00:00:08:17 - 00:00:41:24

Margaret Peters

Hello and welcome everybody to our webinar for today. Today I'm very pleased to that. We have Dorothy Kronick, to help us understand what is going on with the US, as I just called it, an invasion ish, intervention. Whatever we're doing in Venezuela. So help us understand whatever we're doing as the US in Venezuela. Dorothy Kronick is an associate professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley.

00:00:42:01 - 00:01:06:12

Margaret Peters

I've known Dorothy for a pretty long time now. And I know that she's done all this great work on Latin American politics, especially focus on all sorts of issues of Venezuelan politics. I mean, she was interested in Venezuela before Venezuela was cool. And her work has been published all over the place, including in the, the American Political Science Review, the journal Politics, Science, Science Advances.

00:01:06:14 - 00:01:20:14

Margaret Peters

She's also commented on Venezuela in places like The New York Times and The Washington Post. So I'm going to let Dorothy, tell us all about, what is going on in Venezuela. So take it away. Dorothy.

00:01:20:16 - 00:01:44:05

Dorothy Kronick

Thank you so much for having me. What is going on in Venezuela? So I think we're all here because 17 days ago, on January 3rd, the US military carried out strikes on 12 targets within Venezuela and captured and extracted, extracted then President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, and brought them to New York, where they are now in custody.

00:01:44:07 - 00:02:04:12

Dorothy Kronick

So what I thought I'd do, just in very brief remarks before we go to discussion and Q&A, is talk a little bit more about what happened that day. And you said invasion ish, what are we doing? What did Trump say? And and then also what's happening now and then maybe just open a conversation about what might happen next.

00:02:04:14 - 00:02:33:18

Dorothy Kronick

Okay. So going back to January 3rd, hours after Trump announced that the US military had captured and extracted Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores, he gave a press conference in which he announced that the US would be running Venezuela and that we would be working with Delcy Rodriguez, who until then had been Nicolas Maduro's vice president, and in in in some ways this wasn't surprising.

00:02:33:18 - 00:03:07:01

Dorothy Kronick

So there had been rumors for months, and it was even reported in the New York Times in the fall that Delcy was a possible successor to Nicolas Maduro. That possibly there were conversations between Delcy and other Travis leaders and the Trump administration. But in other ways, it was deeply surprising to hear Trump say that the United States would be working with Delcy, in part because she was vice president in this administration that Trump had long, criticized as illegitimate.

00:03:07:03 - 00:03:42:06

Dorothy Kronick

And and in part because she while it is true that in many ways she has moderated over recent years, historically Delcy was, very much in lockstep with Maduro, in line with longstanding Chavista rhetoric that rejects U.S. intervention, that rejects U.S. imperialism and her family background. So her her father, who's he's kind of been glossed in the press as a Marxist guerrilla, but I think that that's that's maybe not the best way of thinking about it.

00:03:42:06 - 00:04:26:06

Dorothy Kronick

He founded, political party that was a left wing splinter faction of a party that was itself a left wing splinter faction of Venezuela's major left party. And I was actually just reading his collected speeches, and he was a kind of deeply ideological Marxist. And so, many reporters and analysts have reported that the experience of, of, of her father, who then also orchestrated the kidnaping of American of an American businessman and was arrested and tortured and killed by Venezuela's elected government in the 1970s, that that experience was tremendously radicalizing for Delcy Rodriguez and Jorge Rodriguez.

00:04:26:06 - 00:05:01:14

Dorothy Kronick

Right. So to hear Trump say, oh, we're working with this person who was vice president under a regime that we have long claimed is totally illegitimate and then, on the other hand, have Delcy turning around with her background. And working with Trump, I think in some ways was surprising. I think many were also surprised in that press conference that Trump sidelined and kind of dismissed Maria Corina machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, who was behind a very successful opposition presidential election campaign last year.

00:05:01:14 - 00:05:30:07

Dorothy Kronick

I guess now, yeah, in 2024, in which the opposition candidate, backed by Maria Corina herself, was barred from running. But the candidate she backed, Edmundo Gonzalez, won in a landslide won [...] 2 to 1. And Maria Corina and her team organized this like, truly extraordinary effort to document the vote and not just claim that they won and that Maduro stole the election, but show the world that Edmundo Gonzalez won and that they had won the election.

00:05:30:07 - 00:06:01:05

Dorothy Kronick

And and last fall, Maria Corina Machado won a Nobel Peace Prize. And so then Trump in his press conference, says she doesn't have the support or respect to run the country. She's a nice lady, but she doesn't have the with the support or respect. I think many, many people found that surprising. I think what's important to note is not only that Maria Corina and her political movement had a lot of support and respect in 2024.

00:06:01:05 - 00:06:39:00

Dorothy Kronick

At the moment of that presidential election, but that according to polls, even even though I think it is the case that she lost some support and approval over the course of 2025 as she, supported a lot of actions that Trump was taking that weren't very popular, did not condemn sending Venezuelan migrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, or the boat strikes, the strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, etc., etc. even with that loss of support, it is definitely not accurate to say she has no support or respect in the Venezuelan population.

00:06:39:02 - 00:07:07:24

Dorothy Kronick

What may be closer to true is that she didn't have the support in the Venezuelan military that the Trump administration felt would be necessary to make make her leadership viable at this moment. And certainly if she had a lot of support in the Venezuelan military, one might have expected a political transition in 2024. After that, political after that presidential election that Edmundo Gonzalez won in a landslide.

00:07:08:01 - 00:07:33:03

Dorothy Kronick

So let me talk a little bit. So that's kind of what happened on January 3rd. And let me talk a little bit about what's happening now. So since then, as Trump announced, the administration has been working with Delcy Rodriguez, formerly Maduro's vice president, now president of Venezuela. And really the first major thing that has happened is the resumption of sales of Venezuelan oil.

