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

Maximillian Alvarez:

In the early pre-dawn hours of Saturday, January 3rd, the US administration of self-proclaimed Peace President Donald Trump invaded and bombed the sovereign country of Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and the First Lady of Venezuela, Celia Flores. As our Latin America based correspondent, Michael Fox reports for the real news, “This is the first US invasion of another country in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, when the US kidnapped and detained Panamanian President Manuel Noriega under charges of drug trafficking. The Trump administration used the same excuses on Saturday to detain Maduro, despite lack of evidence linking Maduro to drug trafficking. Despite the fact that Trump recently pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez of his own drug trafficking conviction. And despite the fact that Trump broke internationational law and according to lawmakers in his own party, violated the US Constitution to carry out Saturday’s operation.

Trump’s attacks on Venezuela Mark are returned 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. Trump’s Monroe Doctrine 2.0. 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. President Trump claimed at a press conference on Saturday that the United States would quote, run the country of Venezuela and would be quote, very strongly involved in the operation of Venezuela’s oil industry. It’s hard to guess what will happen next, but one thing is clear. The fallout across Latin America will be severe. All right. So to break down the frankly mind melting developments that have unfolded this weekend in the Western hemisphere, I’m honored to be joined on The Real News right now by Michael Fox himself.

And we’re recording this interview on Sunday, January 4th. And frankly, there is still a whole lot that we do not know about the situation right now. And we’re going to be bringing you continued coverage on the real news as developments continue to unfold. But we’re going to start by trying to break down what we do know with the information we do have as of right now. So Mike, thank you so much for joining us today, brother, and thank you for all the reporting. I really appreciate it. I want to just jump right in and start with the basics like break it down for folks watching. What do we know about what happened in Venezuela this weekend?

Michael Fox:

We now know that Trump issued the strike order at 10:46 Eastern Standard Time, which was 11:46 on the evening on last Friday evening. Aircraft, 1150 aircraft were used in the strike from roughly 20 different bases and locations across Latin America. They flew in the direction of Karakas and started bombing and raiding the city at right around 2:00 AM. And they raided … I mean, Karaka’s residents and people, not just in Karakas, but several different states around the country, you had bomb explosions happening all over the place. People are hearing them, people are waking up, people are afraid. At around that time, they arrived to the residency of President Nicholas Maduro at around 2:00 AM local time. They detained him, they kidnapped him, they put him on a flight and they flew him out of the country. The total raid itself took roughly between three, four hours.

Like I said, somewhere from 2:00 to 5:00, 2:00 to 6:00. There was a ton of disinformation or misinformation. People don’t know what’s happening. And if you can imagine, Max, that suddenly the United States has been saying that they’re going to be invading your country for months, if not years and decades, and suddenly it’s now happening, but you don’t know, are there people on the ground? Are there troops on the ground? Are there aircraft? What is happening? You have no idea. So kind of new started to leak out. People started to get word of what had actually happened, the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores. They were put on a ship and they are now in New York City where their underaccusation of drug trafficking charges very similar to what we saw in 1989 in Panama with Manuel Noriega. In Venezuela itself, Delci Rodriguez has become the interim president.

She was the vice president before. She’s kind of the most pro- business member of the Maduro government, but she’s been a longtime member. I mean, going back decades of a top member of the Maduro government sitting in many different ministries, the head of many different ministries over the years. She is now the interim president while Maduro is out of the country. They’re not saying that Muduru has gone. They’re not saying he is no longer the president. They’re saying she’s the interim president during this period of time. And like you said, so many people have so many questions. This is still, so many things are up in the air. Like you mentioned, Trump talked about … He gave an hour long press conference on Saturday, which he said many, many things, including we are going to run Venezuela, we’re going to run the oil. And some of that stuff we can get into, what does that actually mean?

