezuela has absolutely nothing to do with fentanyl. So again, that’s really a you know shifting shifting the goalposts. And third, there has never been any credible evidence of Venezuelan leaders having any kind of direct ties to any narcotics activities. I mean, of course, with sanctions and the diminishing of state capacities, there is a kind of an increase in illegal activities. And there are, of course, parts of the armed forces that might turn a blind eye or be bribed or you know even collaborate with drug trafficking. But that happens at a kind of and In the way the drug enterprise expands. 

I mean there’s no evidence at all, and in fact it would have been against the Venezuelan government’s interests to actually participate actively in any kind of activity like this. But again, they can just have some witness that says Maduro was directly involved. There are people who have been arrested and will want to get their own sentences reduced by producing these kinds of false allegations to say that Maduro was actively sending drugs into the US. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. But I think that’s the way they’re going to try to construct the case.

MICHAEL FOX:  Ricardo, thank you so much. Anything else to add that you think is important?

RICARDO VAZ:  No, I think the most important thing is, you know, first keep up and try and not be convinced by the dishonesty that’s going around in the media establishment and also mobilizing. I mean, right now, this is Sunday afternoon, there’s mobilization outside the place where Maduro is being detained. So, I mean, there is an unprecedented new chapter of imperialism, so there should be a matching anti-imperialist response.

MICHAEL FOX:  Ricardo, where can people find more of your work?

RICARDO VAZ:  I mean, just go to Venezuelanalysis.com. We’re trying our best to keep up with everything and keep people updated. So Twitter is where we will be posting most regularly and then you know eventually on the website. Maybe later today, we’re going to publish something on you know everything we know so far and where things stand. And of course, news and analysis in the coming days as always.

MICHAEL FOX:  Fantastic. And then last question also, what are your suggestions for, you know, of other other individuals, journalists, outlets that people should be following at this moment if they want actual news on the ground?

RICARDO VAZ:  Yeah, so, I mean, English speaking is always hard to find. We have great friends here at the Orinoco Tribune. They’re also on the ground. And also, both VenezuelaAnalysis and Orinoco Tribune are part of what’s called the Sovereign Media Coalition. This is a group of, a new new initiative, a group of alternative independent outlets coming together to challenge the media establishment’s narrative. So we’re going to be producing a lot of content on Venezuela through that as well.

MICHAEL FOX:  Excellent. Ricardo, thank you so much for all of your work. Thank you for being on the ground. And thank you so much for joining me here today.

RICARDO VAZ:  Thanks, Mike. It’s always a pleasure. And I hope we get in touch again soon, hopefully in better circumstances.

MICHAEL FOX:  Absolutely.

[THEME MUSIC]

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]:  That is all for this episode of Under the Shadow. 

Next time… 

We continue to look at the fallout from this US invasion of Venezuela. We’ll speak with others on the ground, dive into the devastating history that has led up to today. And look deeper into what Trump is now calling his own “Donroe Doctrine” for the region — Donald Trump’s Monroe 2.0.

That’s next time on Under the Shadow. 

I’m your host Michael Fox. Thanks for listening.

A couple of things before I go… 

First… If you’re interested in Ricardo Vaz’s work, I’ll add a link in the show notes to Venezuelanalysis and some of the other outlets that he mentioned. I highly recommend you check them out. Venezuelanalysis is one of the top sources for independent on-the-ground news in Venezuela. Their reporting is more important, now, than ever.

Second… If you are new to this podcast series, I highly recommend you check out the first season of Under the Shadow. It looks at US intervention in Central America, in particular throughout the 1980s. It’s still super relevant today. I’ll add links in the show notes or you can find that by searching for Under the Shadow wherever you get your podcasts. 

Finally, if you like what you hear, please head over to my Patreon page… Patreon.com/mfox. There you can support my work, become a monthly sustainer, or sign up to stay abreast of the latest on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America. This really helps me to continue to do this important work.

Under the Shadow is a co-production of The Real News and NACLA.

Thanks for listening. See you next time…