Marco Rubio's Message to María Corina Machado

Marco Rubio's message to María Corina Machado:

And you’re not going to street-protest your way into a democracy.  It’s just not – the way you do it peacefully is through a process, and it’s the one we’ve set up.  And if this process doesn’t work, then the alternative is going to be worse.  The alternative is going to be either violence and armed conflict within the country, or back to the way things have been for the last 20 years, which have not been good for the people of Venezuela. 

This is baldly untrue. I get what he means: electoral and judicial institutions should be reformed to ensure a free and fair vote. But still, it's untrue. Protests tend to be the most effective way of forcing democratic change, particularly in this context where the U.S. government clearly wants a transition that preserves its economic influence.

It just feels like Rubio doesn't trust MCM in no small part because the U.S. doesn't control her. She's a wild card with a massive following so they want her sidelined as much as possible. So she's been back for only like 48 hours and he's made several public statements aimed in her direction. I hope very much that elections are held before long and that the U.S. doesn't meddle with the process, though we can't count on that.

In the meantime, I will be fascinated to see how MCM operates. Her very presence--irrespective of protests--will hopefully speed up the process.

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María Corina Machado Returns

María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela, which is huge. No one can say how this will affect the political situation, which of course will be dictated by her actions. Clearly Marco Rubio expects her to toe the line.

In the weeks since, the process of political dialogue in Venezuela has gained momentum, the U.S. officials said. That has given the administration some confidence that the authoritarian government would not arrest Ms. Machado if she returned, they said.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio expect Ms. Machado to respect and support the ongoing process of political dialogue as well as economic plans for Venezuela, one of the administration officials said.

She needs to support both the political negotiations she was intentionally excluded from and the business deals that she in fact has already questioned because the regime does not represent the interests of the Venezuelan people. So can she keep quiet about them? How does this directly challenge the authority of Dinorah Figuera in her capacity as opposition negotiator?

As an aside, I am struck by the Trump administration's claim that it needed to wait for confidence that she wouldn't be arrested. One could reasonably argue that if Rubio told them not to arrest her, then they wouldn't. But was there perhaps a whiff of doubt, a concern that they might arrest her anyway and call the administration's bluff?

Her return will change internal dynamics but no one can predict how. She's going to press for elections, fair business deals, and the like. She cultivates Trump but is not beholden to him. So let's see. But it's good she's back--Venezuela needs to become a democracy that's safe for everyone to return to.

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Venezuelans Are Even More Unhappy With Delcy and Trump

Back in August I linked to a Meganalisis poll showing growing Venezuelan dissatisfaction with Trump and the state of affairs in Venezuela. The September poll shows that's just getting worse. They think, with considerable justification, that no one has any interest in the welfare of the Venezuelan people. Not Trump, not Delcy, not investors, not the negotiation teams, nobody. They want Chavistas out of power and they want elections. Things are bad and the status quo is not making them better. If anything, they're in worse shape financially and with power outages.

Here is the trajectory of feelings toward Donald Trump:

There is no doubt that most Venezuelans supported ousting Nicolás Maduro. But that action came with the expectation that things would get better. Instead, Trump has consistently said the U.S. is profiting from the invasion and Venezuelans are finally believing him, to the point that approval and disapproval have pretty much inverted since January 2026.

There's not much new to say about this. I think Venezuelans feel frustrated and helpless. They thought Trump was swooping in to help them and that just wasn't true. The administration could compel significant change and simply chooses not to. Meanwhile, Delcy and Co. are holding onto power with all their might, ceding only when forced. So things don't get better. Like the rest of us, they can only wait and see what happens with negotiations and María Corina Machado.

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Maria Corina Machado's Perspective

María Corina Machado gave an interview to the New York Times, which highlights how she differs from the Trump administration, primarily in terms of democracy, and frankly why they don't want her in power, though she is very careful with her language.

Some takeaways:

1. If she becomes president, some high-level people will be tried and some will go to prison. She says by a truth commission, which is not how they've worked in Latin America. They haven't been courts--their purpose has been to investigate and publicize what happened. Regardless, this will rock the political boat, and in a way that's inconvenient for the administration.

2. Rocking the political boat brings us to the military. She says she believes only the leaders want to persecute her and her followers, and lower levels of the military support her. We have no way of confirming or disconfirming that, but it's a reasonable argument on its face. Reassurance of not being put on trial (which she also does say is possible for lower level officials) will help a lot in that regard as well. As a side note, in Argentina lower level officials were granted an amnesty that actually years later was overturned, opening the door for prosecutions at a time when democracy was firmly entrenched.

