Latin America & the US: Venezuelan Oil; War Crimes Redux; ICE Violence; Tren de Aragua; Sheinbaum Rejects Interventions; EU/Mercosur Trade Agreement

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio in conversation with journalist Julia Tilton from The Daily Yonder, the US's only national news organization for rural people and places.  

For links to references articles, copy and past the links below:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c205dx61x76o

https://theconversation.com/why-unlocking-venezuelan-oil-wont-mean-much-for-us-energy-prices-273194

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome back to Latin America Correspondent. With me, Jon Bonfiglio and regular guest Julia Tilton, journalist with if you didn't know by this stage, uh you haven't been paying attention, the Daily Yonder, the US's only national newspaper for rural people and places. Now, Julia joins us, of course, for our regular series on the US and its relationship with Latin America, which is definitely it's in its uh abusive spousal stage, I think. So um, we needed something of an agony on Julia and some advice, and that I think would be you. Let me let me just give you the brief and then you can maybe provide some advice. Um, so the trouble is, which is uh a pretty uh essential difficulty, is that one of the uh one of the parties doesn't think that there's a problem at all. And actually, breakup and divorce is difficult given the fact that the um their lives are deeply interconnected. Plus, uh the individual in denial keeps sending his friend his friends round uh to shout outside the windows at night, graffiti to place, and they've also started uh urinating on lampposts to mark territory. Apparently, uh the support helplines are no use either. They say that what's happening is definitely illegal, but there's nothing much they can do. So here we are. What's your recommendation, Aunt Julia? How do you uh how do you suggest that um the troubled party move forward out of this difficult situation?

Julia Tilton: 1:23

Yeah, so it's not often that I say this as a reporter who focuses on energy and the environment with an eye toward climate change, but I actually think that the oil and gas industry could be a saving grace, so to speak, at least on the Venezuela part of this relationship, um, which just to recap the sort of hot mess that we're talking about, it now encompasses direct or perceived threats from the United States against Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Nicaragua, Canada, and Greenland, and that's just in the Western Hemisphere. You can also add Syria, Nigeria, and Iran to the list if you want to go global. But to my thoughts uh on how the fossil fuel or the oil and gas industry plays into all of this. Trump's grand plan for Venezuela is, as if you've been listening to this podcast, we've discussed all along, a pretty obvious ploy for the U.S. to plant its flag in one of the planet's richest and mostly untapped oil reserves. Now, part of this plan involved U.S. oil companies investing some $100 billion into Venezuelan infrastructure, which is pretty derelict in part due to U.S. sanctions on the country, though the irony there seems to be lost on the Trump administration. But the thing about oil companies is that they are far more concerned about their own bottom lines than they are about Trump's so-called Dunroe doctrine, which is something else we've talked about at length on this podcast. So when Trump makes claims saying, you know, we're going to invest $100 billion into Venezuela, and oil companies are going to be the ones that flip the bill, the oil companies are basically like, hey, not so fast. Trump invited a bunch of oil executives to the White House last week to present them with this fine business opportunity to invest in Venezuela, which he is claiming will bring energy prices down here in the United States. But the responses at that White House meeting were lukewarm at best. The BBC had some good reporting on the outcomes, which maybe we can link in the show notes. Um, but they included a quote from Exxon CEO, Darren Woods, which I'm gonna read directly from here because I think it paints a really good picture of how the oil and gas industry in general is thinking about Trump's offer, even if other oil and gas CEOs have been more tight-lipped about it than Exxon. So Wood said, quote, we've had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen in what is currently the state. Today, it's un-investable, end quote. So I think here the the story that's emerging is that Trump, who is the abusive one in this relationship, needs money from the private sector in order to make good on all of his promises about Venezuela and developing Venezuela's oil reserves. But that money isn't immediately flowing, and even if it starts to, which again at this point seems somewhat uncertain, the claim that opening Venezuela up to U.S. oil companies will suddenly bring down U.S. oil prices is also unlikely to immediately become the case. And Amy Myers-Gaff, who is an energy researcher at New York University, had a piece this week in the conversation about why unlocking Venezuelan oil won't really mean much for energy prices here in the US, even as Trump is making claims like the US will see 30 to 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela. Um, it's a good piece, and I recommend reading it in full, but to break it down, there are kind of two key things to keep in mind when it comes to why the promise of Venezuelan oil is maybe not going to be borne out in practice and why oil companies might actually be the ones that save us from this sort of developing mess in Latin America. Number one is that most of the oil in Venezuela is very heavy oil, and so it requires really extensive processing to be able to refine it into usable products like gas and diesel that you use to fill your car, for example. And then two is that Venezuela's recent export levels have been relatively small. Again, this has to do with sanctions. So the immediate effect of changes in the Venezuelan oil export are likely to be limited. Over the long term, the U.S. has refineries in the Gulf Coast, which are operated by companies like Chevron and Philip66. And those refineries might be able to make more profit by processing this heavy Venezuelan oil. But the thing is, there's no shortage of oil products in the US, and so these refineries only have so much capacity. They all also already have long-term contracts for oil from other places. So what that means is that they probably won't be able to handle all of those 30 to 50 million barrels. And what will likely end up happening is that some of that oil that Trump is claiming is going to come flooding into the United States will actually end up being sold abroad or put into longer-term U.S. strategic reserves. So these promises that Trump is making to, in many ways, the American people are really unlikely to come true. And in my opinion, it is perhaps only a matter of time until those promises sort of fall flat and we start asking more critical questions like why is the US involving itself in yet another foreign conflict, foreign intervention when there's no immediate benefit to the American people?

