Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this week’s One Decision In Brief, hosts Kate McCann and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, break down the latest developments in Latin America, including the Pentagon’s recent deployment of an aircraft carrier off the coast of Venezuela. The hosts discuss President Donald Trump’s intentions and the role Secretary of State Marco Rubio is playing behind the scenes. Plus, they examine the aftermath of Argentina’s midterm elections, where President Javier Milei’s coalition secured the majority votes and what that means for Trump’s promise to bailout the Argentine economy.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
Listen & Subscribe
- Watch on YouTube
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello, and welcome to this episode of One Decision in Brief. I'm Kate McCann, and I'm joined today by Sir Richard Dearlove. Hi, Sir Richard.
Dearlove: Hi, Kate. How are you?
Mccann: I'm good. I'm good.
Mccann: Well look, there's quite a lot to be getting on with today. We've had our pick of different subjects, but I think we should probably start by talking about what on earth is going on in Venezuela. There is an aircraft carrier on the way. What is going on?
VENEZUELA AND MADURO
Dearlove: Well, I think the Trump administration has decided to sort of double down in terms of pressure on Maduro, and not to put too fine a point on it, they want to get rid of him. And I think that this is designed to ramp the military pressure up on the regime and perhaps make his position largely untenable. I mean, bear in mind that Maduro has already, well, I was gonna say lost an election. I mean, fixed an election to get reelected, and the international community as a whole condemned the result. So he's not really legitimate. Plus the fact, of course, you know, this is a major drugs supplier to the United States, and that has been a thorn in the side of the whole of the United States, both under different administrations, continuing under Trump.
Mccann: So for the people who are kind of playing catch up a bit with this story, we should go into a bit of background because essentially Donald Trump for the last couple of months now, Donald Trump and his team, and we can come on to who we think is really spearheading this in a few moments, have been increasingly stepping up patrols on boats, which they say are sort of smuggling drugs out of Venezuela, and that's been the line. The line has been that Venezuela is one of the major drugs routes into America, and it's the fentanyl, opioid fentanyl, which is the biggest problem, and that that's why Donald Trump is doing this, and sort of attacking boats, and there's been controversy about some of those, we'll call them missions, about some of those decisions from the Trump administration. But this seems to be a stepping up of that campaign, and there is a suggestion now that there is more to this than just drugs, more to this than protecting the borders and looking tough, and as you're sort of hinting at, this is actually about regime change. Do we have any idea what is motivating that desire, if that's what's going on here?
Dearlove: Well, I think the motivation is to have a democratic regime in Venezuela, which is pro United States. I mean, bear in mind that Venezuela has massive oil reserves, which are largely sanctioned, therefore the oil isn't really entering the international market at the moment. But I think the drugs issue is another big deal because, you know, what Trump has started doing and this unprecedented deployment of US Navy ships into the area is — I mean, normally for interdiction, you would stop and search. But what they're doing is they're just blowing these boats out of the water and killing significant numbers of people in terms of the crews of these boats and not waiting to discover who they are and what they're doing. And therefore, you know, the UN has criticized the policy on the basis of international law. But, I mean, I would hasten to add that extrajudicial killings, which these are categorized as, have, well, were carried out extensively by the US in Afghanistan, and actually the largest number were not by the first Bush administration, but by, well, the George W. Bush administration, but done under the Obama administration. So, I mean, there's plenty of precedent for the US using this capability. They're not doing it with drones, is my understanding, they're doing it with manned aircraft.
Mccann: What I find really interesting about this is when you read up how much of the supply of drugs is entering America that's coming from Venezuela, some — I mean Venezuela is almost a smuggling route. Drugs come from other areas through Venezuela and are then smuggled out. It's not a major drugs producer, it's certainly not as big of a fentanyl producer as other areas are, so it's not the sort of number one target in those terms. And there are those analysts and experts who say actually the drugs boats that are leaving Venezuela are not destined for the US, they are heading in a different direction eventually really to head over to Europe, to Spain and to Portugal, and that those drugs boats are never intended to be for the US, that a lot of the drugs that come into the US come through Mexico, which then does get us onto, as you suggest there, this idea that this is a political move. Is it a legal basis for a political move?
Dearlove: I mean, I think you have to bear in mind when it comes to international law, there's quite a significant division between the way some American lawyers interpret international law, and then, let's say, European UK view of international law. And I would have thought that Trump will have enough lawyers reassuring him that he's acting within his rights as president of the United States. But, I mean, this is a gray area. Some people would say it is black and white. That depends which international lawyer you're talking to. But I think that Venezuela is an important transit point for drugs. That's my understanding. So the supply, you can't be sure where they're going, but some would certainly be going across to Europe, probably via Spain and North Africa, or some would be going into the Caribbean and eventually reaching the US market. I mean, it's a very, very complicated supply chain with a lot of intermediaries who are trans-shipping the stuff. And, of course, every time it's in transit, they're making money. But the other issue, which I think is important, which is political, is that Maduro's had sort of significant support from both China and Russia. And I don't know whether you recall this, but some months ago now, there was a Venezuelan aggressive claim to the Essequibo region of Guyana next door, and this was seen as a sort of move on the part of Russia who had encouraged Venezuela in this policy to, you know, open up another possible front of crisis, and distract from Russian activity in Ukraine. I mean, I don't know how many people are aware of that. And it's sort of gone off the agenda, but there was a real threat to Guyana at that particular point in time. I mean, of course that's a very rich region with massive oil resources as well, Essequibo.