But just to put this in perspective, it is a shocking development, a terrifying return to a dark age in the Western hemisphere with the United States felt like it had the police and the reason and the rule and the might to do whatever it wanted with the region. And it’s clear that Trump wants to use that and wants to return to that moment, lifting up kind of the image of the Monroe doctrine to push his goals by any means necessary in the region. And it’s terrifying, not just for Venezuela, but for countries up and down the Western hemisphere.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah, man. I mean, at that press conference, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to pretty obviously hint that countries like Cuba, Colombia, even Mexico could face similar fates. And this is frankly really hard to wrap our heads around, but like you said, we’ll dig into as much as we can, but I want to start with what is happening on the ground there in Venezuela because you used to live and report from Karacas. I wanted to ask, there is so much misinformation, so much selective information flying around online right now. I basically have people blowing up my mentions on every social media platform saying like, “Oh, everyone in Venezuela is in the streets cheering this on and celebrating what Trump did on Saturday.” And it feels like a redux of Iraq in that vein. So I don’t want to ask you to speak for the whole of Venezuela because the basic point should be Venezuela is a big country with a lot of people in it who feel differently about these things, but what are you hearing from folks on the ground in and around Karakas?

Was this surprising to them? How are they dealing with all of this now?

Michael Fox:

It’s interesting, Max, because even when I was living there in the mid 2000s, there was always talk of a potential US invasion all the time. Or there was a threat or something that was always just rolled out. And so it’s been a constant in the back of people’s minds. And of course now with the buildup in the Caribbean, we’ve seen the largest amassing of boats and warships, the largest warship on the planet, 15,000 personnel, US personnel are now stationed in different ports and parts of the Caribbean. And so clearly people understood that Trump was threatening this a potential invasion. And I’ve actually been asking people there, I was speaking with a lot of people on the ground in Karaka, some old friends and journalists and most of them said even then it was still a shock. Even if you went to bed at night every single night knowing, well, something could happen tonight, it’s still a shock when suddenly you hear the bombs falling and you’re awoken by the bombs nearby and particularly those people who live near Fuertetuna, which is one of the largest forts there in Karakas.

I mean, some of the videos out of there are just shocking with like the buildings just rocking and people screaming. Children, people’s friends of mine, their kids are just crying and awakened by the bombs that are falling. And it’s just a terrifying situation and so reminiscent, like I mentioned before so many times, so reminiscent of my own speaking with people who lived through Panama 1989, such a similar situation. So that on the one hand is just this, no one knows what’s happening. No one knows if suddenly 20,000 troops are going to be invading their country and they’re going to be under occupation. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And almost everyone I’ve spoken with said that we just didn’t sleep that night. We’ve been up for, I don’t know how many hours. At this point, Venezuelan officials are trying to get things under control.

Obviously Del Cio Rodriguez and many other members of the government interior minister, the Minister of Defense, they came out very, very quickly saying, “Look, we want to call for calm.” The defense forces have been, they’re on alert around the country at this point. This is after US troops had already detained and kidnapped Maduro and already like left the country. And so the main thing is right now is this sense of shock, this sense of violation that this could actually happen. Another country could just invade and do whatever they wanted with Venezuela with no repercussions up till now, but also a sense of kind of wanting to get back to some normalcy. There are no US troops on the ground right now in Venezuela. This was really kind of a shock and awe, we’re going to get in, we’re going to get the president and his wife and we’re going to get out, but still terrifying.

It’s a shock. I mean, what we know up till now, at least 40 people have died and some of the images of the homes and the apartment buildings that were hit are very reminiscent of what we saw in Gaza or so many other places where the United States has carried out airstrikes and bombing raids. So it’s a terrifying moment. It’s a shock even though Trump has talked about this forever and the United States has talked about this for decades and yet still people are just kind of coming to grips. So many people I’ve spoken with have said like, “I can’t believe that was just yesterday and I can’t believe it. It seems almost like a dream

Maximillian Alvarez:

Still.” Yeah. I mean, it feels that way from afar too. And I think that there are obviously massive unanswered questions on like what’s going to happen with Venezuela’s government and Trump and his administration were pretty deliberately vague in the press conference on Saturday when they were asked those very same questions. I mean, I think a lot of folks assumed that leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Corina Mochalo, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, was going to just be plucked and installed as the new puppet leader of Venezuela. That did not happen. In fact, Trump threw cold water on that and said Machado did not have the support of the people there while at the same time he Fox and Friends, everybody on the right is saying that the Venezuelan people are jubilant and in the streets celebrating all of this. So those two messages seem to be in contradiction to one another.

