“I think we\u2019re in a situation where we have not gotten regime change. The same group, minus only Maduro, is still in power, and it\u2019s not at all clear just how much intimidating force that we\u2019ve really got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are pressure points. I think they\u2019re in trouble on oil exports and so on. But what are China and Russia and Iran and Cuba going to do in the face of that, just sit back and watch it happen? So, I\u2019m not at all sure what day-after planning there was, because I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re finished with the day yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump talked about getting the oil, and I think there would have been a legitimate argument that U.S. oil companies kind of get first dibs to come in \u2014 not that we would take it, but that we would get some preference in terms of the ability to present proposals \u2014 and we should, at a minimum, get some of that production and maybe a lot of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not how Trump looks at it. He just wants to take control of it, and that\u2019s how he\u2019s going to pay for the military force and sort of everything else he\u2019s been promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I just think that\u2019s the kind of limited vision he has. He focuses on what he thinks he understands, the tangible economic asset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea that American oil companies are just lining up to go invest in Venezuela is just flatly wrong, and the idea that somehow there will be a quick transformation of the incredibly dilapidated Venezuelan oil infrastructure that\u2019s going to suddenly turn the production back online is fantasy, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s going to take tens of billions of dollars over a sustained period of time before they get this thing back up and running the way it used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think we do have full authority under international law to go after Maduro because what we would consider the legitimate government today is the opposition, with Maduro having stolen both the 2018 and 2024 presidential elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you basically go back to dealing with the old regime and undercut the legitimate government, you\u2019re giving Russia and China the precedent that they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nobody in Ukraine calling for Russian intervention, and the government of Taiwan certainly isn\u2019t calling for Chinese intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the Venezuelan case as it stands now is quite different from those, but that\u2019s not the way Trump\u2019s behaving, and it\u2019s the mistakes he\u2019s making today that lend greater credence to a Russian or a Chinese effort to say, well, we\u2019re just doing what the U.S. did in Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
what if they decide they\u2019re not going to do what we want six months from now? Where are we going to be at that point? And I don\u2019t think Trump has addressed that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n