Jon Bonfiglio: 7:28

Yeah, my understanding is that I think you're absolutely right in your um in your assessment. My understanding is that the Venezuelan oil would not go to US markets, um, which are pretty amply supplied by subsidized US oil anyway, but the US would serve, or US oil companies would serve as something of a new intermediary to service the foreign markets that are all that Venezuelan oil is already going to, and so profit from those. It's not obvious that it would immediately affect the US price of oil. But of course, it's this is a political question for Donald Trump more than an economic question, and that's why he's making these promises because he's he's obviously trying to justify these these interventions. And the price of oil in uh has dropped a little bit um today, but my my sense is that that is also about um the s sort of um a promise to the market rather than any sort of tangible actual effect that's um that's uh that that's taking place. Whatever the whatever the final effect of it, it's pretty clear that um the US, whatever that means, that nebulous term in some way, shape or form is going to be the um um the the the chief of Venezuelan oil for for an extended period of of time. Um Julia, every time we speak, we joke about how many things have happened in a week and then the next week accelerates even further. Um so for today, given the fact that there's a just there's been a slew of things happening, I'm just gonna run through them quickly and then maybe we can just um get your reaction to them as well. And the first one I'd like to bring up is the fact that it was revealed this week that in September we're in strikes that again we've we've spoken about, especially in as regards the potential war crime of the double tap strike on the two individuals that were clinging to the um to the boat in the Southern Caribbean. So in these first strikes on boats um in the area, the US used an aircraft painted like a civilian plane. Now, this is important because it likely would constitute yet another war crime, as it's illegal to disguise military infrastructure as civilian in order to betray confidence and attack an enemy. Um elsewhere, the US Justice Department issued a note of approval for the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, although declined to address whether the action violated international law or international niceties, as Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller would uh would prefer to term international law. Um US Vice President J.D. Vance has cast the tie-breaking vote uh to defeat a war powers resolution that would have forced President Donald Trump to seek Congress's approval before taking any further military action in Venezuela. Um still in Congress, Democratic Representative Robin Kelly formally introduced articles of impeachment against Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Chrissy Nunn, following the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a US citizen by an immigration agent in Minneapolis last week, and I'm sure we'll come to the ICE actions in a moment. Um and finally, the Trump administration unexpectedly cancelled. I think this is really interesting, up to 1.9 billion US dollars in funding for substance abuse and mental health care, which providers say will immediately affect thousands of patients. Now, this story is especially interesting because it gives to the the lie to the fact that the Trump administration's focus on the well-being of the military, given that a significant proportion of veterans are exactly those people who would who would be most affected by this cut in support. Uh have I missed anything, Julia? What are your thoughts on any of the above stories?

