Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Hi David, Hey Sarah.
Speaker 3: Nice to see you in the studio.
Speaker 2: And it's good to be here with you.
Speaker 3: And we're never here.
Speaker 2: We're never here. At the same time, we're like ships
Speaker 2: in the night.
Speaker 3: And so rarely are okay, But now we're not ships
Speaker 3: in the night anymore. We've made it into the studio together. Yes, so, David.
Speaker 3: Ever since the US launched a major military operation in
Speaker 3: Venezuela in January, and even before that, we've been talking
Speaker 3: a lot about it on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am fascinated by this story, in part because
Speaker 2: I used to live in South America. I lived in
Speaker 2: Bolivia when that country was going through a political transition.
Speaker 2: I'm very eager to see sort of what will come
Speaker 2: of this effort the US made to shake things up
Speaker 2: change the circumstances of Venezuela.
Speaker 3: And today we're going to hear a brand new conversation
Speaker 3: you had this week about the state of play in Venezuela.
Speaker 3: And it's also airing on this new show that you're
Speaker 3: about to launch at Bloomberg. Yes.
Speaker 2: So that new show is called Bloomberg this weekend, and
Speaker 2: it's going to debut on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 2: on Saturday. You can also stream it online. I'm going
Speaker 2: to host it with Christina Raffini and Lisa Matteo.
Speaker 3: Kivigir, You're doing a show during the week and during
Speaker 3: the weekend. When do you sleep.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure this out, but rest assured I'm
Speaker 2: not going anywhere. I will be here on the big tag.
Speaker 3: Well, your first get was a great get. Tell us
Speaker 3: about this guest who's coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I sat down with Phil Gunsen, who is a
Speaker 2: bit of a rarity. He's covered Latin America for the
Speaker 2: better part of four decades, and he's focused on one
Speaker 2: country in particular.
Speaker 1: What it says on my business card is that I'm
Speaker 1: Crisis Group's senior Analyst for the Andes Region. But in
Speaker 1: practice that means that I focus on Venezuela. Venezuela keeps
Speaker 1: me busy. I've lived in Caracas for nearly twenty seven
Speaker 1: years now.
Speaker 2: Phil moved there in nineteen ninety nine, so he was
Speaker 2: there when ugu Chavas came to power. He was there
Speaker 2: when uguchav Has died, he was there when Nicholas Mudua
Speaker 2: became the president of Venezuela.
Speaker 3: Was he there when the US went in and captured Nicholas.
Speaker 2: He was there, and he told me his house is
Speaker 2: pretty close to the military base for Maduro was taken
Speaker 2: by US forces.
Speaker 1: This is the point where I embarrassingly have to admit
Speaker 1: that I slept all the way you did, I mean
Speaker 1: the attack Venezuelan time the bombs and rockets started falling
Speaker 1: about two in the morning, I was fast asleep.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that chaos didn't wake him up, but his phone
Speaker 2: eventually did. And since then Phil has been really focused
Speaker 2: on how the US is engaging with Venezuela. Today, he
Speaker 2: and I talked a lot about that, and we dug
Speaker 2: into really how uncertain the country's future is.
Speaker 1: As we like to say in Crisis Group, a transition
Speaker 1: is a process, not an event.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm really excited to hear more. So here's my
Speaker 3: co host, David Gura with Phil Gunson. Don't forget to
Speaker 3: catch this and more on Bloomberg this weekend from seven
Speaker 3: to ten am Eastern Time every Saturday and Sunday. I'll
Speaker 3: be setting my alarm.
Speaker 2: I'm David Gerra, and this is the big take from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today. On the show, my conversation with International
Speaker 2: Crisis Group senior analyst Phil Gunson. We discussed how Venezuela
Speaker 2: has changed and how it hasn't since the US captured
Speaker 2: Diglas Maduro, and what could come next. Let's spend some
Speaker 2: time talking about the events of January the third with
Speaker 2: the US's Operation Absolute Resolve. Remind us what the run
Speaker 2: up to that was like, with the weeks and months
Speaker 2: leading up to that date were like and felt like
Speaker 2: in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very startling, I suppose because when
Speaker 1: Trump came back to power in January of last year,
Speaker 1: we and I think a lot of other analysts had
Speaker 1: concluded that Trump's approach to Venezuela was going to be
Speaker 1: rather less I fact. I mean, it was going to
Speaker 1: be a pragmatic approach, not regime change, not maximum pressure
Speaker 1: as we saw under Trump won and that was the
Speaker 1: way he started out. And then August of last year
Speaker 1: we began to see this immense military build up which
Speaker 1: was framed as a counter narcotics operation, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: I think you know, in in Crisis Group and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: it was largely interpreted as a bluff. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's saber rattling in order to persuade Maduda to leave,
Speaker 1: because the consequences of not doing so would be severe.