But also like as I said, the Bayer fact remains that Venezuela is a big country with a lot of people who did not like Maduro, who had very reasonable justifications to not be happy with life under Nicholas Maduro, under punishing sanctions from the United States. These are all really important, worthwhile topics of discussion that we can’t get into fully here, but I would highly recommend that anyone who wants to delve into them should follow Mike’s work and should listen to the work that Mike has done for the real news, particularly on his podcast Under the Shadow, where he does dig into these very questions. And also we published episodes of our podcast, Solidarity Without Exception that also goes into these nuances of the recent history and politics of Venezuela. So I would encourage folks who want to delve into those questions to go listen to those episodes.

We’ll link to them in the show notes here. But I say that all to say that like, what is the government of Venezuela going to be moving forward? Trump himself said that the US was going to run the country of Venezuela. At the same time, Delci Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president has been sworn in as the interim president. The current government structure is still in place, but there is no functional way that the United States could run the country of Venezuela without a massive increase in military force in boots on the ground. So again, those are questions that we’re going to have to delve into as more information comes to light. But based on what we know now, Mike, how does Trump saying that the US is going to run Venezuela? How does that fit into the long history of US intervention in the region? Is there any precedent for this?

Michael Fox:

Yeah. So Max, I want to just jump to something first that you mentioned and then I’ll dive into that. And this is the first question. There really are questions like Trump’s, I want to run this. It seems like he’s holding the potential threat of an invasion, of another type of invasion, or he even mentioned in his press conference that it would be much bigger and it would be much greater if they don’t follow the line. So it seems like he’s trying to hold that over Delci Rodriguez and her kind of incoming interim government as a way to try and force them into submission to whatever it is that Trump wants and to whatever it is they want to push in terms of particularly the oil question. And then the other question is, and because this is important for Trump’s whole, his whole discourse on Saturday, this whole talk was about we’re getting the oil.

That was his whole thing that Venezuela stole the oil, which is not true, and we’re taking it back and we’re going to run the oil. And I think people need to understand that when he says we, he’s actually meaning US corporations. And that’s the push and that’s kind of the new feature from what I’m speaking with analysts who understand the history of Latin America and the history of the Monroe doctrine. When he says we, now he’s really talking about US corporation. He’s talking about Exxon and whoever else might be involved in this. It’s not actually going to be … In fact, one of the people in the press conference on Saturday, one of the press effort actually asked him, wait, so like Marco Rubio and Defense Minister Hegseth, they’re going to be in Venezuela running things like that. He’s like, “No, no, no, but it’s a team.

We’re doing this together.” So part of this is also Trump bluster, right? It’s just him like, “Look we have everything we did and it was so great and we’re the best in the world.” But it is going to be like, I think the next few weeks are going to be critical in terms of understanding exactly what Delci Rodriguez is going to be able to manage right now, having this threat of the boot of the United States overhead and having at the same time the Unitited States pushing this idea of that the oil is for us, right? And so you have to do that. And so Delsi’s really got to walk this tightrope at this point to try and be able to continue without Trump coming back. And that is the concern I think that of so many people, like is there going to be another invasion but way larger that could, you know, with boots on the ground and something like that.

In terms of how this fits with the past, I mean, look, like we’ve mentioned several times, even just in our interview right now, the last time the United States invaded another country in Latin America, like full scale military invasion was 1989, December 20th, Panama, right? They flew in with more than 20,000 troops. They destroyed 20,000 homes. They killed hundreds of people, burring their bodies in mass graves and occupied the country essentially for days and then basically installed the puppet government that which the United States could then kind of rule over for a long period of time. And of course, that all had to do with the Panama Canal. It’s always about the assets. We can’t forget that. If this was a country that had nothing but, I don’t know, a couple of trees and some cows, the United States isn’t going to be invading. The United States has never invaded Uruguay.

It’s had its hand over Uduwai, it’s threatened Uduwi, dictatorship, all this, but it’s never had boots on the ground on Ui because they don’t have the assets. You have the Panama Canal in Panama right now in Venezuela, you have the largest reserves of oil on the freaking planet. So that is why, and if you look at the numbers, I was looking at it the other day. If you look at the numbers of how big are the reserves of all the other countries, all of the other ones are outside of the Western hemisphere. So of course, Trump’s like, “Hey, let’s get some oil.” But in terms of running another country, usually what you’ve seen in the past, and I’m talking back in 1980s, or we’re going back even far further, the other precedent, of course, is the era of Teddy Roosevelt and his Roosevelt corollary when the United States would just send in Marines for literally years or decades, and they would kind of be there just to shore up the government and say, “Look, we’re here, so you better do what we want.