Julia Tilton: 11:13

Yeah, I I just want to touch on that last point that you made about Trump canceling funding. I I know on a previous episode of this podcast, I I had broken down some of the erroneous claims that Trump had made related to the number of deaths caused by drug-related overdoses, that Trump is linking to illegal drugs flowing across the US southern border and flowing into the U.S. Um, I I completely agree with your analysis here that Trump's most recent move to cancel this funding just gives to the lie that any of this is somehow related to mental health, the mental health crisis in the United States and really the opioid and drug crisis. Um clearly it's not. We, as we have discussed at length, um, you know, other interests come into play. Um, but it is interesting to me that Trump is so sort of blatant in these moves that it's almost like it's it's completely disconnected, right? And and so you get to a point where there are so many lies, it's sort of, I would imagine, hard to keep track of them. Um, and I think this is a good example of that. Um the second thing I want to touch on is uh the uh ICE violence and the killing of Renee Good. Um, just to catch up and provide a little bit more context about that story. Um, it's one that's still developing but has largely centered around Minneapolis. Uh actually, just yesterday evening, uh, so that was Wednesday, January 14th, a federal agent in Minneapolis shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg during ongoing protests that are connected to the January 7th shooting of Renee Good. She was killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis during protests against Trump's ongoing immigration crackdown in that city. Umtable here is that Renee Good is a 37 was a 37-year-old white woman, an American citizen. Um, and so that has set off nationwide protests against Trump's immigration strategy, against ICE being present and armed in U.S. cities, against border patrol. It's really been sort of a spark that has set off just lots of uh sort of action and involvement, not just in Minneapolis but around the country. Um I think related to this story is the shooting of two Venezuelan nationals in a hospital parking lot in Portland, Oregon, by Border Patrol. So different from ICE, but also federal agents. Just a day after the killing of Renee, this happened last week on January 8th. Um, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have accused the two Venezuelan nationals who survived the shooting of being involved in the Venezuelan gang Craig de Aragua, which we've talked about before. Those two now face charges, face federal charges. Um, and per Oregon public broadcasting, the Portland police have said that the federal government quickly took over these two individuals' cases, but did corroborate that there was a quote nexus in their records that involved the duo and the Venezuelan gang and a shooting that took place in Oregon last summer. Um, I think that incident has captured national attention because it was the second shooting by federal officers in two days last week. So the the public was just sort of reacting to this horrendous shooting of an American citizen, and then not 24 hours later, there was news of another shooting that had taken place at the hands of federal agents. It's just this feeling of a rise in violence at the hands of the US government. Um and the late the latest shooting that I mentioned that took place yesterday, and it again is still a developing story, we're still finding out information, um, marked the third such instance in just over a week. So it certainly feels like there's an escalation after months and months and months of Trump's immigration crackdown. Now, the most recent uh headline um related to this story that I um have been able to track down is that now today, in response to the protests that are growing in Minneapolis, understandably in response to this violence, is that Trump has threatened to invoke an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act, which allows the use of military on U.S. soil, um, essentially to quash the protests in Minneapolis. And so that's quite a scary thought and something which would seem to go against our constitutionally protected rights um to assemble.

Jon Bonfiglio: 16:02

Um just a note on the Tren de Aragua. Um at this stage of the game, I think it's pretty clear that the Tren de Aragua has been used as kind of a catch all term to tar any Venezuelan that gets caught up in any kind of um situation. To be to underscore uh the Tren de Aragua's presence, it does not have an international organizational structure. Um, where it exists is as sort of sporadic, unconnected groups, um, which, albeit down to the Venezuelans, uh, they sort of take on the term almost in a sort of franchise way and are generally linked to other cartels. It's also a point of interest in the last few days because, of course, as you mentioned right at the beginning of the of the conversation, um Mexico is also one of the sort of the threatened parties as regards potential military interventions. And Claudia Sheinbaum, I mean her uh tried and by now tested strategy of sort of trying to put Pandora Donald Trump back in his box, um, on the one hand came out and said very publicly that this was not going to happen to uh to the Mexican citizenry, and then spoke to Donald Trump, had a personal call with Donald Trump, and explained everything in detail, everything that uh Mexico was doing to from her perspective to stop the sort of the advancement of drug cartels. Uh Mary, 24 hours later, would you believe there were significant arrests um in both uh from both the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and would you believe the Tren de Aragua, as cited by uh by Claudia Sheinbaum as well, figures from the two groups supposedly. So she's also playing into that language that is sort of that has been picked up and is being driven forward by um uh by by Donald Trump. Um any other stories, Julia, that have caught your eye uh uh this week?