Mccann: Yeah, it's so interesting and it is reported that this is an open secret, I guess, that this is very much a kind of Marco Rubio desire to see regime change in Venezuela, this idea that, I mean, he's been supportive of the opposition in that country for some time now. Does that tell us anything about the sort of strength, the power that Rubio has, the freedom that he has within the American administration, do you think?
Dearlove: Well, I'm not sure how much freedom he does have, but he certainly has an authoritative voice on Latin America given his own origins and interests. And the word is that he's been driving this policy, but I mean clearly Trump is supporting him because to carry out extrajudicial killings, you need presidential authority specifically. So Rubio couldn't do this without Trump's sign off, and it is the presidential sign off which technically under US law makes the actions legal. And without that sign off, they would definitely be acting outside the law as it applies to American politicians in the United States, because that's a constitutional issue.
TRUMP AND A THIRD TERM
Mccann: Yeah. Speaking of constitutional issues, we should talk about this before we move on. Donald Trump is opening the door ever wider to another run, which would be against the constitution in America, another run for president. He served two terms. He's in his second term now. We were talking about this before we started recording, weren't we? We checked the wording of the constitution and it says a president should only serve two terms, it's not about them having to be consecutive. But he's been asked about whether or not he fancies another go anyway in 2028, and he said, yeah. He said that his poll ratings are higher than ever. He said something like, it's really quite terrifying how good I am. Then he also did mention Marco Rubio and JD Vance, and said if the three of us formed a tight team, I don't think anyone could argue with us. It just fascinated me that Donald Trump is able to say these things, which in any other democracy would be an absolute massive press the red button warning sign, we need to get rid of this guy right now. It just passes for normal commentary in America at this point, which I find fascinating. And I suppose a lot of it will come down to how Trump's presidency translates, how people feel, the same as any politics really, how people feel in the end about how well he's done. And it interests me because he came into office talking about how important Americans are, make America great again, but it was about domestic policy, it was about manufacturing being back in America, it was about, you know, American jobs and American productivity. And yet the last couple of months, Donald Trump has been absolutely fixated on solving world wars. He's been in every single conflict zone pretty much around the world. He's on another foreign trip at the moment. And he's also, as we've just been talking about with Venezuela, his administration is consolidating power through sort of, I suppose, the machinations of other governments. The other example of that is Milei in Argentina, who has won a surprise victory. He's won 41% of the national vote in an election which happened this week, and there had been some concern that he wasn't going to. He'd been backed by Donald Trump. I mean, America is significantly, effectively bailing out the Argentinian economy. What do you make of Trump's intervention there?
ARGENTINA AND MILEI
Dearlove: Well, I think it's another move into Latin America and a reassertion of American influence after a period when, you know, there was huge sensitivity about the United States becoming over-involved in that part of the world, partly because of, let's say, the history of involvement, and we all know the examples of, you know, Cuba, and other of the larger nations, Colombia. But I think it's an indication that this administration cares about what was traditionally referred to as America's backyard. And let's face it. I mean, Argentina has had a catastrophic period economically and politically, and this radical Milei has pursued really devastatingly risky economic policies. I mean, risky in terms of losing the support of the population because of the austerity he's imposed on the country, and yet it seems to be working. And, I mean, my understanding is that Trump is offering them a $20,000,000,000 bailout, isn't he?
Mccann: Yeah, exactly, and I think they've spent a really significant chunk of money, several hundred US dollars, on buying Argentinian pesos, basically for that reason. I mean, Milei's got another two years in office. This poll, although he's done better than expected, he still is not the majority. I mean the opposition — he's got 81 seats overall his party, the opposition has 99, so he's not guaranteed a sort of easy ride of it. And you say, you know, actually it's interesting that you say it's working. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader in the UK, had previously used Milei's policies as an example of what a Conservative government would do in office, and subsequent to that, the economy has not necessarily been flying, and I think people's wages are down, productivity is down, so there's some complicating factors, but he's now got another two years to try and continue with this effort, and seemingly supported pretty closely by President Trump. I was telling you before about what Donald Trump said about his poll ratings. Milei said after the election, I am the king and the elite is my fodder.
Dearlove: That's quite amusing. Well, he's a classic one off. I mean, he's not quite Trump, but, you know, he has this sort of rock star, pop star persona. But on the other hand, he's had the courage to introduce these very, very hard-nosed economic policies, which everybody has dodged for years in Argentina. And I think that really it's massive cuts in government spending that's behind it. And it's interesting that Kemi Badenoch is using that because, I mean, the big issue or one of the big issues in the UK would be radically cutting the welfare bill. And that's pretty much the track that Milei's gone down on his own, and it looks as though at the moment it's a sustainable economic policy. It's not out of the question to do that because people understand. But I think that the Argentinian economy has been a basket case teetering on the edge of, you know, catastrophe for what, fifteen, twenty years?
Mccann: I think, yeah, even maybe longer. I mean, Milei said the first two years were about taking us away from the edge of the cliff, and the next two years will be about significant reform. You know, every country around the world is facing some similar kind of fiscal financial situation. I think there are those who are watching what's happening with Milei and wondering whether the age of the strongman continues. You know, people thought it was over. People thought he was gonna be, well, a lame duck for the next couple of years, and that's not what's happened here. So maybe there's some mileage left in it still. Sir Richard, it's been great chatting.
Dearlove: It's great chatting to you, Kate. Alright. I'll speak to you soon.
Mccann: That's it for this week's One Decision in Brief. Of course, be sure to stay tuned for our regularly scheduled episode that's coming out this Thursday. And if you missed any of our previous episodes, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts or you can check out our YouTube page or onedecision.com where you'll find shorts, explainers, and plenty more besides. I'm Kate McCann. Thanks for listening.
