委内瑞拉石油协议引发美国角色质疑

For more on foreign policy and what's going on around the world, we're joined by the vice president of the Heritage Foundation Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, Victoria Coates. She was also, of course, a former national deputy security adviser for the Middle East affairs under the Trump administration. Very nice to see you again. I do wanna start, with you the same place, we started with Shannon.

What is your take on this Venezuela deal? Is this something that is really truly durable, not even in the long term, in the near term, but moreover, what happens when the president leaves office and the next guy comes in? Is this something that even another Republican would want to keep going? Well, Christina Bailey, good to see you. No. I think, absolutely, they will. This is a huge strategic move for The United States.

We're talking about 65,000,000,000 with a b barrels of oil that are now essentially going to be controlled by The United States, which doubles our proven reserves. So we become, in essence, the world's gas station by doing something like this. And and for Venice from Venezuela's perspective, this will give the confidence to our oil majors, Chevron, Exxon, Hal Halliburton to start making the kinds of massive investments that Venezuela needs.

You were talking about how long this is gonna take. A lot of it is gonna be in the construction, the ports, the pumping, all of the different industrial elements that are required for this kind of oil production. Those companies aren't gonna invest billions on of their own money unless they have confidence that the United States government's going to back them up. So that's essentially the structure that's being established here.

And, Victoria, all the reporting we've been seeing is that from the Venezuela perspective, both sides very upset about this deal. What's your read on what this means for the country itself as opposed to The US benefits? No. I certainly understand, you know, the concerns in Venezuela about the Delsea Rodriguez, regime, about what she represents in terms of a holdover from Maduro. And, I mean, I'm very, interested in having elections in Venezuela.

We, hosted Maria could or Corina Machado, the opposition leader at Heritage earlier this year. She's, you know, a terrific figure. There are others, who can come in. But I think what we're seeing here is rather than starting with imposing democracy and having elections, you're starting by building some other institutions. You're building up the economic resilience of the company of the country rather. You're building up the connectivity with The United States.

And so knowing secretary Rubio, I'm pretty certain that he is very, interested in this topic as well and that we'll see progress on the, on that front as in pretty short order. It I do think there is a concern here, though, because a lot of the Venezuelan population hated the Maduro government. They were eager for The US to come in. There was a lot of pro American sentiment, especially among the opposition. We are hearing ramblings that that rambling is the wrong word.

Excuse me. We're hearing rumblings Rumbling. The rumblings. Sorry. It's early. That that is they're unhappy with The US at this move. It seemed as colonial. It's seen as, you know, the history of doing this in South American countries for The US is not great. Is there a concern that there could be backlash? And by the time you get to elections, making a move like this could get you a government that is less pro American than a more moderate government you might have gotten.

No. I think I think that's exactly what I was I was trying to express. I think these things need to to come in succession. I do understand establishing this kind of economic, foundation first, but I do think we're going to need progress on the on the path to self determination for the Venezuelan people. Because as you say, I mean, they hated, the Chavez regime. They hated the Maduro regime. It was a horrible mismanagement of the country, which is why this is necessary in the first place.

I mean, Venezuela should be one of the most prosperous secure countries on the planet, and historically, it was one of the wealthiest in the Western Hemisphere. And, unfortunately, given, the wages of socialism, if you will, you know, that that was largely squandered. This can start to restore restore that prosperity. But I do agree it does need to come with, with political liberalization as well. And looking at a different situation that we've been monitoring and talking about this morning, talking about The US, Canada trade war, US trade representative Jameson Greer saying that The US should ban more Canadian goods.

What do you make of the ongoing trade war, the tit for tat renaming of Lake Ontario and everything else that we've been tracking and seeing play out in real time? No. It it is unfortunate, but, I mean, you we have to look at this realistically. The we need Canada. They're our neighbor. We're their major trade partner, But this is an existential threat for Canada, and The US Canada trade relationship was in much need of a reset.

Unfortunately, you know, prime minister Kearny is being, I think, quite unreasonable in how he's approaching this. Interestingly, the the governor of Alberta, which is their major oil producing province, is being much more cautious, much more conciliatory towards The United States because I think she realizes that, you know, the deal that we've just struck with Venezuela could replace a lot of the Canadian crude that we import and process, which is a very similar grade to the Venezuelan.

So I think that the these two things are linked. I think we will get to a better deal with Canada because it is so necessary for both of our countries. And, I think with the current squabbling is unfortunate, but may be necessary to get to that outcome. You you said, prime minister Carney is being unreasonable. I do want to show you what president Trump was posting on social media this morning. We're not gonna play the video, but this is an AI generated video of geese with guns and American flags, calling it Lake America.

I I do wanna ask you. There were issues with NAFTA. A lot of people had issues with this trade relationship. But is it worth blowing up this very critical trade relationship for The US as well? Is there one thing you can think that president Trump or the negotiators could possibly get out of Canada that would make Americans' lives fundamentally better in any noticeable way from what we had before? No. I think we absolutely could.

I think we would have much better rates on a lot of the the goods that we trade. I mean, oil being, probably the most important commodity and I think much less of a kind of a subsidy for Canada. And the other thing though, Christine, bear in mind is we've seen a real shift toward China, particularly from this government in Canada. They're talking about building a pipeline to run their oil, East West so they can export it to to China.

We just had Kearny go to Beijing and big handshake with Xi and, you know, talking about those connections. So that's another reason to be concerned about this relationship given their proximity to us, given their strategic importance with the Arctic. You know, we we have to be, you know, mindful that that this we can't take this relationship for granted, and neither can they.