” I mean, that’s the precedent. Now, there’s a whole other thing when you talk about actually running like oil, that’s why for me and for most people, Trump isn’t going to send a whole team down. They’re going to say, “All right, we are now the oil barons of Venezuela, but he’s going to get in US corporations.” And of course, the United States has always defended US corporations and there’s united fruit in Guatemala and throughout Central America, literally ran those countries of Central America throughout the 1950s and 1960s. I mean, there was the coup that happened as we looked at and under the shadow in Guatemala, the coup against our bends was literally done in defense of united fruit, right? And so of course, US corporations have long been very important for the United States, but at this point, at least what some analysts who I’m talking with, they’re saying, no, it’s actually the goals of the corporations themselves that are dictating US foreign policy.

And that’s this shift that we’re looking at. In the case of Panama, like running the Panama Canal or controlling the asset of the Panama Canal for at least a period of time for many years longer, that was the goal at that point. But there is no precedent in terms of like, “Oh, the United States is going to set up a petroleum and oil corporation and literally take all the oil.” That’s not going to be happening, but what is going to be happening is the United States wants US corporations on the ground. And in terms of that, if you look back over the last two centuries of US intervention in the region, US businesses, much of it has been because of or propping up US businesses, no doubt.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, let’s stick with that thread for a second, right? Because you produced an entire podcast called Under the Shadow with us at the Real News Network. It’s a phenomenal podcast, but the entire thing examines the history and legacy of US intervention in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine. Now, most people in this country have never heard of the Monroe Doctrine outside of like a junior high history class. And yet, here is President Donald Trump invoking the Monroe doctrine at the Saturday press conference after this invasion and operation in Venezuela. So let’s take a listen to that real quick.

Speaker 3:

In addition, Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms costing us billions and billions of dollars. They did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property. It was our property. We built it and we never had a president that decided to do anything about it. Instead, they fought wars that were 10,000 miles away. We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations, and they stole it through force. This constituted one of the largest thefts of American property in the history of our country, considered the largest theft of property in the history of our country. Massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies and we didn’t do anything about it. I would have done something about it.

America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people or drive us back into and out of our own hemisphere. That’s what they did. Furthermore, under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten US interest in lives. And they used those weapons last night. They used those weapons last night, potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border. All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy dating back more than two centuries and not anymore. All the way back, it dated to the Monroe doctrines and the Monroe doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe document. I don’t know. It’s Monroe doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it.

We don’t forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western hemmisphere will never be questioned again, won’t happen. So just in concluding, for decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region and our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago. The future will be … And we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term and we have far greater dominance right now. Everyone’s coming back to us. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security. These are core to our national security. Just like tariffs are, they made our country rich and they’ve made our national security strong, stronger than ever before.

But these are the iron laws that have always determined global power and we’re going to keep it that way. We will secure our borders. We’ll stop the terrorists. We will crash the cartels and we will defend our citizens against all threats, foreign and domestic. Other presidents may have lacked the courage or whatever to defend America, but I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives. Very importantly, the embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect. The American Armada remains poised in position and the United States retains all military options until United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied. All political and military figures and Venezuela should understand what happened to Medura can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they aren’t just fair, even to their people.

The dictator and terrorist Maduro is finally gone and Venezuela. People are free. They’re free again. It’s been a long time for them, but they’re free. America is a safer nation this morning. It’s a prouder nation this morning because it didn’t allow this horrible person and this country that was doing very bad things to us. It didn’t allow it to happen and the Western hemisphere is right now a much safer place to be. All

Maximillian Alvarez:

Right. Mike, break this all down for us. Like, what was the Monroe doctrine? How does the Donrow doctrine compare to that in terms of US foreign policy in Latin America? And what the hell does this all mean for the potential invasion and pressure campaigns from the US to other countries across Latin America moving forward?

Michael Fox:

Well, the Monroe Doctrine was a doctrine created in the 1820s by President James Monroe. The whole idea was it comes off of the huge independence campaign from most of Latin America. They had just breaken away from Spain, obviously the United States, you had other ones that were breaking away from different European countries. And essentially James Monroe says, “Europeans, you’re not allowed here anymore.” He wanted to stop the possibility that European countries might come in and try and recolonize or colonize other countries that were previous colonized by one, by other European countries. He’s basically saying, “You are not allowed in the Western hemisphere.This is our Western hemisphere.” And in fact, in the early days, many of those newly independent countries were really excited about it. They applauded James Munro’s measures. They talked about how to internationalize how to incorporate the Monroe doctrine in other countries. Boulevard was a fan of it, and they actually talked about it at his Boulevard’s Congress back in the 1820s as well.