3. The oil deals being done now will be looked at. She frames it as those "that have signed contracts right now would like to improve the terms of their contracts once we’re done." I don't know if everyone will have the same definition of "improve."

4. She mentions how a democratic transition will bring many thousands of Venezuelans back to their country, so a free election is good for U.S. immigration policy. This is a shrewd framing you don't hear very often.

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Brazil Remains (and Will Remain) Close to China

Roberto Simon writes about Brazil and China, and how their relationship upends the Trump administration. If Flávio Bolsonaro wins, he will move ideologically into Trump's orbit but that will not change Brazil's relationship with China, which is deep.

None of that, however, would meaningfully reverse China’s deepening economic influence in Brazil, or the belief among many Brazilian business executives and foreign policy elites that the best long-term strategy is to hedge against an increasingly unpredictable United States. 

If Brasília becomes the next Latin American capital to shift rightward, the region would be ideologically aligned with the United States to a degree not seen since at least the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War. Yet the U.S. unipolar moment is long gone, including in Latin America. No matter who is in power in the region, Trump’s revived Monroe Doctrine is destined to collide with the reality of growing dependence on Chinese trade, investment, and technology.  

As Simon points out, it's common in Latin America for conservative presidential candidates to rail against China and then quietly (or sometimes even loudly) favor it when they take office. It just makes economic sense.

It's actually quite similar to Chile. As I wrote last December:

Keep that in mind for most other Latin American countries. The U.S. press in particular likes neat categories--there is a left and a right, and we can point to specific people who embody it. Presidential elections will be framed as wholesale change when in fact plenty of core policies will remain or at least will be tweaked without overturning them. China (and Europe) now have deep ties and those are not likely to change drastically. Add U.S. tariffs to the mix and the incentive to maintain friendly relations with China is even more evident.

It's important to keep emphasizing the point that despite ideological congruence, the U.S. is an unstable and unreliable partner right now and will be perceived as such for a while even after Trump is gone. He set the precedent for attacking your allies and it won't quickly be forgotten. 

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There Are Still Political Prisoners in Venezuela

The Economist has a great article about Venezuelan political prisoners. The context is that the U.S. accepts not pushing against authoritarianism because stability is prioritized far higher than democracy or human rights protections. The U.S. could force lots of positive change but chooses not to. This is obviously ideal for Delcy Rodríguez.

Prisoners serve three main purposes for the regime:

1. Bargaining chips with the U.S. The regime lets some people out, gets some good PR, stays in Trump's good graces, and stays in power.

2. A reminder to Venezuelans that the repressive apparatus is still functional so they need to be afraid. Protests are increasing and could get out of hand if people felt truly free.

3. A reminder to the armed forces that they support the regime or else. This is critical. The military has always been the linchpin of power, which is why Hugo Chávez was so careful about purging. Right now, there are 322 political prisoners, 140 (or 43%) of which are military.

The clear conclusion here is that freeing all political prisoners (and of course not taking more) is essential for weakening the regime, which unfortunately the Trump administration is not interested in at the moment. 

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U.S. Troops in Latin America

The New York Times reported on U.S. troops in Latin America. There's plenty to unpack here.

First, there is no goal at all, which the article points out. Wander around until you shoot or get shot at? This will end up killing innocent people for no gain. That will not matter to a U.S. audience until a U.S. soldier is killed, though I can't be sure people will care much even then. But objectively, it's a disaster for human rights. Plus, as I've written ad nauseum over many years, these operations will not stem the flow of drugs. They're largely for show, a testosterone-laden theater in the jungle. Probably miserable for the soldiers to boot.

Second, what happens when new presidents are elected that don't want these troops? That may not be a problem if someone else is president in the U.S. But for right now, we know the Trump administration likes forcing out governments, and of course the U.S. has a long history of it. That will hang over the region for a while.

But here is the part that shows the highest level of illogic.

Earlier this week, Gen. Joseph A. Ryan, who heads the Army’s Western Hemisphere Command, described the stark challenges the U.S. military faces as it returns to a region that for decades has not been its main focus. It is a part of the world where China has growing economic leverage, and where drug cartels have built sophisticated global networks to sell their illicit products, he said.

“We have ceded economic dominance in the region to an adversary, and that is a fact,” General Ryan said in remarks on Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington. “We are fighting now to retake terrain — maritime and land, human terrain, cognitive terrain — in many cases that we’ve given up previously.”

