Making Sense of US Policy Towards Venezuela

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Matthew Wright for LBC in the United Kingdom. 

Transcript

Matthew Wright: 0:00

Now then, talking of crime, um the United States has uh has taken a rather unusual approach to alleged drug drug running in Venezuela. It is, as you may be aware, blowing alleged drug boats out of the waters and uh and subsequently in one instance um sending another plane round to kill the survivors as on Pete Heggseth's orders. This of course obviously to stop the drugs coming into the country as Donald Trump keeps grinding on about. So what do we make of this story that the U.S. has seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast? Caracas is calling it international piracy. And I have to say, if you read um some of the more critical articles about uh America's attacks on uh alleged drug boats, you can read quite a lot about concerns within Venezuela that the United States is eyeing up Venezuela's massive oil fields. And uh when I read about the U.S. seizing an oil tanker off the Venezuela coast, well, for this reporter, I'm being I'm I'm being more drawn to the America is eyeing up Venezuela's oil fields than I am drawn to them ending the scourge of drug boats. I'm joined by Jon Bonfiglio, Latin America correspondent. Good morning to you, Jon. So uh w what can you tell us uh on this seizure of this oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela?

Jon Bonfiglio: 1:20

Well, I think there's one stark fact which really sort of uh casts everything that's taken place into sharp relief, and it's the fact that most interesting is that in the last 48 hours, since the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker on Wednesday, oil exports from Venezuela have stopped almost entirely, as the boats uh in question, the tankers fear US intervention. Now, the only company still operating in Venezuelan waters moving oil, US giant Chevron, operating on a special waiver license issued by the very same Trump administration. So, as well as Trump's declaration that the US would keep the oil from the from the first seas tanker, it's pretty clear that the issue is not Venezuelan oil per se, but who has access to that oil.

Matthew Wright: 2:00

Are you buying the drug busting line from the United States, or do you see a secondary mission here?

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:11

Um if you look at the facts, at the way in which drugs, um specifically cocaine, because fentanyl does not emerge from South America, fentanyl uh is made, produced in Mexico on the back of uh Asian, particularly Chinese products. So we're talking about cocaine moving up from South America to the USA. That does not uh move through the Southern Caribbean and up to the US. These are small skiff vessels that, if they are carrying drugs, cocaine, uh, then uh they are supplying local markets, local tourist markets, in particular on the Caribbean Islands, they're not designed to carry uh drugs up to the USA. Most of that product, which comes from Colombia, actually goes up the other coast, up the east coast of the Pacific, uh, and then up to the USA there. And and everybody knows that. That is it's a pretty sort of um uh established, uh received uh uh perspective. So if even if that is um even if they're trying to take out drug vessels, those vessels are not taking product up to the USA. So um obviously other motivations are in play.

Matthew Wright: 3:16

Where's this gonna go? Because I I mean I was uncomfortable with sort of execution without trial, but seizing sovereign nations, you know, oil tankers off of sovereign nations, it's it's deeply troubling, is it not?

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:28

It is. I also think that a really important point is that what what the US is doing in Venezuela can't be seen in isolation because it's not Venezuela-specific, it's hemisphere-specific. I think we have to understand it as being the same motivation that sees the Trump administration want to take over uh Canada and Greenland that has reaffirmed its interest in the Panama Canal, that pursues particular election outcomes in Honduras and Argentina. And here's the point: it may seem political, but it's fundamentally economic. It's about exclusive access to virgin markets, untapped markets for US companies in uh across the Americas, and about uh bringing the hemisphere into, entirely into the service of the USA. And Venezuela is uh is the key, the most obvious current example of this broader hemispheric policy.

Matthew Wright: 4:17

Broadly speaking, the global community is sitting on its hands with regards to the situation in Venezuela as it is on many other global situations at the moment. How do we expect Venezuela to respond? I mean, they can't just keep soaking this up, can they?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:32

I mean, uh the the one joker in the pack that Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, has is that he knows that Donald Trump will not send ground troops into Venezuela because that is not going to play back in the USA and the sort of the dislike of Trump's base uh or disdain for forever wars. So actually, the nearest example I would draw here is um so back in 1954, the US uh it issued it undertook an intervention in Guatemala where they wanted to remove the then president Jacob Arbenz Guzman and installed a favorable administration for much the same reason, for economic reasons. And there they use propaganda, psychological warfare, and the threat, the overwhelming threat of certain invasion to force Arbenz's resignation. And that is what Maduro is banking on. That all of this is bluster. Now, the seizing of the tanker does fundamentally affect Venezuelan economics. 25% of the GDP for Venezuela, despite its oil reserves being um significantly untapped at the moment because of general um a sort of a fall in the use of infrastructure in in Venezuela. Um, it still is massively affecting the the country. Um yeah, 95% of exports uh are relate to Venezuelan oil. So again, this is all economics. This this is now hurting Venezuela uh economically, and the noose is tightening around uh uh Nicolas Maduro's neck in in this particular way. That is the the strategy. The removal of Maduro is is desired by the Trump administration, but it's secondary to what uh to the to the sort of the overriding motivation to access Venezuelan riches.

Matthew Wright: 6:12

Jon Bonfiglio, excellent reporting. Thank you so much. That was a really all encompassing uh account of the situation of the last few weeks indebted to you. Thank you, Jon Bonfiglio, there, Latin America Correspondent.