00:07:33:05 - 00:08:12:06

Dorothy Kronick

So in 2019, the first Trump administration imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela that caused a huge decline in Venezuelan oil production and Venezuelan oil sales, and as a result, a huge decline in government revenues and further deterioration of an economy that was devastated by decades of mismanagement and especially terrible mismanagement under Nicolas Maduro. And so what's happened now since January 3rd is that the administration has already sold or allowed the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars of Venezuelan oil.

00:08:12:08 - 00:08:49:22

Dorothy Kronick

And a lot of that money has actually already made its way back into the Venezuelan economy through the central banks, and has been through the central bank and is being sold by private banks. And so what I'm hearing from friends in Caracas is, you know, on the one hand, a lot of pessimism about the political situation. You know, how is Trump just leaving the same government in charge and at the same time, this kind of flicker of cautious optimism that could the economy improve and could that alleviate a lot of forms of suffering?

00:08:50:02 - 00:09:13:17

Dorothy Kronick

So a few days ago, when this first tranche of dollars from oil sales made their way back into the Venezuelan economy, what people are seeing on the ground is on their app that shows the exchange rate. Buying foreign exchange, buying dollars with Venezuelan currency is becoming dramatically cheaper. It's like all of a sudden it's easier to buy foreign exchange.

00:09:13:17 - 00:09:50:14

Dorothy Kronick

And as a result, there's anticipation of perhaps major drops in the price of imports, which would be really helpful for consumption, and more availability of goods. Now, all of that, all of that said, I said cautious optimism because there are still so many questions about whether this will happen and whether it will work. So one big question mark is, you know, one thing that Trump said is that the dollars from these oil sales would be used only to import goods made in the United States, US goods.

00:09:50:14 - 00:10:10:16

Dorothy Kronick

Right. So this is some sort of trade deal. And if that were the case, I think that could be a tremendously difficult to administer and implement, given that it's the Venezuelan private sector that's in charge of imports. So how do you check what they're importing only from the United States, etc.? And so that could be very distortion free.

00:10:10:18 - 00:10:44:06

Dorothy Kronick

But it seems that in this first round of oil sales, those restrictions were not imposed. And so there was this kind of little economic lift. And so there's a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen. But I do think there's a possibility that the resumption of oils are not not unlikely at all, that the resumption of oil sales will really help the Venezuelan economy and, and potentially alleviate some of this tremendous economic hardship that Venezuela has experienced over the past, really ten years now.

00:10:44:08 - 00:11:12:24

Dorothy Kronick

I want to say one thing. And then I know we have a lot of questions, about kind of political prospects. Right. Because I'm talking a little bit about the economy. But one one possibility here on the political side is that if there is some measure of economic recovery that could lead to or help the further consolidation of the Chavista dictatorship.

00:11:12:24 - 00:11:44:21

Dorothy Kronick

Right. So the the government of Nicolas Maduro, this was not a democracy. At this point, I don't see a lot of reason to expect that the government of Delcy Rodriguez and the other leading Chavista figures would become a democracy or would be democratized. And so I think one possible outcome here is that the resumption of oil sales leads to economic recovery, but does not end up restoring Venezuelans political rights.

00:11:44:21 - 00:12:24:23

Dorothy Kronick

Right. I think that's one possibility. Another possibility is that this kind of modus vivendi that's emerging between Caracas and Washington breaks down and, I don't know, there's some demand from Washington that that Delcy Rodriguez's government doesn't want to meet. And that that leads to kind of renewed, renewed violence or renewed tensions. There's also the possibility that fractures within the Rodriguez administration, within the Chavista leadership, could lead to more unrest and contestation and violence within Venezuela.

00:12:25:00 - 00:12:53:04

Dorothy Kronick

And I want to say something about the possibility, however remote it might seem in this moment of re-democratization and a democratic transition. So let me preface this by saying no one in Washington has put democracy at the top of the agenda. Not even close. So Trump in his press conference on January 3rd, didn't even mention democracy. Rubio,

00:12:53:04 - 00:13:15:18

Dorothy Kronick

in an interview the next day, a journalist asked him about a timeline for elections, and he just looks at the camera and says, elections, right? Like the elections. And we have we haven't heard anything about this. Right. And obviously, Delcy Rodriguez is not a pro-democracy activist, to put it mildly. And at the same time, I, I, I can't give up hope.

00:13:15:18 - 00:13:55:17

Dorothy Kronick

And I think there's a path. And one thing that I want to point out here is that Venezuela does have a really long history of elections, of extraordinarily high turnout, of kind of democratic traditions and institutions that, of course, have been massively debilitated in recent years and weakened. But yet that kind of as we saw in the presidential election in 2024, the habit of participating in elections, the habit of defensa voto like, just like monitoring the vote and documenting the vote, those traditions are very strong.

00:13:55:17 - 00:14:33:05

Dorothy Kronick

And in fact, Venezuela's electoral technology, meaning the physical voting machines that have been in use for, yeah, 20 years now, also were what allowed the opposition in 2024 to show the world that Edmundo Gonzalez won that election. Right. And so there's a lot of kind of electoral technology, infrastructure, the shadow of former institutions and tradition and practice that I think make some of the comparisons we've seen in the press where people say, well, Venezuela is Iraq or Libya, etc. are really not not the right comparison.

00:14:33:05 - 00:15:09:24

Dorothy Kronick

Right. And so do I anticipate that Washington will say, use this new leverage to. Require that the Rodriguez Delcy Rodriguez government and opposition members to the Supreme Court or to the Electoral Council or or, you know, require opposition representation in the cabinet or promote the kind of institutional reforms that political scientists have long recognized are needed for a more stable democracy, like lowering the stakes of power.