Julia Tilton: 17:56

Yeah, actually just a note on this bit on Mexico. Um, not an hour ago, I I saw a breaking news headline from the New York Times that the U.S. is allegedly pressing Mexico to allow U.S. forces into the country in order to fight cartels and specifically to target sentinel labs. Um the the New York Times just came out with this story today, essentially reporting that U.S. officials want to be able to authorize American forces, so either special ops troops or CIA officers, to accompany Mexican soldiers on raids on suspected sentinel labs. Um again, this is very much a developing story. Um, and as you mentioned, Sheinbaum has um been sort of hesitant um to let US forces into the country, so it remains to be seen whether this sort of proposition on the part of the US will be accepted and where we'll go from here.

Jon Bonfiglio: 18:54

Yeah, the one other story I'd like to just um bring up, which has had some coverage and um but is uh is definitely worth picking up, is this new uh uh trade deal between the EU, European Union, and Mercosur, um medical Mercosur being Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, although it has links to other countries as well. So representatives of both the EU and Mercosur are to sign a free trade agreement in Paraguay in the next few days. The accord, 25 years in the making, would you believe, will create the world's largest free trade area with over 700 million consumers and a total trade volume of over 111 billion euros in 2024. Uh, the agreement has support from the continent business community, but it's also been in the press a little bit because it's met with resistance and protests from the farming lobby. Now, it's important to say that of course it is it's no accident that this is this is happening now. Of course, this is all about tariffs and this sort of attempt to circumvent um the the the US in sort of future freight uh trade deals and remove them from being the sort of the centre of of the orbit. It's uh and it is an attempt by the European Union also to not just ally with Latin America and Latin American markets, but also to sort of um uh uh plant a I guess a sort of a political flag in the region, much in the same way as that China has historically and the US is reclaiming um now. But it's also but these protests are also something of a dangerous game as well, because given them something of the difficult sort of domestic political situation that that Europe is currently living with the rise of the far right, this um if these protests continue, they do play into this sort of notion of the fact that the European Union as a as an entity is disconnected from the trials and tribulations of everyday people in um in the region. Um and yeah, of course they're worried, especially farmers are worried, that cheaper imports from South America are going to undercut livelihoods and weaken food standards. Um Julia, I know you also want to say, you want to issue a clarification about something you mentioned about Luigi Mangione in the in the last few weeks.

Julia Tilton: 21:08

Yes, thank you for that. So I want to set the record straight on something I said last week during our conversation. I brought up the case of Luigi Mangione, who is the 27-year-old accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in 2024. Um, I incorrectly said that Manion had been convicted of murder. That's not true. In fact, Mangione has not yet stood trial, and actually this story is relevant because just this past Monday, January 12th, a federal court judge decided that there should be a hearing to determine whether Mangione's backpack was lawfully seized and searched when he was arrested in Pennsylvania following the uh killing of Brian Thompson in 2024. This comes after a hearing that happened the Friday before, last Friday, January 9th, when the same judge told Mangione in front of a courtroom, packed with his supporters, I might add, that he could face trial by the end of 2026. And during that same hearing, she refused to rule out the death penalty as a potential outcome of the trial. This is, of course, conventionally related to Latin America, but as I mentioned during last week's episode, it is an example of a case that has captured the public's attention and really breached cultural discourse here in the United States. I mean, if you look up Luigi Mangione on TikTok, um I'm sure you'll find a lot of content there. Um and so I think as it relates to Latin America, it it remains to be seen whether ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's case will do the same. And I might add that case will also be held in New York.

Jon Bonfiglio: 22:55

Yeah, it's interesting how all of these high-profile cases are held there. Um look, you issuing a clarification and a correction for an incorrect statement, how 1990s does that feel?

Julia Tilton: 23:08

Well, as I said, I know it's it's a bit tangential, but um uh you know, had to follow my instincts as a journalist there and want to make sure that we're we're getting the information to all of you listeners um in an accurate manner.

Jon Bonfiglio: 23:22

Uh thank you. Thank you so much. Let's see what happens in the next week, in the next seven days, Julia. Uh talk soon.

Julia Tilton: 23:28

Talk soon.