Speaker 1: On the assumption that that would be enough that there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be any need to put, as they say, boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, because clearly Trump was not willing to
Speaker 1: do that, and so I think we, I think President
Speaker 1: Maduda himself concluded, well, this is not going to really
Speaker 1: come to anything. But the build up went on and
Speaker 1: on and on, and you had the aircraft carrier, you know,
Speaker 1: the General r Ford deployed to the Caribbean, this massive,
Speaker 1: massive build up to the point where we began to say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, they just can't just sail away, and Maduro
Speaker 1: showed no signs of leaving. It became very hard to
Speaker 1: understand how this was going to end. When it did
Speaker 1: conclude with January the third, it wasn't any of the
Speaker 1: scenarios that we had really anticipated.
Speaker 2: Could you describe the uncertainty of those hours that followed
Speaker 2: for you and for others who live in Venezuela, just
Speaker 2: wondering what would happen next? And did it feel like
Speaker 2: a vacuum was opening up?
Speaker 1: It was all really very quick, actually, I mean it
Speaker 1: almost was too quick for us to properly work out
Speaker 1: what we were feeling about. I mean, the first sensation is, well, okay,
Speaker 1: it's obviously a US attack. It's not a complete surprise
Speaker 1: because Trump had been threatening this repeatedly, pretty much every
Speaker 1: weekend for weeks before that. We'd been expecting some kind
Speaker 1: of attack, So in that sense, it wasn't totally shocking.
Speaker 1: What was really shocking was suddenly to realize Maduro was
Speaker 1: snatched along with his wife. What did that mean. But
Speaker 1: by the time we got around to trying to work
Speaker 1: out what that might mean, you know, there was already
Speaker 1: press conference in Washington with Trump saying, you know, announcing
Speaker 1: the operation, and that was in a way the biggest
Speaker 1: surprise of the whole morning, which was Trump saying, well,
Speaker 1: Mario Corina Machaala was a great lady, but unfortunately she
Speaker 1: doesn't have the support in ven as weulla to be
Speaker 1: installed as the government. So we're going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with Delcia Rodriguez, who's Medua's vice president. That was probably
Speaker 1: the most surprising thing in those few hours.
Speaker 2: What is the state of political power in Venezuela today?
Speaker 2: So Maduro is gone, he's in a jail, cell and
Speaker 2: Brooklyn DLCI. Rodriguez is in power on an interim basis,
Speaker 2: Maria Kramachado is somewhere. We don't know exactly where. Who
Speaker 2: is in control? And how would you assess the longevity
Speaker 2: of the kind of political moment that we're in.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the key issue. Obviously, we heard
Speaker 1: from President Trump very soon after January third. I can't
Speaker 1: remember it was on the same day, but within a
Speaker 1: couple of days at least, he was saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the US is going to be running ven Azulla. We're
Speaker 1: looking around and going where are they, you know, because
Speaker 1: there's nobody here on the ground. There's not been an embassy.
Speaker 1: There is now they're in the reopened the embassy and
Speaker 1: they're starting to establish a US diplomatic presence in Caracas.
Speaker 1: But since twenty nineteen, there was no There were no
Speaker 1: US diplomats in Venezuela. There certainly weren't boots on the ground,
Speaker 1: there's no military occupation in Venezuela. So in what sense
Speaker 1: is the US running Venezuela? And my immediate thought was
Speaker 1: it seems to me the Venezuelan government is running Venea.
Speaker 1: But of course then it becomes more complicated. Then you
Speaker 1: have to work out, well, Okay, the US says that
Speaker 1: they're going to be running Venezuela because if the Delcea
Speaker 1: government doesn't do what they say, then there will be consequences.
Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, this is kind of a neo
Speaker 1: colonial sort of operation. But to try to run, especially
Speaker 1: a country the size of Venezuela, country twice the size
Speaker 1: of California, twice the size of Iraq, nearly thirty million
Speaker 1: people topographically very difficult, politically, very difficult, full of guns
Speaker 1: in one among the security forces and outside, How you're
Speaker 1: going to do that? How are you going to run Venezuela.
Speaker 1: So we're still working it out. As the honest answer
Speaker 1: to that question, I think.
Speaker 2: How do you think about the role that Delcia Rodriguez
Speaker 2: is playing, the apparent closeness she has with the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: the closeness that she had with Nicholas Maduro, the political
Speaker 2: power that she's amassed as a result of her career
Speaker 2: in Venezuela and politics, How she is navigating those those
Speaker 2: two things.
Speaker 1: De Elsie Rodriguez and her brother Jorge, who's the guy
Speaker 1: who runs the National Assembly and is a key figure
Speaker 1: in all of this. He was Maduro's key negotiator for
Speaker 1: a very long time with the opposition and with the US.