Sending troops has nothing to do at all with China's economic influence. It will certainly not reduce it. You're retaking "cognitive terrain"? Say what? Maybe he thinks that Latin Americans will be so happy at the sight of U.S. soldiers that they will stop buying Chinese products. How anyone could think that is beyond me. 

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Nicaragua Denies US Ambassador

The Nicaraguan government rejected Natasha Franceschi as the U.S. Ambassador. I immediately wondered whether she was a Trump political connection, but no (and perhaps his connections don't want Nicaragua anyway!). She's a career diplomat with long experience. There hasn't been a U.S. ambassador in Nicaragua for three years.

At first this puzzled me. Given what happened in Venezuela and is currently happening in Cuba, I couldn't understand why Daniel Ortega wanted the Trump administration spotlight on him, especially when it seems like the ambassadorial choice was a professional. Then I looked at her testimony from her nomination hearing.

If confirmed, I will sustain diplomatic pressure toward a solution in Nicaragua that

advances American prosperity and security. 

It is well past time that Nicaragua return into the fold of prosperous American

nations, free from totalitarianism.

Then it made more sense. That was pretty blunt. Nicaragua does not get in the U.S. news much but bilateral tension is definitely rising and I could imagine Trump seeing this as a personal slight. That said, Nicaragua does not have much to offer him in economic terms and can't reduce the price of gas in the U.S.  As always, stay tuned.

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Marco Rubio's Venezuela Messaging

The State Department has a quick summary of Marco Rubio's meeting with Dinorah Figuera and it's as weird as everything else in this saga. Here's part of it:

He highlighted this year’s steps toward establishing an independent Supreme Court of Justice, the release of over 1,200 political prisoners, the recently restored access to blocked media websites, and efforts to reform the Law Against Hatred as important milestones toward restoring fundamental freedoms for the Venezuelan people. 

Looking ahead to the next round of talks beginning October 14, the Secretary urged continued progress on political freedoms and electoral reform, which would lay the groundwork for free, fair, and credible elections in Venezuela.

This is the language you use when you don't have all the leverage. "Recently restored" media could have been restored in early January. The hate law could've been pushed months ago. Rubio "urged" continued progress?

The U.S. invaded the country and could have restored many freedoms a very long time ago, but chose not to. I understand that stability was favored over democracy. But abrograting the hate law wouldn't undermine stability--it would just stop innocent Venezuelans from being targeted for their political beliefs. Low-hanging fruit.

Instead, we have this scenario where the U.S. portrays the two sides are equal. In democratic transition terms, it's a bizarre combination of imposition and pacted. The former (which is rare unless you include foreign use of force) involves force while the latter involves compromise. Venezuela thus becomes a combination of the U.S. overthrowing Manuel Noriega and the Chilean dictatorships negotiated with the opposition, which I think would be unfathomable to all the scholar studying this 30ish years ago. It also confounds predictions of outcome. We hope it ends up like Chile, where the repressive apparatus was dismantled and elections persisted (even if the military's role remained strong for a long time). For now, it's like Chile where military internal intelligence remained going strong.

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Maria Corina Machado Makes Her Pitch

María Corina Machado published an op-ed in the New York Post three days ago about why she needs to return and Venezuela needs to hold free and fair elections.

First off, why the New York Post? I mean, I guess it doesn't really matter since people will read it regardless, but it's a tabloid. That said, it's conservative and has ties to Trump.

Her points are pretty straightforward and while careful to praise Trump, she makes it clear that you can't continue to have positive relations with an illegitimate government. You can't have certainty with a rickety and thoroughly corrupt dictatorship. She makes a point directly aimed at the administration's oil deals, which is that you can't guarantee contracts with the current regime.

Donald Trump's response: "Well, I'll say one thing: she is an excellent woman. She gave me her Nobel Prize because she knew I had earned it, and she is an excellent woman, and everything is going to turn out fine."

It's a beautiful blend of narcissism and vagueness.

Meanwhile, Marco Rubio denies that anyone blocked her return and a coordinator of Vente Venezuela said she might return "within hours."

Stay tuned.

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FRUS South America publication

I was very happy to see that the Foreign Relations of the United States series published part of the South America, 1981-1988 documents. It's been languishing. Unfortunately, the Chile and Argentina chapters are not yet out, as I would love to see those. This time around it's Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Here is a bit from a meeting Alexander Haig had with the foreign minister of Paraguay in 1981. Recall that dictator Alfredo Stroessner was still around (he didn't get overthrown until 1989) so human rights violations were rampant in the country.

