Trump Eyes Colombia; Latest From Venezuela

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Henry Bonsu for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Henry Bonsu: 0:00

A week after the capture of Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro, neighboring Colombia has seen its president holding a phone call with Donald Trump. Gustavo Petro has said he's being careful, despite the insults, to maintain cooperation on combating drug trafficking between Colombia and the US. His country has faced a threat of military action from the White House. Let's discuss this with Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio. Hello again, Jon. Hi Henry. First of all, what a what an about turn. On the one hand, Trump, I think he was on Air Force One, said, hey, you know, doing something, uh attacking Colombia next might be a might be a good idea. But then he has holds his phone call and he says, Hey, this is great. I want to invite him to the White House. I mean, one head what one's head spins.

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:43

Yeah, although an invitation to the White House isn't necessarily the opportunity, the amazing opportunity that one would expect given some of the um the obviously the footage we've seen with some leaders over the course of the last few months. I think what's interesting about this from uh from uh Gustavo Pedro Colombian president perspective is that he seems to be adopting the the sort of the strategy which is which has been at least to date relatively relatively successful from Mexico's president Claudio Sheinbaum and uh up to a point President Lula da Silva in Brazil, of at the one time pushing back and not letting him get away with sort of falsehoods and amplifying a particular kind of rhetoric, but at the same time offering olive branches as well. So actually the phone call took place, the phone phone call with Donald Trump uh took place at the end of a day, um, a couple of days ago, in which Colombia had national demonstrations, uh virulent uh anti-American national demonstrations. So it was certainly a surprise to Petro's audience in the center of Bogota, um uh Colombia, when he came out and said, actually, also remarkably, in his bomber jacket, a bomber jacket he's never worn before, but is sort of taking on now as one of the sort of accoutrements of defen of defending the territory, when he came out and sort of told the audience ahead of in front of him, the thousands in front of him, that actually he just had a long, long phone call with Donald Trump in which he'd spoken, he'd spent most of the time speaking, and it explained, again, in the style of Shane Baum, everything that Colombia was actually doing to stop cocaine uh growth, coca growth, and trafficking to the US.

Henry Bonsu: 2:21

Right. And so, given that conversation, you wonder where things are going to go from here. What needs to happen in order for that tete tete to take place in the Oval Office or somewhere else in the near future?

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:33

Yeah, I mean, almost certainly, given what's been announced by both parties, this uh this summit will will take place in the way that we're used to in the in the Oval Office. But again, that's no guarantee of of of success. Um it's it's a sort of almost a um uh entering a lion's den kind of um scenario. And there's a lot of very easy attacks that the Trump administration can make on Petro, given his sort of leftist um, obviously, political position, the the fact, which is demonstrable, that actually cocaine production has gone up in Colombia, but that's not Petro's fault. That's actually to do with the relative success of the sort of the peace accords in Colombia, which have actually meant that a lot of the sort of the militant, the rural militant spaces uh actually are now a vacuum and have been taken over by by organized crime. So that you know that's not something that you could lay on Petro's door specifically, but but you know, that's uh it doesn't make any difference. That's undoubtedly going to be laid at his door. I would say that the one thing which is in Petro's favour in terms of potentially not having a sort of a uh military intervention, not to extract him, but perhaps a sort of a sort of a notional show of s of military strength in Colombia, is the fact that we're not too far away, we're only months away from presidential elections in Colombia, which the left is almost certain to lose. So there's not really, unless we're going for, unless Trump goes for another sort of made-for-television opportunity, there's actually almost no not much point entering into a potential expanded interventionist controversy, as the left is almost certainly likely to be to be out of uh political power in a few months anyway.

Henry Bonsu: 4:08

Yeah, meanwhile, John, I mean, a couple of hours ago we saw uh Mr. Trump meeting oil executives, um, and they were discussing the future of Venezuela's oil industry, which Trump says we control, and we're going to continue to control it. Well, what did what did we what did we learn?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:22

Well, so he so Donald Trump um emphasized, I mean, of course, he he sort of gathered all these um all these CEOs into one space as he's done before with uh with the tech bros, and he he emphasized um that they the the US administration, that the US military would guarantee total safety, and that it was an incredible opportunity because of course a lot of these um a lot of these companies have already lost money in the past through an expropriation of of oil in Venezuela and also are deeply concerned about the volatile nature of um the political situation in in the country and that it may all go wrong again for them. So basically the sort of the sticking point, if you like, is about who pays for the investment. Donald Trump was saying during the meeting, he was um encouraging the the oil companies, saying that it was them that were going to pay for the investment and not the government. But a number of figures came out and sort of suggested that they would need not just security guarantees but actually external support in order to uh to pay for that for that level of investment, which kind of you'd expect them to, right? Because they're private companies and they don't want to they want to make the profits, but they want to have minimal outlay in what is a complicated political situation. And it's also worth remembering that although Nicolas Maduro is currently in a New York prison, uh beyond that, actually nothing has changed. The same autocratic regime is in place in Venezuela and seems to be in um have sort of esconced itself for the for an extended period of time. And that of course generates disquiet among private business because it's the same administration, of course, that nationalised the the uh um the oil industry anyway.

Henry Bonsu: 6:03

Yeah, I'm just wondering what an early test of the leadership of Delcy Rodriguez uh is going to be. Because, of course, she doesn't want to incur the wrath of Trump, but if Trump wants these oil executives to be able to go in and essentially do whatever they need to do, um she's gonna have to bow down, isn't she?

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:21

She is. And already we've seen examples of that. The the the pretty significant release of political prisoners in the last 36 hours has been an indication of the fact that um that this administration recognizes that it needs to tread softly um in order to stay in power. Because also, again, it's worth remembering that um this administration needs to stay in power in order to not be held accountable for the significant and wide-ranging uh abuses that have taken place during the the Maduro regime. So that it that it's a massive investment for them. They can't lose power. Um, and so you know, uh we we've got this sort of this uh this contortion act that's taking place where you've got an established um leftist uh autocratic regime opening up the country for private investment.

Henry Bonsu: 7:08

All right, John. Thank you very much indeed for joining us, John Bonfilio, Latin America correspondent Henry Bonsu.