Speaker 1: These two, the Rodriguez siblings, are smart people. They're very adaptable,
Speaker 1: They're very pragmatic. They're also very ideological. I mean they
Speaker 1: know ideologically they come from the same segment, if you like,
Speaker 1: of the ideological spectrum as President Madula himself. They come
Speaker 1: from the far left. But they are adaptable, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the key to what ELSEI is able to
Speaker 1: do right now, because she turned on a dime, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and of course she has maintained the discourse,
Speaker 1: the narrative for internal purposes about this being a socialist revolution,
Speaker 1: anti imperialist and all the rest of it, whilst doing
Speaker 1: her best to comply with what Trump needs. That's not
Speaker 1: an easy thing to do. I think if anybody can
Speaker 1: do it, she can, and she's demonstrated that so far.
Speaker 1: This is a power game. It's about staying in power,
Speaker 1: and in particular, I think what divides so called moderates
Speaker 1: from so called hardliners is whether or not they perceive
Speaker 1: a future for themselves under some form of political transition.
Speaker 1: I think the Rodriguez siblings can imagine. I don't think
Speaker 1: they want it, but I think they can imagine surviving
Speaker 1: a transition. But a lot of the people with guns
Speaker 1: cannot imagine that, and for them it's an existential issue.
Speaker 1: And so it's a case of day by day figuring
Speaker 1: out where the boundaries are. But then, of course, apart
Speaker 1: from that, the opposition is divided, and that I think
Speaker 1: is one of the key obstacles that might lie in
Speaker 1: the path of some form of political settlement, some form
Speaker 1: of transition.
Speaker 2: So what could us involvement in Venezuela tell us about
Speaker 2: Trump's approach to other countries? And is the president's endgame
Speaker 2: really just about oil? That's after the break After the
Speaker 2: US captured Nicholas Maduro, President Trump said the US would
Speaker 2: run Venezuela, which raised a bunch of questions. I asked
Speaker 2: Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group what Maduro's expatriation
Speaker 2: has meant in real terms. I'd hope you and I
Speaker 2: could talk about political transition. And I guess what's sort
Speaker 2: of peculiar about this moment is you have Madurea being
Speaker 2: removed from power, yet it seems like there hasn't been
Speaker 2: much of a political transition yet I imagine the key
Speaker 2: to that is elections. At some point are they being
Speaker 2: talked about what would they need to look like to
Speaker 2: remove for what imagine is a huge hurdle here for
Speaker 2: there being any kind of viable political change.
Speaker 1: Well, as we like to say in Crisis Group, a
Speaker 1: transition is a process, not an event. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I think that is problematic about the way
Speaker 1: some people in the opposition regard the term transition and
Speaker 1: the idea the concept of transition is that they don't
Speaker 1: distinguish between transition and regime change. In other words, transition
Speaker 1: for them is you leave power, we take power. That's
Speaker 1: a transition. A transition for us is a process whereby
Speaker 1: the government that is still in power concedes certain things
Speaker 1: over a period of time. The opposition also concedes certain things,
Speaker 1: and they come to an agreement about where this process
Speaker 1: is going, what the end results should be. Elections, at
Speaker 1: least a presidential election, to my mind, should be closer
Speaker 1: towards the end of that process than the beginning.
Speaker 2: What is the US getting from this leadership change? I
Speaker 2: suppose it's somebody who will return their phone calls. But
Speaker 2: what makes Delsier Drigez more palatable to the US, and
Speaker 2: I should say US leadership the Trump administration than the
Speaker 2: Nicholas Madruau was.
Speaker 1: If you ask some people, they would say, oh, it's oil, right,
Speaker 1: I mean Trump wants the oil, Dolsy is giving in
Speaker 1: the oil, and therefore you know, that's the beginning in
Speaker 1: the end of the story. I think it's a lot
Speaker 1: more complicated that and I don't actually think that oil
Speaker 1: in the purely material sense is necessarily even most of
Speaker 1: what it's about. I think the US wants a stable,
Speaker 1: friendly Venezuela, open to US capital, that excludes forces seen
Speaker 1: by the US as hostile to US interests.
Speaker 2: So part of this grander plan for the continent, and
Speaker 2: even beyond.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a geopolitical issue. And you know that
Speaker 1: the fact of what happened in January the third in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: that the very facts of that, the way it happened,
Speaker 1: what happened, then the implications of that are particularly significant
Speaker 1: for the region and the way the US relates to
Speaker 1: the region and vice versa. But they're also have implications beyond.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, for example, that what we're now
Speaker 1: seeing around Iran is partly Trump saying, well, look, at
Speaker 1: what really well in Venezuela. I mean, you know, let's
Speaker 1: try and do the same in Iran. There's a sense
Speaker 1: in which the US was emboldened by that event to say, oh, well, look,
Speaker 1: we don't even need to put boots on the ground.