And, of course, Haig had no interest in human rights:

The Secretary described human rights as a “residual problem” which we will address as one friend speaking to another and through diplomatic channels. He said his own preference would be to use the term “personal liberties” rather than human rights because the very term human rights has unfortunately become loaded with emotional and political connotations. In addressing human rights matters, it is important that we not lose sight of the security concerns that the countries of this hemisphere share.

What Haig is saying, just as Henry Kissinger said to dictatorships in the 1970s, was that attacking perceived Marxists was perfectly fine. The Paraguayans got the message loud and clear:

The meeting concluded with reiteration of expressions of good will and certainty that relations will improve steadily. As they were departing, the Paraguayans commented that this meeting marked a very sharp contrast with the recent past. They were delighted with their reception and the length of the meeting.

They are referring to Jimmy Carter and his four years of at least trying to focus on human rights. Incidentally, the meeting lasted fifty minutes. It consisted primarily of talking about Cuba and Marxists. The Carter era was officially over.

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Delcy Ditches Maduro

This is par for the course in the weird Venezuela political saga. Delcy Rodríguez did not request Nicolás Maduro's release or invoke his immunity as head of state. As a matter of fact, Delcy has already requested  that immunity for herself for a lawsuit against her in the United States. It's good old stab in the back.

It is true that even prior to Trump, the U.S. government said over and over that it did not recognize Maduro as president, constantly calling him illegitimate. Then the Trump administration did recognize her after the invasion because she was willing to kowtow. 

The problem, of course, and one that keeps coming up, is that Delcy was in the same illegitimate government. She was the illegitimate vice president. She has illegitimate stamped all over her. She has zero constitutional bearing in the country but is recognized de facto by the United States (not to mention the armed forces) so that's that. As always, aside from Maduro himself the losers in this situation are the Venezuelan people.

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China's Role in Venezuela

Really interesting op-ed by a China expert at the University of Alberta on China's long-term role in Venezuela. Headlines say that China is getting pushed out, just as headlines say (and the administration repeats) that China is getting pushed out elsewhere in Latin America. China's response has been very measured and I think this is on point:

Beijing’s response reflects a calculation that the deal’s fragility will show within months. Venezuela’s production will not surge. The US$100 billion in pledged investment will not materialise while the interim regime’s legitimacy is in question. And China’s existing contracts, protected by international law, remain a legal sword.

China remains Venezuela’s most important Asian oil customer and creditor. Though physical crude flows to China were disrupted this year, Beijing’s more than US$60 billion in oil-for-loan financing since 2007 creates debt obligations that survive the change in field operators – and China’s economic leverage ensures its interests cannot be erased by a 100-year concession granted to a US proxy.

He doesn't get into it, but this leads to three conclusions. The first is that backlash in Venezuela will grow and will worsen when a democratically elected government eventually takes over. The second is that the deal will have no effect on U.S. gas prices or anything else that the average U.S. voter is interested in. The third is that China will continue to have an extensive economic presence in Venezuela.

I don't know how much the average U.S. voter cares about any of this. Increased gas prices are more linked to the Iran war. But Venezuelans care. That's the point I keep thinking about.

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Can Congress Influence Venezuela Policy?

Both on and off the record, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are expressing doubts about Trump's oil deal with Venezuela. They distrust Delcy Rodríguez (as everyone should). They are concerned that it doesn't focus on elections. They're not happy María Corina Machado is being excluded and in fact she has now publicly expressed that the regime has no right to strike a deal for the Venezuelan people's oil.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is making pretty ludicrous statements in defense:

One U.S. official told NOTUS that the Venezuelan oil deal is “a private deal with a private company. It’s not a deal with the interim government of Venezuela and there was not a political process included in the negotiations.”

“I understand the initial reaction is that we’ve done a deal with the interim government. The deal is not with the interim government; the deal is with a private entity based abroad,” the official said in a statement. “So this in no way impedes a democratic transition, nor does it mean that it cements the interim government as the government.”

As if taking oil from a country has absolutely nothing to do with that country, which somehow has no role to play. I would love to know who the official was.

There is bipartisan agreement on this and it makes me wonder whether that can become leverage to force Trump's hand. There's no way to know Marco Rubio's beliefs but ultimately they aren't decisive anyway. Trump may shift if he feels there is enough opposition that it might start making him look bad. Even Ted Cruz has said there should be elections by mid-2027 (while, like the others, being very careful not to criticize the president). 