00:15:10:00 - 00:15:38:13

Dorothy Kronick

No, I do, I see it. Does that seem likely? Is that what people are talking about? No. And again, I for one, can't just give up all hope that any of that could be on the agenda, on the horizon. And I do think that, there is so much activity and energy in the Venezuelan electorate, in Venezuelan political activists and NGOs and human rights organizations, that there is some base for those changes.

00:15:38:15 - 00:15:48:18

Dorothy Kronick

It's not impossible. So let me stop there. And I know Maggie had a few questions to start, and then I hope we can have a conversation with everyone here as well.

00:15:48:20 - 00:16:08:03

Margaret Peters

Great, thanks, Dorothy. Yes. If you have a question, I already see some in the Q&A, but please take your question into the Q&A and I'll make sure we try to get to them all. One more, one sort of more like table setting question I had for you was you just brought up, like, this long history of democracy in Venezuela.

00:16:08:05 - 00:16:35:09

Margaret Peters

You know, 30 years ago, it was one of the most stable countries in Latin America. So how did we get Chavez and Maduro? How did it become a dictatorship? Why did the economy entirely collapse in about 2017? Part I mean, that was like the hard collapse in 2017. But if we go back further, like why did we see the economy collapse?

00:16:35:11 - 00:16:53:21

Dorothy Kronick

Well, yes. We could we could talk about those questions for the rest of the day. Let me start with maybe rather than starting with why Chavez came to power in 1998, although I would love to talk about that, and I have done some published work on that. Maybe just starting with the present and thinking about the economic, the economic collapse.

00:16:53:21 - 00:17:26:12

Dorothy Kronick

So I guess what I would say about Venezuela's economic deterioration is this has been the largest peacetime economic contraction in recorded economic history. So the Venezuelan economy collapsed 70%, basically. And just by way of comparison, the U.S during the Great Depression, the cumulative collapse over a longer period was 24%. Something like that, like the 2008. The US economy, I think shrank 4%.

00:17:26:12 - 00:17:50:12

Dorothy Kronick

So 70% is a lot. Right. And what are the causes of this? I think we need to really put them in two buckets. One is well actually three buckets. One is the collapse of oil prices in 2014. Actually, prior to 2017, you already see some economic decline. And that collapse of oil prices is bad for the oil sector, for oil production and bad for the Venezuelan economy overall.

00:17:50:14 - 00:18:39:14

Dorothy Kronick

But then oil prices recover and the Venezuelan economy and Venezuela imports don't recover. And I think that the Venezuelan economists who have best documented this point to two factors, one is a series of tremendously damaging and tremendously distortionary economic policy decisions by the Nicolas Maduro government not only a disastrous lack of investment in the oil sector and hostility to, multinational oil companies that then leads to further deterioration, but also, spending tons of money subsidizing propping up Venezuela's exchange rate in the Venezuelan currency, which was just fiscally devastating and, again, created tremendous distortions.

00:18:39:16 - 00:19:06:18

Dorothy Kronick

There's actually there's a great book about all of these mistakes that Maduro made by Francisco Rodriguez, think it's called Venezuela's Collapse, but recent book by Francisco Rodriguez, just walking through all those economic policy decisions that were so devastating. But then the other factor, of course, is U.S. sanctions. And actually, I see a question in the chat, from William, to what extent do we attribute these economic issues to sanctions?

00:19:06:18 - 00:19:32:07

Dorothy Kronick

So in 2017, as Maggie, I think was was mentioning, there were not the oil sanctions, but other sanctions that affected, Venezuela's access to credit and access to international financial markets. And so already we see the 2017 sanctions affecting the economy. And then early 2019, 2019 is the imposition of oil sanctions that absolutely devastates oil production and oil sales.

00:19:32:07 - 00:20:00:06

Dorothy Kronick

And so there is some debate, I think, among to answer William's questions. There's some debate among Venezuelan economists about the relative, you know, role of Maduro's terrible iconography, mismanagement versus US sanctions in producing the 70% decline, some estimates are 50% is due to sanctions. And in the absence of sanctions, the economy would have declined 35%, which is still huge, right.

00:20:00:08 - 00:20:39:04

Dorothy Kronick

But it's kind of more there's more precedent for it. 35% collapse. We see many kind of macro economic populist cycles in Latin American history that have that size of contraction. So some estimates say have other people say no, no, that's overestimating the impact of sanctions. And it's actually more like 25%. Right. So there's debate about that. No one, you know, all the kind of serious work on this would suggest, kind of majority responsibility of Maduro's terrible economic policy decisions and the collapse in oil price, but a substantial role for for US sanctions as well.

00:20:39:06 - 00:21:01:00

Margaret Peters

Right. One question you mentioned, a little bit about like the coalition, the Chavismo coalition that's sort of holding together so much in terms of the military people like Delcy, others, [...] do they still have an ideology or is it just like kleptocracy at this point?

00:21:01:02 - 00:21:36:17

Dorothy Kronick

That is such an interesting question. To the extent that Chavismo ever had an ideology. And let me say one thing that people always kind of talked about distinguishing Chavez from, say, Fidel or even even Eva Morales and other kind of left presidents of of the early 2000s is that Chaves, didn't have this kind of gaggle of intellectuals writing, you know, there was no kind of party organ with lots of, you know, clear ideological statement.

00:21:36:17 - 00:22:06:22

Dorothy Kronick

So it was always kind of fluid in that way. And that said, to the extent that there were these core kind of elements of Chavez's worldview of being anti-imperialist, anti United States and also like, like past Venezuelan governments, very much, you know, state investment in the economy, tremendous levels of state spending. People I've seen people say in these last weeks that Chavez nationalized the oil sector.