So it was a big thing and very important. And it doesn’t really do very much for the next, I don’t know how many decades, but fast forward to the end of the 19th century, you’ve got the United States is growing in its own imperial powers. You have the United States kind of invading and taking over different countries like Cuba, like Hawaii, and enter in Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt creates what is called the Roosevelt Corollary. And it basically says that we can be the region’s police force. Not just we can, but we have the right to be the region’s police force when other countries aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be. And so we are now going to use this Monroe doctrine to invade, to push our agenda wherever we want to. And what we saw was this huge uptick across the region with US Marines being deployed in countries all over the place, Dominican Republic, Haiti, how many locations, Nicaragua.

I mean, it was just up and down. And in some cases, they stayed for years or decades. And so it was literally this doctrine that was used to push US agenda and US interest in the region and justify those interests in the region. It has been kind of on the back burner. It’s been used ever since. People have talked about it ever since, but that was like when you talk about the Haiti of the insanity of gun boat diplomacy and the use of Monroe doctrine, it’s really the Roosevelt corollary that people talk about. Fast forward to literally December, Trump and his administration released what’s known as their national security strategy. And in that, they talk about a new Trump corollary to the Monroe doctrine. So it’s totally hearkening back to a hundred years to where we were with Teddy Roosevelt saying, no, we are going to push and we are going to use this in order to ensure that we have our assets, we have our means, that what we want is to have friends in the region that are going to be on our side and are going to fight with us against narco trafficking and drug trafficking.

So they’ve created this justification, this excuse to now do whatever they want to in the region. It doesn’t matter if there’s actually an issue of drug trafficking like in Venezuela, there isn’t, but they’ve created the excuse to be able to push that and use that as the agenda. And so that takes us to where we are right now in this press conference. I mean, the fact that Trump actually invoked the Monroe doctrine, but also called it the Dunro doctrine, which is something that some people have been talking about, Don as in Donald, Donald Roe doctrine, that’s where the Donrow comes from. But he clearly is saying like, “I’m going to one up James Monroe. I’m going to take this to a whole other level.” And that’s what is so concerning about this region. We talked about this in the first episode of season two of Under the Shadow and people should totally check it out because we’re going to be rolling stuff out all the time and it’s all focused on exactly what’s happening right now.

But within we talk about this, a lot of people, what we’re saying, analysts that I’ve been interviewing, including Alexandra Avina, who’s historian professor of Latin American history, talks about how Whenever the United States moves toward isolationism, and of course Trump is supposed to be the peace president, the isolationist president, whenever that happens, that’s bad news for Latin America because it doesn’t mean they’re going to stop its imperial intentions in the region. It just means that they’re going to pull themselves back from getting outstretched everywhere else, and we’re going to now focus on Latin America. I mean, Greg Granted has talked about this a lot. He’s an incredible historian and he wrote … I’m sorry, it’s not even coming to me. Oh, The Empire’s Workshop. And so it’s an incredible book back years ago. And the focus that he talks about is this, is that this is a region that has been used as the workshop for US empire and imperialism since the beginning of the United States essentially, and particularly the Monroe doctrine, particularly the 19th century.

And so what we’re seeing now is Trump invoking that. This is part of, and I think this is really, really key right now, Max, to understanding this context. From what I’ve been speaking with other people, what we’re seeing right now is this vision of Trump breaking the world into these different spheres of influence. This something that was from literally the 19th century. And this is why we really need to understand that history. We need to understand the past to understand where we are right now. Because part of it’s Monroe, but part of it is this kind of idea that if I’m the power in this region, then I need to be … Then this is my space and you guys don’t mess with me over here. And that’s your … So for instance, oh, Russia, you got your deal over there. Deal with what Ukraine, come on, create peace.

But that’s your area. You got to deal with China. And part of this is because, look, the reality is Trump and the United States realizes, well, I am no longer the hegemon. I can’t compete against China. And China’s been moving in profound ways all across Latin America. So this is partly Trump trying to say, “I need to shore up our interests here and push China out. Now, China, if you want to mess with Asia, you can do whatever you want to. I’m not going to get over there. This is our region.” And so this is what’s happening now. And this is why it’s so concerning to understand Venezuela. Venezuela, what we’ve just seen right now in the same way that Panama, you have to remember, Panama 1989, the US invasion there was the first US invasion, the first military attack after the end of the Cold War.

