Venezuela +48hrs: Trump Threatens Interim President; Maduro in Court; UN Security Council Emergency Session

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Rosie Wright for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Rosie Wright: 0:00

Let's get into a bit more of the detail of what happened in that new warning overnight. As Trump told Venezuela's new leader, this is Delcy Rodriguez, she could pay, I'm quoting here, a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro, if she doesn't do what's right. Well, Maduro is, of course, the country's deposed president. He's scheduled to appear in court today in the US. The US accuses Maduro of running a narco-terrorist regime, a claim he denies. Well, we can go to Mexico City now and speak to John Bonfiglio, a journalist based in Latin America. Jon, thank you for staying up to chat. Hello.

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:36

No problem. Good morning.

Rosie Wright: 0:37

Can we start with this warning shot, really, then given by the US President to Delcy Rodriguez? What did he say?

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:44

I mean, he's it sort of came up right at the beginning of the in the amazing press conference on Saturday, but it's been repeated. Uh, the warning shot given to interim President Rodriguez uh is entirely, I think, an indication of how the US wants to run Venezuela. And actually the emphasis of this warning suggests as well that it's almost this sort of uh this uh this get-out clause that Donald Trump wants to use, where he wants to insist actually that the US is not going to directly concern itself uh with uh with uh Venezuelan political matters, but wants to force the uh uh the uh uh resultant administration of Caracas to do what the US uh wants. In short, the US doesn't want to get involved. He uh he actually says that the US is not scared of boots on the ground, but it clearly is because of domestic political concerns. So, yeah, what they what they want is for the the remains of the Maduro regime to run it on American terms. And if if if they don't, well, then we've seen what happens. Uh one other thing to add to that is that actually um Delcy Rodriguez was quite strident um 36 hours ago in support of Maduro, saying he was the legitimate president and the fact that uh that what had taken place was illegal. But actually, overnight she's struck a distinctly more emollient tone, saying that Venezuela has the right to peace, development, sovereignty, and a future. So she's definitely toned down her critique of uh of the actions.

Rosie Wright: 2:03

Yeah, so can you explain a little bit more about who she is? Because we're expecting her to be sworn in as president today. She's presumably in charge for now.

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:13

She is. Uh she is a 56-year-old technocrat, uh, as I say, interim president, often referred to as the Serena, for her links to strong links to Russia, as well as for her expensive tastes, as well as serving as uh vice president. She was also uh previously finance and oil minister, and her brother is the head of the uh of the National Assembly. Power in Venezuela comes in two forms. It comes through the presidency, uh through political power, and it also comes through the military. And uh, it was also important, uh, an important statement that the military issued uh pretty quickly on Saturday to say that she had uh their support. So ranks seems uh seem to have tightened around her uh for the moment. And of course, then we we see what uh what future steps take place. But for the moment, she, Delcy Rodriguez, interim president, and the military uh are very much in control on the ground.

Rosie Wright: 3:02

Yeah, and Trump has said that the US will run Venezuela.

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:06

Yeah, yeah, he has. I um uh uh which was one of the staggering, one of the many staggering statements that were made in that that press conference at Mar a Lago on the on the Saturday, that uh everybody thought that the the issue would be fudged, but he very stridently said straight away, nope, uh this is us, and we're going to we're going to run the country.

Rosie Wright: 3:23

Uh part of that, of course, was the capturing and deposing of Maduro, who is now scheduled to appear in court today. What do you know of that?

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:32

Yeah, he's due to make his first court appearance in New York uh on Monday. He and his wife have been charged with uh narco-terrorism, drugs and weapons offences. The arraignment is scheduled for noon local time, so that's 5 p.m. UK. And it's uh it's uh expected to be a formality, a brief technical affair as he's formally presented with with charges as the as the process, the legal process begins in uh in New York.