00:22:06:22 - 00:22:37:18

Dorothy Kronick

That is not true. Venezuelan well, was nationalized in the 70s, but kind of there were other national big nationalizations under Chavez. And so those anti, you know, anti-imperialism and state role in the economy, were core tenets, I think, of of Chavez's government and for a while of Maduro's government. And then we've just seen that totally abandoned, I would say, for the most part, under under Maduro and under Delcy, I mean, in part in part by necessity.

00:22:37:20 - 00:23:07:23

Dorothy Kronick

Right. But but over the past few years, the Maduro government liberalized not politically but in terms of economic policy and removed a bunch of controls and, and, and, and in some people would say became a government of austerity, like a neoliberal, almost economic policy, again, in part by necessity. But that was a complete departure, I think, from the economic ideology to the extent that there was any of the Chavez government.

00:23:08:02 - 00:23:19:21

Dorothy Kronick

And then also, you know, on the imperialism, here we have Delcy Rodriguez, you know, working with Trump. So I think that is an ideological departure as well.

00:23:19:23 - 00:23:47:07

Margaret Peters

Yeah. Great. And then one, I'm going to ask you one more question before I ask a couple more from the Q&A. What is up with the cartels? So, you know, Trump last at the start of last year and especially through the fall, focused a lot of this about drugs and drugs in the United States. And the case against Nicolas Maduro and his wife is about drugs.

00:23:47:09 - 00:24:17:24

Margaret Peters

Oh, what a have you heard anything about like what are the cartels doing? What is the government doing it? The cartels and even just stepping back a sec, how much do people think that Maduro and the government was involved with the cartels? Versus either they didn't either they were worried about trying to take them on because they're worried about violence, similar to what we've seen elsewhere.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:22:22

Margaret Peters

Or they couldn't take them on.

00:24:22:24 - 00:25:00:03

Dorothy Kronick

Yes. Super interesting. So I will answer your question about what is known about drug trafficking in Venezuela and the involvement of Maduro in particular, and other people in the government in general. And before doing that, I think it's really important to address some of the Trump administration specific claims. Right. So one one claim related to this whole narrative is that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is invading the United States, or has perpetrated a predatory incursion against the United States.

00:25:00:03 - 00:25:27:22

Dorothy Kronick

That was the justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act and sending 250 Venezuelans to a maximum security prison in El Salvador last March without any due process. Right. And so I would on that. I would say not only that, multiple courts have found, including the Fifth Circuit, that there is no basis for the claim that this gang is invading or perpetrating a predatory incursion against the United States.

00:25:27:24 - 00:25:49:03

Dorothy Kronick

But in addition, Maggie, I have been working in my research on kind of trying to characterize that that group of migrants as a whole that were set to El Salvador and trying to use some quantitative tools to assess Trump's claim that they're all and they're all, you know, and at every last one of them, members of Tren de Aragua.

00:25:49:05 - 00:26:13:02

Dorothy Kronick

And, you know, our estimates, you will not be surprised to hear are just not consistent with that at all. Also in the days since January 3rd, there was a White House, at least a tweet saying that, Maduro was a major supplier of the fentanyl that is the source of the tremendous drug crisis and overdose crisis we have in the United States.

00:26:13:04 - 00:26:42:10

Dorothy Kronick

And that is just totally false. Venezuela is not a major supplier of fentanyl. Venezuela is a a major but significant transshipment route for cocaine and has been for decades, since the 90s. And then even more so in the early 2000, perhaps because of some changes, policy changes under Chavez, but also because of Plan Colombia and a big crackdown on protests in Colombia.

00:26:42:12 - 00:27:12:00

Dorothy Kronick

So Venezuela has long been a transshipment route for hundreds of metric tons of cocaine every year. And it has long been the case that Venezuelan government officials have been implicated in that. In fact, the the term that you've heard Trump throwing around, Cartel de Los Soles, Cartel of the Suns, is a term that was, was, was the advent of that was in the 1990s, because Venezuelan generals have sun insignia on their uniforms.

00:27:12:00 - 00:27:35:22

Dorothy Kronick

And in the 90s there was this a famous case of a member of the National Guard who, was indicted and tried for drug trafficking. And so there was this discussion of, you know, Venezuelan military involvement in drug trafficking. And there there were even rumors of Venezuelan presidents, pre-Chavez being involved, as well as all I can tell you about that.

00:27:35:24 - 00:27:58:07

Dorothy Kronick

And you know, when when we were together at Stanford and I was doing my dissertation, I actually wrote a paper about cocaine trafficking through Venezuela, and I was very intrigued at that time. This was whatever, 2015 by this idea of Cartel of the Suns, and then ended up having a footnote in that paper saying it's it's really a figure of speech like this is not actually a cartel.

00:27:58:07 - 00:28:29:18

Dorothy Kronick

That was the understanding at the time. That was long before Trump was on the political scene or, or talking about this issue. Right. So, in terms of Maduro, what exactly was his role in drug trafficking that, I don't know. I do think the general kind of perception and sense from reporters who worked on this is, the Venezuelan government was deeply implicated in allowing drug trafficking that is very different from being like the operational head of a cartel.

00:28:29:20 - 00:28:56:24

Dorothy Kronick

Right. And I, for one, will be very interested to see whether these specific charges that are being brought in the Southern district of New York about narco terrorism, about cocaine trafficking, and about, I think, wielding a machine gun for the purposes of drug trafficking, whether Maduro will be convicted ultimately on those charges, I will be very interested to see.

00:28:57:01 - 00:29:37:24

Margaret Peters

All right. We have several questions asking about the the ties between Venezuela and Cuba. So both thinking about the influence that Cuba had over Venezuela. And then on the flip side, kind of like what happens to Cuba now. So for maybe those who don't know as much about the ties between the cast, the former Castro regime and Chavez, maybe you can explain a little bit about kind of like what the ties were and then kind of what you think this how this might affect Cuba going forward.