It was a way of Father George W. Bush at the time, George H.W. Bush, of basically marking out territory and saying, “This is how we’re going to do it. You still have to be afraid of us. We are going to continue to fight regardless of the Cold War is over, and the new war is going to be over drugs.” But it was also a training ground. It was to show what they could do and what they would do elsewhere in the Middle East. Right now, in a lot of ways, we were seeing this in Venezuela. It’s a massive attack. But like you said, Trump’s been … They weren’t talking very much about Cuba. You could tell in that press conference that he was kind of reluctant. He’s like, “Yeah, Cuba’s like, maybe Cuba. Hey, Marco Ruby, you want to talk about Cuba?” But it’s like Cuba’s there.

Clearly that’s on the agenda. In fact, I would say that that’s probably even higher on the agenda. If you look at who’s in his cabinet and you look at the Cuban American lobby within the United States, it’s huge. And so I would say that Cuba is even higher on the agenda than Venezuela, except for the fact that Venezuela has oil, but they have to get out Venezuela first and maybe some other countries before they can start thinking about Cuba and then ramp up the war mongering talk about Cuba, but also about Colombia. Trump has been … He did press conferences in December where we were saying, “Look, this guy’s a bad guy.” And they’re talking about Gustavo Petro, who’s the president of Columbia. And why? Because the president of Columbia has been very vocal in defending Venezuela. So all of this is happening right now within this context.

Trump has also been pushing back against Mexico, or maybe we’re going to send our troops into Mexico to fight drug traffickers in Mexico. So it’s kind of about drugs, but it’s not really. It’s really about the fact that, look, Max, the reality is these are all leftist presidents who aren’t going to bow down to Trump. You don’t see Trump saying anything about Ecuador. Ecuador, the president Ecuador, he is someone who actually has ties to narco trafficking. There have been research and releases of information and magazine articles showing that there were cocaine shipments on boats that were carrying the bananas that his family was exporting. It’s a clear connection, but he won’t say anything about him. Why? Because he’s an ally. And so Trump, and the amount of allies that Trump is increasingly having in the region is big. He’s got Naibukelian El Salvador, he’s got Milay in Argentina.

Now you have the son of a member of the Nazi party in Chile, who’s just one, who’s going to be inaugurated in just a couple of months. Honduras is now going to shift to the right. And then Bolivia, we’ve just seen the, that’s also shifted. So Trump is shoring up support and he feels emboldened to be able to do what he needs to do across the region to push the America first agenda.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and when pressed at the Saturday press conference of like, how the hell could the America first president who was supposedly isolationist, supposedly not as the typical imperialist US president and was focused on the domestic matters of the United States, how do you square that with invading a foreign country in Latin America and kidnapping its president and saying you’re going to run their government? And Trump’s kind of quick nonchalant response was like, “Well, we have to make sure that we have good neighbors in the region.” That like, again, invoking that Rooseveltian police power to say it’s our duty, responsibility and right to tell all of our neighbors in Latin America what to do so that they are serving our interests. And also, he was very blatant about like, “And it’s America first because America’s going to take their oil.” So that’s the loose justification for this imperialist expansionist aggression from Donald Trump.

But again, it’s not all just about what Trump says and does. It’s about how the rest of the world responds. And as you mentioned, the political chess board is rearranging quite dramatically across Latin America, not just in terms of the allies that Trump himself is building, but also in terms of the resistance that is growing from other countries. And I wanted to end on that point. I wanted to ask, what else is taking place across the region? How are regional leaders like Gloria Scheinbaum in Mexico, like Lula in Brazil, how are they responding to this and how is that going to factor into whatever the hell happens as we continue to barrel forward into this horrifying future?

Michael Fox:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, Claudia Scheinbung has been very, very outspoken and she says, “Look, this can’t happen. We have to stand up. The United Nations should be doing more and she’s going to be continuing to be vocal.” Not just about this, but also about the boat strikes, also about other cases where the United States is pushing against Latin America. I already mentioned Gustavo Petro, but he’s been extremely outspoken. He actually went and visited a family of one of the victims of one of the boat strikes in Santa Marta, and he actually spoke with the family and said, “Look, this guy, they say he was a fisherman.” And I spoke with him directly. So he’s been extremely vocal and pushing back. And that’s one of the things that Trump doesn’t like about him because these are all people that are not going to bow down to Trump’s interests.