Speaker 1: We can do these really you know, very sophisticated military operations,
Speaker 1: and we can make people do what we want.
Speaker 2: You mentioned oil, and the President talks an awful lot
Speaker 2: about the potential for that to be good for Venezuela
Speaker 2: and good for the US if US energy companies were
Speaker 2: to go into Venezuela, build new infrastructure, repair old infrastructure,
Speaker 2: that could benefit both countries. First of all, I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: just does the prospect of that has that improved the
Speaker 2: economy in Venezuela at all? Just the fact that the
Speaker 2: US is showing more interest in improving the economic situation
Speaker 2: in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Yes, and no. The most immediate impact of that is, Okay,
Speaker 1: the US took something like fifty million bounds of oil,
Speaker 1: sold it more or less at market prices, and via
Speaker 1: complicated financial arrangement, sent hundreds of millions of dollars into Venezuela,
Speaker 1: which were then sold by a set of private banks
Speaker 1: on the open market for more or less rates. So
Speaker 1: that helped to bring down the exchange rate, but it's
Speaker 1: not yet filtered through or trickled down if you like,
Speaker 1: to the extent that ordinary Venezuelan's doing their weekly shopping
Speaker 1: can see a benefit. One of the huge problems that
Speaker 1: we have in Venezuela is that this is a country
Speaker 1: which ought to be rich, and it ought to be
Speaker 1: you know, you ought to have you know, a per
Speaker 1: capita income among the highest in the region, used to
Speaker 1: be among the highest in the world, and yet more
Speaker 1: than eighty percent of the population lives in poverty. And
Speaker 1: it's also worth mentioning that one of the first things
Speaker 1: Trump did when he came back to power last year
Speaker 1: was to slash Overseas aid and that had an immediate
Speaker 1: impact on malnutrition in Venezuela because the World Food Program
Speaker 1: immediately found its budgets. So right now Venezuelans have hopes
Speaker 1: that this will improve, but what economists says, it's going
Speaker 1: to say probably six to eight months before the real
Speaker 1: benefits they if they do filter down eventually do do that.
Speaker 2: There is this trip a couple of weeks ago Chris Wright,
Speaker 2: the Energy Secretary traveled to Caracas, and my colleague and
Speaker 2: Rehorder and was on that trip with him, and there
Speaker 2: is just something extorted about that image of seeing a
Speaker 2: US Energy sectory, a cabinet member on the ground in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: What did that trip signal to you? And here I'm
Speaker 2: getting into the kind of longer term prospects of US
Speaker 2: engagement in the energy sector.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the striking things about that was
Speaker 1: just reading the body language and the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: the Energy Secretary and the interim President were, you know,
Speaker 1: chatting away happily to each other and touring oil installations.
Speaker 1: This is a really strange thing to see in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: But Dela Rodriguez certainly is not reluctant to see the
Speaker 1: economy open up and more money come in. And in
Speaker 1: that sense, there's an awful lot of common ground. Where,
Speaker 1: of course it may break down is if the US
Speaker 1: starts to insist on a political transition. And so the
Speaker 1: danger that we see, I think, is that this could
Speaker 1: reach a new or we could basically maintain this new
Speaker 1: equilibrium of friendly relations between Washington Carrakas that have absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what the bulk of Venezuelans ultimately
Speaker 1: want to see because they're not part of the discussion.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you lastly, what you'll be watching
Speaker 2: for in the months ahead, what's most important to pay
Speaker 2: attention to.
Speaker 1: You know, I think what most concerns me and what
Speaker 1: most concerns us in Crisis Group is precisely what I
Speaker 1: said about the fact that this is a dialogue between
Speaker 1: two governments, neither of which we're elected by Venezuelans. Really,
Speaker 1: let's face it, over the heads of the Venezuelan people.
Speaker 1: What I think is going to be one of our
Speaker 1: biggest questions is to what extent is the US prepared
Speaker 1: to push for this, given that moves towards a political
Speaker 1: transition could destabilize the rest of what they're interested in.
Speaker 1: They could create a backlash, for example, on among the
Speaker 1: people who fear they might end up in jail of
Speaker 1: the transition happened. That's the sort of thing that we're
Speaker 1: really looking at.
Speaker 2: Phil. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera.
Speaker 2: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
Speaker 2: to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: dot com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode,
Speaker 2: make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Speaker 2: Also check out Bloomberg This Weekend, our new live weekend
Speaker 2: morning show. We bring news, analysis, and some fun to
Speaker 2: your Saturdays and Sundays. Starting at seven am Eastern Time,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg This Weekend Live on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 2: and streaming at bloomberg dot com. Thanks for listening The
Speaker 2: Big Take. We'll be back tomorrow