00:29:38:01 - 00:30:02:02

Dorothy Kronick

Okay. Sure. Yeah. So just in terms of background, Chavez saw Fidel Castro as a mentor and got a lot of, I think, reportedly very important advice from from him over the years. And when the oil price of oil began to rise in the mid 2000, Venezuela began supplying Cuba with a lot of oil. And this was a huge support to the Cuban economy.

00:30:02:04 - 00:30:52:05

Dorothy Kronick

And in return, Cuba not only at one point was sending a lot of doctors to Venezuela, but but really importantly, took a big role in the Cuba in the Venezuelan, domestic surveillance and military intelligence organizations. And so that role of the Cubans in kind of domestic repression enforcement and especially surveillance and enforcement in the military explains why 32 of the approximately 80 known victims of the US military strikes this January 3rd were Cubans, because so many of those deaths occurred in the kind of final assault on the compound.

00:30:52:07 - 00:31:11:21

Dorothy Kronick

And so many of the bodyguards were Cuban, 32 of of any that's really high, proportion. And so let me say one more thing about the victims. And then I want to get to your question about what does this mean for Cuba. So I haven't seen a lot of people talking about about the victims. You know, these 80 victims, right?

00:31:11:23 - 00:31:38:21

Dorothy Kronick

Because there's been so many other things to talk about over the past 17 days. But I do think it's worth taking a moment to note, not only there were a few civilian victims, but also, you know, many of the, victims who were in the military installations, the military bases, that were the target of U.S. strikes. They were members of the Venezuelan military.

00:31:38:21 - 00:32:07:07

Dorothy Kronick

And so I think Stephen Miller described this as enemy kills. All of these were enemy kills. And. The members of the Venezuelan military who were left there kind of guarding the Guardia like in charge of these stations over the holiday week, in many cases, were kind of right, the youngest folks with the least responsibility for anything. Right. And so I think it's just important to acknowledge that.

00:32:07:07 - 00:32:40:18

Dorothy Kronick

And and there's actually a beautiful piece in The New Yorker today kind of reporting on some of these cases and some of these families. But back to your question. What does this mean for Cuba? So I think, you know, when we think about why did this happen, why did the US decide to carry out this strike and how did we how did we end up in this situation where a president who campaigned on no forever wars, no nation building is now in the situation of striking Venezuela and removing the president and saying that we're going to we're going to run Venezuela.

00:32:40:20 - 00:33:03:21

Dorothy Kronick

And I think part of the answer is about a show of force on drugs. And we can talk about the kind of headlines and what Fox News has been reporting on drug. And then part of it is, you know, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, having strong, I think, personal beliefs and personal reasons to want to see the end of the Venezuelan and Cuban dictatorships and also political reasons.

00:33:03:21 - 00:33:27:21

Dorothy Kronick

Right. Because of this South Florida audience that would so value regime change in Venezuela and certainly regime change in Cuba. And so I think that is a really important thing to keep in mind when we think about what's going to happen next. And again, on the immediate front, I do think that this new arrangement will result in immediately less funds flowing to Cuba.

00:33:27:21 - 00:33:32:23

Dorothy Kronick

And that's going to be really tough for the Cuban economy and possibly for the Cuban regime as well.

00:33:33:00 - 00:33:58:06

Margaret Peters

Yeah. Great. One sort of follow-up of that was thinking a little bit about and your comment about it being the holiday week and maybe there weren't the best people on on duty at that point. But kind of the question was like, how like how did the security apparatus get overwhelmed so easily? Is there any idea that, like, anybody from the inside had a hand on hand in this?

00:33:58:08 - 00:34:22:10

Dorothy Kronick

There's a lot of talk about that. And I see that great question from Steve in the chat. And I don't I wish I had great Intel. Someday it'll come out. I mean, it does seem it's I don't know. The answer is I'm a researcher, I don't I'm not in the CIA. I don't know, I, yeah, it does seem like a palace coup is definitely plausible, but I don't know.

00:34:22:14 - 00:34:23:08

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah.

00:34:23:10 - 00:34:31:20

Margaret Peters

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could tell you the case that Delcy is like. Sure, I'll make sure the the like the not so great people on duty right now.

00:34:31:24 - 00:34:34:16

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah, yeah. I mean, who knows I don't know.

00:34:34:20 - 00:35:03:09

Margaret Peters

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Let's see a lot of great questions. So one question that I'm going to take next, in part because, you know, I study migration. So, you know, I'm, you know, I'm thinking about that. So what how do you think this affects the Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S? How do you think it affects the greater Venezuelan diaspora in the region as well?

00:35:03:09 - 00:35:33:02

Margaret Peters

So, you know, in my work and like Venezuelans in Colombia, of course, everybody, you know, people always say when you who have migrated, who are sort of forced to do it immediately, like, oh, we want to return home. But do you think we're likely to see people returning home any time soon? And how do you think this might, affect the Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S for good or for ill?

00:35:33:04 - 00:36:00:13

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah. Well, I think there's two, maybe two aspects of that. One is about migration. And then we could also talk about voting in US politics. Right. And Colombian politics for that matter. So on returning, it's really hard to know because there's so much uncertainty about how stable the current arrangements are. Right? We don't know how the extent to which the Chavista leadership really is unified.

00:36:00:13 - 00:36:24:04

Dorothy Kronick

And this kind of Delcy government is stable. We don't know. We don't know how long Trump will be in office and whether these policies could change. Right. And what happens if, if, if Trump were to be out of office and then US policy changes, how does that affect, you know, the Venezuelan government? I think you're already hearing some of that.

00:36:24:06 - 00:36:52:06

Dorothy Kronick

Wariness and kind of skepticism and uncertainty from the oil companies. Right. Trump has asked these oil companies to make these big investments in Venezuela that would be required to really revive the oil sector and, we're hearing from these executives like, well, we we don't we don't we don't have a lot of guarantees. And I think I would think that those same kind of concerns and risk aversion would be there for these migration decisions as well.