Lula in Brazil … Now, Lula’s interesting because Brazil’s a huge country. Don’t forget that Brazil literally has the population, the size and the GDP of all of the other South American countries combined. So it’s massive. And Lula has a lot of clout, particularly with the BRICS and the BRICS nation. So he has a lot … His voice really, really matters on kind of an international stage and he’s been extremely vocal just in the last couple days. He released a large statement again saying that the United Nations needs to act. Now, this was one of the big critiques when I was at the BRICS conference earlier this year, this is one of the big critiques is that the United Nations kind of like they were stuck. They couldn’t do anything. They weren’t doing anything. And so many Latin American leaders have really been strong in trying to push that and saying, “More needs to happen, more needs to be done internationally.” It just can’t stay with this where the United States can invade a sovereign nation in Latin America and just get away with it without anything happening, right?

The other interesting thing that we’ve seen, and I’m actually working on an episode for Under the Shadow that will be released at some point, is how the Caribbean leaders have also come out. And that’s something like, usually it’s like there’s Latin America, there’s the left leaders, the right leaders, and then the Caribbean’s just forgotten, right? But the prime minister of Barbados in particular has been absolutely vocal. The Kadikam countries came together in November in denouncing the boat strikes. And when I say vocal, I mean in particular against US aggression, the region and particularly around the boat strikes. The only Caribbean leader that has backed Trump is the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago. They’re only seven miles from the border with Venezuela. And she’s the only one who’s come out and said, “We need the United States to defend us against drug traffickers or whatever else.” That’s the only country, all of the other ones, including the former prime minister of Trinidad, have all come out absolutely condemning the US aggression that’s continued to happen in the region and I’m sure will be extremely vocal against this US invasion.

So the resistance in terms of leaders of these countries is powerful. And look, the other thing is Max, many people I’ve mentioned in … First off, Friday night, the attack happens Friday night into Saturday morning. And Saturday morning, people turned into the streets, many Venezuelans turned out in the streets actually to protest the attack. Now we have seen people celebrating. And of course, like you mentioned several times, Venezuela is huge. There are many, many people, and in fact, many people that have left the country, the seven or eight million people that have left Venezuela are excited to see Maduro be removed, but many people, particularly within Venezuela, even if they’re on the opposition, it’s one thing to have Maduro out, but I don’t want the United States coming and bombing our country. And so whenever there is an imperial attack from the United States, whenever there is some type of intervention, there is always a huge backlash.

And that’s how come we’ve seen people protesting, not just in Venezuela, within the Unitited States, elsewhere, in Mexico, in many different places people have been protesting. And we saw that backlash also. I don’t know if you remember when Trump tried to impose this 50% tariff on Brazil, apparently, because Brazil had this … They were going to convict Trump’s former ally, Jaye Bolsonato. And so he poses this 50% tariff and Lula’s like, “Okay, okay, bring it on. ” And in fact, his polls just shot right up because you can’t come here, you just can’t do that. You just can’t push around people. What we need is diplomacy. We need international relations. There are ways of negotiating disputes in the region that have been developed over the last century and under the United Nations. And if you have a problem with Venezuela, if you have a problem with these other countries, if you are concerned about drug trafficking, there’s a ways of negotiating those things and hashing that out without bombing other people, without attacking, invading, and killing people and kidnapping, kidnapping their president.

That cannot happen. And so I think that’s really important. When you mention resistance, it is really important to understand that resistance is like the metaphor. It’s like the symbol of Latin America. It’s what Latin America has represented since the beginning of time because it’s had to resist against a United States that has always had its foot out and has Boeing been trying to push the rest of the region down and take from them whatever they can. And so I think that we’re only going to see more of this. And if Trump continues to push and pressure and invade and do whatever he’s going to be doing under his new Donro doctrine, then we’re just going to continue to see resistance, whether it’s from leaders in the region, whether it’s from movements that are standing up, or whether it’s from elections that will happen in years to come in which people will push back and say, “No, we don’t want any more of this.

And no, we’re not going to bow down to the United States.”