Rosie Wright: 3:53

Yeah, exactly. And then, well, so there's so many outstanding questions, aren't there? At the same time, we are hearing there's gonna be a UN Security Council meeting. What what have you heard?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:04

Yeah, and amazingly, these two locations are only blocks from each other. They're not that far away from each other in in New York. Uh the new UN Security Council is going to hold this emergency session later today, um, as international alarm, I think it's fair to say, grows over these uh these actions in in Venezuela. The meeting is being held under an agenda item uh titled Threats to International Peace and Security. And it comes after the UN Secretary uh General Antonio Guterres warned that US actions uh over the weekend risked undermining international law and setting a dangerous uh precedent. Although we kind of know which way it's gonna play out, we know what roughly what Russia is gonna say, what China is gonna say, how the US is gonna sort of defend itself, we've heard these statements before. It's gonna be no less dramatic for uh for for the moment because of course it's the first gathering, international uh gathering at the UN since these actions, which are you know they're undoubtedly a Rubicon moment in the international for the international rules-based order.

Rosie Wright: 5:04

Yeah, what are we imagining might come out of that meeting, though, other than sort of strident statements?

Jon Bonfiglio: 5:11

Well, given just the functionalities of how the UN Security Council works and vetoes, uh, really we're not expecting much to come out of it at all. It's it's it's people uh presenting, it's countries presenting their position. Uh and I think clearly we know uh uh those we already know those who support um the actions, we know those who uh who sort of line up against the action. I guess hearing um sort of surprise voices will be potential surprise voices will be instructive as we as we go through the day.

Rosie Wright: 5:42

Yeah, I'm sure. Um on Saturday you talk about that incre quite incredible press conference. Trump said, you know, the US would run the country until there was going to be a safe and proper and judicious transition of power. The Venezuelans you've been speaking to, do they have any idea of what that might look like?

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:02

This is pretty fascinating, and it's one of the great surprises because if you'd asked anybody prior to events over the weekend, in Venezuela or out with Venezuela, what what that sort of transition would look like, then they would have said some kind of transition towards elections. Um, the the Venezuelan opposition, of course, headed up by María Corina Machado, um Nobel Peace Prize winner, uh, and in Edmundo González, who's currently in exile uh in Spain, that they would sort of come to the fore. But actually part of the staggering nature of that press conference was how entirely, in just one swipe, Donald Trump sidelined the entire Venezuelan opposition, suggesting that he actually preferred dealing with the status quo, with the remnants of the Maduro regime in in Venezuela. So that almost gives the lie to one of these, you know, one of the arguments about uh the motivations being democracy and freedom, um, because it it does seem as though uh he's not interested in nation building and that that's that that sort of complexity is not something he wants to get into, uh, and that the the ongoing administration is his best bet for taking economic advantage of the situation in Venezuela.

Rosie Wright: 7:08

Yeah. Well, the economic advantage of what's happening in Venezuela, let's talk about that a bit more because we are all trying to sort of work out exactly Donald Trump's precise motivations. He also said he wanted to start making money for the country. How much of any of this, John, is about the sort of US ambitions on Venezuelan oil?

Jon Bonfiglio: 7:29

Uh I mean, it's entirely about Venezuelan oil. It's uh trillions of dollars uh of market. Um, the very fact that I mean they've admitted it. Again in that press conference, he said as much. He uh not only that they were going to use it, they were going to take it, they were gonna use it, they were gonna sell it, but there's been this ongoing discourse now for a couple of weeks in which uh the US administration says that actually Venezuelan oil is not Venezuelan at all, that it actually belongs to the US and that Venezuela stole it from the US during an expropriation uh 20 years ago. Um you can't divorce what's taken taking place in Venezuela, what has taken place in Venezuela from the rest of the region, from the rest of the hemisphere. And it all sort of adds up to uh this sort of accelerated Monroe Doctrine in which the US administration wants to place the entire hemisphere specifically at the economic behest of uh of the United States. Now, if we're talking about natural resources, if we're talking about sort of political alignments, territory control of space, um potential uh access to territory to build new military uh bases, all of these things basically add up to the same thing, which is um an innate preeminence for the United States in the Western Hemisphere.

Rosie Wright: 8:44

Jon, thank you very much. Jon Bonfiglio, journalist based in Latin America.