00:36:52:09 - 00:37:27:03

Dorothy Kronick

That said, Maggie, if there is a major economic recovery, which I think again, is totally not only within the realm of possibility, but like, not unlikely. And we're already seeing a little bit of that. I would expect that there were some people, certainly some people from Colombia would return regardless of their political prospects for economic reasons. I absolutely would expect that thinking about, kind of South Florida and like US politics.

00:37:27:03 - 00:37:48:19

Dorothy Kronick

Right. I think it will be we have seen some polling, the polls out, the polls that I've seen so far are very tricky. It's tricky. Online polls are tricky, so I don't I take all these polls with a grain of salt. That said, my sense from the polls is this is this intervention was more popular than you might expect, right.

00:37:48:19 - 00:38:15:05

Dorothy Kronick

People kind of see this as like successfully removing this incredibly unpopular dictator. And so there's some popularity to that. And at the same time, when we're thinking about the Venezuelan diaspora in the United States, I would think there is not going to be a lot of enthusiasm or satisfaction with leaving Delcy in charge. Even if the economy recovers.

00:38:15:05 - 00:38:26:07

Dorothy Kronick

Right. There's got to be some discontent about that. And so I think how this plays out politically in the United States may depend on what kind of political developments we see over the next year.

00:38:26:09 - 00:38:47:21

Margaret Peters

Yeah. I mean, I would also think that it helps getting rid of Maduro helps bolster the case to get rid of temporary protected status for Venezuelans without, status. So I might see greater deportations up in as well. And should you not have a more secure status than TPS?

00:38:47:23 - 00:39:23:02

Dorothy Kronick

Yes. And also, TPS beyond TPS affecting the number of deportations, also, affects the politics, right? So revoking TPS is not popular. That's great regardless and regardless. And but by the way, I think there's a question we don't know how many how TPS affects deportation. Certainly it affects security, job opportunity, etc.. Financial security in the United States.

00:39:23:04 - 00:39:49:11

Dorothy Kronick

My sense is that the people who are most likely to be the target of current domestic, you know, interior immigration enforcement, you tell me, Maggie, are not the most likely to have had TPS, if that makes sense. And so I, I don't know, but I think regardless of how ending TPS affects deportation, I don't I don't think it's popular politically.

00:39:49:11 - 00:39:50:21

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah.

00:39:50:23 - 00:40:15:22

Margaret Peters

Okay. We have some questions also about like the larger, international security, international relations and, how do you think Maduro's removal affects, Chinese relationships with Venezuela? And just like greater Chinese relations in Latin America.

00:40:15:24 - 00:40:31:21

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I was just reading the chat as well. So, I think it's going to be very interesting. So on the China piece in particular.

00:40:31:23 - 00:41:08:02

Dorothy Kronick

So far we have not seen the US say no more oil sales to China, at least as of the start of this webinar. We have not seen that. Right. And so that could happen, but that could have happened. So far it hasn't happened yet. So I think that's that's an important thing to note. You know, I think that the regional politics of this have been very interesting in that, a number of countries kind of signed a statement condemning the intervention.

00:41:08:04 - 00:41:32:11

Dorothy Kronick

And, and yet, you see, you know, other countries, right, that are more on the right being more so Petro, of course, as you know, it was against this. And then we see other countries in Latin America being surprisingly open to, hey, Maduro was terrible, and maybe this could be a good thing for the welfare of Venezuelans and for stemming immigration in the medium term.

00:41:32:13 - 00:41:54:02

Dorothy Kronick

I mean, one one thing that I think relates to your previous question about TPS, Maggie, is that part of the TPS discussion is about political conditions in Venezuela, right? It's about economic conditions in Venezuela, but it's about political conditions as well. And those conditions are relevant not only to TPS, but of course, to also your question about immigration.

00:41:54:04 - 00:42:23:07

Dorothy Kronick

And right now, I would say I think there's a lot of uncertainty about, Where political repression is headed, because in the days after January 3rd, we saw what you might expect, which is this kind of, you know, anyone who aided and abetted this or who like something on social media that's related to removing Maduro should be arrested, right?

00:42:23:08 - 00:42:49:13

Dorothy Kronick

So this kind of increase in repression, at the same time we've seen the release of some political prisoners. And so it's I think at this point, there's just a lot of uncertainty about the direction and intensity of political repression under this new Delcy government. And that is going to play a big role in and everything that we're talking about in the conversation about TPS and immigration and in regional politics as well.

00:42:49:15 - 00:43:40:01

Margaret Peters

Yeah, great. So good question. So one question that is here is like, thoughts about violence on all sides. So you mentioned a potential crackdown on opposition. We could also see, Bryan Pitts mentions that the opposition has used violence as well. How much how likely do you think we're in a new equilibrium that will be, you know, kind of similarly as peaceful as the one before or more peaceful, or is there likely to see, greater insurgency or civil war happen in Venezuela?

00:43:40:03 - 00:44:06:08

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah. Well, I guess I would say a few things. One, while it is true that the Venezuelan homicide rate has plummeted since 2016, I don't know if I would describe the country as peaceful over the last 20 years, not only because prior to 2016, there were just very high levels of criminal violence and homicides, but also but also under Maduro, tremendous levels of state violence.

00:44:06:08 - 00:44:34:06

Dorothy Kronick

Like we had a point in the Maduro administration where the government was killing 5000 people a year, mostly poor young men in the barrios. Right. And so, 5000 a year is a lot. Just to give you a sense of scale, right? In the U.S, which has a population more than ten times as large police. Yeah, police killings are maybe like 1000 a year, 800 a year and 5000 a year, also way more per capita than Brazil.