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Venezuela Apparently Loves Dependency

After having periodically looked at Telesur over the years, it is absolutely fascinating to see it become pro-U.S. and basically anti-socialist. Without realizing it, this article about the U.S. oil deal outlines exactly what dependency theory argued was destructive:

Venezuela aportaría acceso a sus recursos energéticos y a su mano de obra cualificada, mientras que Estados Unidos contribuiría con tecnología y capital. El presidente venezolano describió el acuerdo como una combinación de las fortalezas de ambos países.

Venezuela cuenta con una larga trayectoria en la producción petrolera y una fuerza laboral con experiencia en exploración, extracción, refinación y actividades industriales afines. Sin embargo, gran parte del sector requiere modernización de equipos, inversión técnica y mayor financiamiento.

Mientras tanto, Estados Unidos cuenta con importantes compañías energéticas con acceso a tecnologías avanzadas, capital a gran escala y redes de distribución internacionales. Estos recursos podrían utilizarse para mejorar la recuperación de petróleo, reparar la infraestructura y aumentar la fiabilidad de la producción venezolana.

People don't talk much about dependency theory anymore but it is certainly relevant. The United States brings in private industry, capital, technology, and distribution networks. Venezuela provides its oil and some workers.

And the profit? If you look at the history of U.S. domination of natural resources, including in Venezuela, you'll notice that the Latin American country came to realize it was a terrible deal. Money will be flying out of Venezuela with the rationale that it is required to keep technologies updated, buy and repair equipment, etc., etc. That will keep happening until a Venezuelan government says it has to stop. How long that will take is impossible to guess.

Along those lines, note that María Corina Machado just gave a speech calling for elections. She did not mention the deal but it seems clear that she realizes the only kind of government that can push back against the U.S. is a democratically-elected one. There's no way she likes this deal. I haven't seen Dinorah Figuera comment on it, but I don't think anyone can laud it, opposition or Chavista. For Chavistas it's a betrayal of the revolution and for the opposition it's a betrayal of national resources by a government beholden to the United States.

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Taking Venezuela's Oil

Hugo Chavez in 2008:

Chavez criticized the terms under which Exxon extracted oil in the region and accused the Venezuelan opposition parties of "giving away" the nation's resources when they were in power.

"The oligarchy and the Venezuelan opposition had no shame because they didn't have any problem with giving away the most sacred things. In this case, our oil," he said.

Delcy Rodriguez in 2026:

She thanked Trump and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, for striking the deal but added: “There is something that must be made absolutely clear: Venezuela retains the ownership and sovereignty over its resources.”

Donald Trump in 2026:

 "This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future," Trump said.

Since details are so sparse about the massive Donald Trump/Marco Rubio-driven oil deal, I don't have any specific commentary on it. Yet regardless of the details, it is hilariously clear that it is exactly what Chavez railed against. Trump clearly sees it as taking Venezuelan oil, with no interest in how it benefits Venezuelans.

At this moment, especially in the aftermarth of the earthquake, Venezuelans may well be willing to swallow it if they feel it injects resources into the economy in a way that materially helps them. In the longer run, and even in the shorter run if no improvements happen, that will almost certainly sour. You can't just take a country's critical natural resource without backlash.

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Another Report on Cuba

The America First Policy Institute published a report on Cuba. I think it's actually a lot better than the State Department's report from last month. But I was mostly curious about the policy implications and what the report demonstrates is that the U.S. just has no options that it hasn't tried before.

Of the 12 policy recommendations, 6 of them say the U.S. should demand something of Cuba that we've demanded before and they've continued to ignore. "Break the Communist Party's Grip on Cuba" has been a priority since the 1960s. There's nothing new in the report telling us how it would happen now. There is quite a lot of demanding and requiring but how? 

Another is to increase economic pressure. It's unclear to me how this can be increased--the U.S. has been squeezing Cuba since the 1960s and the Trump administration has ratcheted it up even more. Increases have never worked before and no one can possibly know whether immiserating the Cuban people more will suddenly be different.

One of the interesting ones is to restore Radio Martí and TV Martí, which the administration dismantled. "The Trump Administration was right to target waste and inefficiency in these programs, but their underlying mission remains important." It never made sense to me why they were targeted since the main criticism they had received was that they were too conservative. 