00:44:34:06 - 00:44:58:09

Dorothy Kronick

And notoriously violent Brazilian police. So this has been a very it's been a very violent regime. I mean, on the one hand, it is true there are many different armed groups, right? There's presence of ELN and Colombian armed groups on the Colombian border. There are the megabandas this like, Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua, in the center of the country.

00:44:58:09 - 00:45:22:04

Dorothy Kronick

In the Arco Minero and the kind of the south east where there's a lot of illegal mining, there's also a lot of presence of armed groups. And so I think the potential is there. I think whether we see a lot of violence, again, depends in large part on whether, the governing Chavista coalition kind of remains unified and sticks together or not.

00:45:22:06 - 00:45:48:17

Dorothy Kronick

In terms of the violence of the opposition, I don't I don't because of what we said were Machado doesn't have a lot of support in the military. I don't think most analysts are expecting a civil war between what Chavista aligned and opposition aligned elements of the armed forces. That's not something that I think a lot of people are talking about.

00:45:48:19 - 00:46:10:12

Dorothy Kronick

But yeah, I think that, you know, that the there are a lot of guns in Venezuela. And so I think a lot of people are concerned for good reason. And I think if that if people remain united around Delcy, then maybe we could avoid that kind of worst case scenario. Let me also come to Bryan. I saw this question about the opposition.

00:46:10:14 - 00:46:42:09

Dorothy Kronick

So the book, that I recommended earlier by Francisco Rodriguez, the subtitle is Scorched Earth, and it kind of takes, yeah, focuses on the use of, these kind of more, more, destructive tactics and strategies by the opposition. So I think, Bryan, if you're interested in that, I would definitely recommend that book. And. Yeah, I guess I would.

00:46:42:09 - 00:47:04:20

Dorothy Kronick

So I don't know if everyone can see Bryan's question, but it's just about Machado and the political opposition and and Bryan is saying it's not the case that that if they, that team were to come to power, that equals liberal democracy and I, I yeah, I mean, I agree with that and I, I didn't mean I don't think I suggested as much.

00:47:04:22 - 00:47:17:24

Dorothy Kronick

I think my point was what is I think true is that Machado and the candidate that she supported Edmundo Gonzalez won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide. Yeah.

00:47:18:01 - 00:47:52:20

Margaret Peters

Okay. Great. So then thinking about state collapse and, like, concerns that the military could splinter, do you does the base and did the material on the cash and the, sorry Chavez regime before it did they do a good enough job of sort of like rotating generals around, or do generals have like, their own base of support that we might be worried about could lead to a challenge, especially if, you know, right now we're setting up this expectation that a lot more money is coming in.

00:47:52:20 - 00:48:06:18

Margaret Peters

So you would imagine each generals thinking like, okay, I'm going to get paid. But if that doesn't come true, are we worried that any one of them has enough support or could pull enough support to really challenge the state?

00:48:06:20 - 00:48:31:11

Dorothy Kronick

Well, let me recommend some great work on that. So I think the short answer, Maggie, is the Chavez and Maduro governments. I mean, despite the failure of security, I guess from their perspective that was on January 3rd, did a really impressive job of coup proofing, of purging of repression in the military, of, as you're saying, rotating people out and military intelligence and surveillance.

00:48:31:11 - 00:49:15:10

Dorothy Kronick

Right. Harold Trinkunas at Stanford had a great book on civil military relations in Venezuela going through into the beginning of the Chavez period. And then, John Polga-Hecimovich, I believe is how you pronounce his last name, has some great recent work on coup-proofing purges and repression within the military and kind of helping, I think, helping people understand how it's possible that with this presidential election in 2024, the military nevertheless continued supporting this incredibly unpopular regime.

00:49:15:12 - 00:49:17:15

Dorothy Kronick

I think there's some really good work on that. Yeah.

00:49:17:17 - 00:49:28:03

Margaret Peters

Yeah. What do you think? Will Machado have any role or what do you think her role will be now?

00:49:28:05 - 00:50:08:21

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think she's indisputably is still kind of the leader of the opposition. If you look at polls, I think despite again, losing some popularity relative to that high point in 2024, remains Venezuela's most popular living politician. So she is kind of voicing these policy preferences. And at the same time, as I said, Trump in his press conference kind of sidelined her and certainly does not seem imminent that that she's going to be taking on, a leadership role in the government.

00:50:08:21 - 00:50:20:15

Dorothy Kronick

Right. So I think I guess the most likely thing is that she continues to play a leadership role in the opposition. But not imminently in the government itself.

00:50:20:17 - 00:50:46:05

Margaret Peters

Yeah. All right. Then, to sort of like two different thoughts about how this plays out in the US is one you've given a little bit of thought about, the trial, do you have any sense of any more sense, I know you're not a legal expert about what do you think's likely to happen at the trial?

00:50:46:07 - 00:51:13:10

Margaret Peters

And maybe if you think a little bit about, like, the various precedents to this trial, like Noriega and else and others, and then thinking a little bit about how different is the Don-roe doctrine? Not necessarily the Monroe Doctrine is pretty different from but like the Roosevelt, was it the Roosevelt Corollary? I think, you know, thinking more about like the Roosevelt Corollary.

00:51:13:10 - 00:51:34:12

Margaret Peters

And so maybe just stepping back there and just thinking a little bit more about, you know, many ways how different is is the real difference that like, we took out Maduro openly versus sending just the CIA into take him out, or is this a real break with our policy in Latin America?

00:51:34:14 - 00:52:04:17

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah, great. Well, one thing that I think has been interesting is that it is so tempting to draw these historical parallels, and the more I try to think about historical parallels, the more this feels different, right? So even even Panama and Noriega, which you which you mentioned and a lot of people have drawn this parallel to Panama was just totally, totally different, in so many ways.

00:52:04:17 - 00:52:36:06

Dorothy Kronick

I mean, not only in the scale of the military operation, but not only in what what preceded it. Right. A U.S service member had already died right before the US invasion of Panama and the removal of Noriega. But also in that in that event, we. Landed 26,000 US troops arrived in Panama and in even so, it took weeks before that conflict was over.

00:52:36:06 - 00:53:03:03

Dorothy Kronick

Hundreds of of Panamanians died and, I don't know, 24, 20 something U.S service members died. And all of that was the case, even though Panama was, as one Venezuelan journalist put it, the first time Trump brought up the possibility of US military intervention in Venezuela was pre invaded because we already had the base there. Right. And so this was this was just as it was just really different in so many ways.

00:53:03:03 - 00:53:30:09

Dorothy Kronick

And also the implications for the economy were really different. So I think that's like a really difficult parallel. And then when you think about other, the many episodes of U.S. intervention in Latin America and attempts at and regime change, although this is this is not regime change. Maduro was removed, but the regime is still there. Right. But but like I've seen a lot of other parallels drawn as well that also don't seem right.

00:53:30:09 - 00:53:59:18

Dorothy Kronick

So people compare this to say, action in Guatemala in 1954, removing Jacobo Arbenz, and where the U.S. had a very kind of direct military role. And so in that case, maybe there's there's that parallel, but that was totally different in terms of the base of domestic support. This was Arbenz was had been elected, which, you know, Maduro was voted out.

00:53:59:20 - 00:54:27:00

Dorothy Kronick

And the kind of domestic balance of popularity was totally different. And so that that doesn't seem like Guatemala in the 50s doesn't seem like the best parallel people look at Chile 73, where we there was this where the US kind of embraced. I think it encouraged a coup removing Salvador Allende. But in that case, it was a very it wasn't the US military executing this.

00:54:27:00 - 00:54:59:09

Dorothy Kronick

It was we embraced and encouraged it. And so that and again, Allende also was elected and I, you know, was a very serious politician. That feels very different as well. People have also tried to compare this to Chile 88, in which the US, this was kind of the the beginning of the end or the end of the Pinochet regime, where the US supported a domestic Chilean opposition movement, and then the opposition, you know, wins this referendum.

00:54:59:12 - 00:55:27:20

Dorothy Kronick

And that leads to, to, to a political transition. And that also obviously is a major stretch. This is not, you know, the US supporting an electoral attempt to oust Maduro. So I think this in this does, there's a lot of things about this that I think are very unusual and it's it's other people have compared it and maybe closer in some ways to kind of targeted political assassinations.

00:55:27:20 - 00:55:43:21

Dorothy Kronick

Even though Maduro was not assassinated. It's like this leadership target rather than the regime. So I think, I certainly have been in looking for historical parallels, seeing more differences and similarities actually.

00:55:43:23 - 00:56:12:10

Margaret Peters

Great. And then just let's end with thinking a little bit about the broader region. So what do you think it says for Latin America? I mean, I know like Maduro was removed. Trump started talking about Pietro is the leader who's the democratically elected kind of left, I guess, leftist, in Colombia. But fairly center left. It's not that out there, I would say.

00:56:12:12 - 00:56:42:10

Margaret Peters

And you saw him immediately, like pick up the phone and be like, hey, look at it. What can I do for you? So do you think, leaders in Latin America, will be more likely to, sort of kowtow to Trump? Do you think this means anything for Lula in Brazil? And I mean, of course, like it says, like, oh, you know, the communist regime in Cuba, maybe we're coming for you.

00:56:42:10 - 00:56:58:00

Margaret Peters

But like we've been saying that for ever now. So, like, I don't know, I don't know how much like the Cubans are, like, well, how different is this than, you know, many other times before. So what do you think about, like, the broader effects on Latin America?

00:56:58:02 - 00:57:25:07

Dorothy Kronick

Yeah. So I don't know. But one thing that I think is really important to note, Maggie, is that, this was in some ways not a one off in the sense that we're seeing lots of other signs of renewed investment in US military bases in Latin America, U.S permanent military presence and renewed engagement with Latin America and all sorts of other issues.

00:57:25:13 - 00:57:54:06

Dorothy Kronick

So, you know this I don't think we should see this in isolation. And even just the very the fact of Marco Rubio being secretary of state like these, we see Roosevelt Rhodes, there's a lot of other stuff going on that I think indicates that this is part this is seriously part of a broader strategy of focusing on Latin America, of making this, a place where U.S. interests and economic interests and to the to some extent, policies are respected.

00:57:54:06 - 00:58:22:18

Dorothy Kronick

Like, this does seem to be a broader effort and not just isolated to Maduro. That's one thing that's, I think, also interesting about what's going on in Venezuela so far is what have been our demands, our our meaning, Washington's demands for the Delcy Rodriguez government. Right. We we we have all this leverage. The US has all this leverage now having made credible the threat of military intervention, what are we using it for?

00:58:22:20 - 00:58:36:11

Dorothy Kronick

And again, so far, I think the main demand has been sell oil, which they were thrilled to do. That's not a demand. The rate. And so, you know, I'll be very curious to see whether we add to that list.

00:58:36:13 - 00:58:52:12

Margaret Peters

Yeah. Great. Well, that ends rate at 129 130. So thank you again, Dorothy, so much for coming. I really, really appreciate it. And, thank you again.

00:58:52:14 - 00:58:53:15

Dorothy Kronick

Thank you so much for having me.

00:58:53:21 - 00:59:11:00

Margaret Peters

And, everybody, you can go check out Dorothy's website. She's at Berkeley. You can just Google her and Google her work. It's really wonderful. And then we have, a bunch of different other, talks from the Burkle Center coming up. So thank you all so much for coming today.