The last recommendation is to "Keep Every Lawful Instrument of American Power on the Table." This is interesting for two reasons. The first is that it's really been true since 1959. The U.S. has used every action imaginable though obviously after the Bay of Pigs, invasion was not viewed favorably. Not even Trump seems to view it favorably. But the second is why the report uses the word "lawful." In a sense it may reflect how often illegal means have been used and how terribly ineffective they've been (there are tons of declassified documents on this).

To be fair, what other recommendations can there even be, legal or not? Cuba isn't Venezuela so I don't get the impression that the U.S. has found enough willing partners inside Cuba to do a snatch-and-grab. The U.S. has tried invasion, assassination, economic sanctions and deprivation, political isolation, denunciation, punishment of countries that do business with Cuba, covert harassment, intelligence gathering, immigration policy, individual sanctions, and everything else under the sun. At various times the U.S. has also tried to soften some of those policies as a carrot. I just don't know what's left.

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CRS Report on Venezuela

The Congressional Research Service published a new report on Venezuela, "Venezuela's Post-Maduro Transition and U.S. Policy." As always it's a great resource for a non-partisan summary of what's going on and even what bills are currently under deliberation (there are at least six right now) and what else could be done.

Because it's rooted in Congress, it gives suggestions that would assert congressional influence, which at the moment seems quite unlikely. The most unlikely of all is to "urge or require the Administration to consult with the EU and Canada when making decisions on targeted sanctions." Since the President of the United States insults the EU and Canada on a regular basis and constantly talks about America First, it's hard to imagine Republicans allowing anything like that forward.

The Senate did recently pass a resolution that I thought was quite good, but I am not seeing signs that Congress wants to play a major role in Venezuela policy aside from getting administration officials to testify and face questions. Since Trump is set on a particular course, congressional activism would have to require Republicans questioning his choices. I'm not sure there is stomach for that. I would hope so, like I would for any major policy, because the more questioning involved, the better. Foreign policy is rarely going as well as presidents like to claim.

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State Department Video on the Monroe Doctrine

A book that's been always interesting for me over many years is Samuel Flagg Bemis' The Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation, published in 1943. As I contemplated writing my own textbook, I found a used copy and was fascinated by its perspective.

It's a great window into an era where professors had no doubts about how U.S. policy served to civilize others and spread our aura. The U.S. wielded power when it needed to in order to guide Latin American nations toward their own destinies. Introspection or a critical approach is nowhere to be found. Indeed, Bemis uses the word "imperialism" in an entirely positive way. The administration of Theodore Roosevely, he writes, "ushered in a new era in the Latin American policy of the United States, an era of protective imperialism" (p. 140). Even if you might allow a little bit of criticism for U.S. intervention in Nicaragua in the early 20th century, "that intervention was an honest intent, at least, to stabilize and strength the international relations of Central America" (p. 165).

Bemis had no way of knowing at the time that U.S. control of Cuba and Nicaragua would end up disastrous, fostering violent civil wars that eventually led to dictatorships that still exist and bedevil the U.S. in 2026. U.S. policy toward the two countries has been a failure in virtually every respect. What the U.S. sees as protective imperialism is viewed as noxious control within the country itself.

Which brings us to the video the State Department recently posted, narrated by Kevin Marino Cabrera, U.S. Ambassador to Panama. It is a celebration of the Monroe Doctrine that could've been written by Bemis but, unlike in 1943, we know that much of the outcomes were terrible for the U.S. Somehow occupation of Cuba was great but so was getting missiles out of Cuba, not understanding that the first led to the second. Daniel Ortega is powerful now because he led a group of Nicaraguans fighting a dictatorship the U.S. had installed decades ago.

We know this, it's not obscure history, and pretending it didn't happen will inevitably lead to other foreign policy disasters.

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Venezuelans Are Unhappy With Delcy and Trump

Venezuelan firm Meganalisis has a poll from after the earthquakes. It shows truly overwhelming disgust with Delcy Rodríguez regime, from her to government agencies. Some examples:

--93% say the information they get from the regime is either little or very little

--94% say they can't believe official information they get from it

--95% say they feel indignation after the earthquakes

--92% say the regime's response was bad or very bad

--96% say the regime could've done more

--78% feel deceived by the support Trump gives the regime

And the last one asks whether they believe Trump wants what's best for Venezuelans.

Look at the bottom part. Trump's positive image has dropped 70.7% since the invasion. He talks about how happy Venezuelans are with him but that's extremely outdated and is no longer true. Most people are still puzzled and trying to understand how the U.S. continues to support the dictatorship, perhaps waiting to see how negotiations go. The honeymoon is ending.

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