Yeah, and, and as he, he won some award recently, and on sca- on stage, he said, "I wanted to thank..." He, he switches to English to say, "I wanna thank Brad Parscale," um, you know, "my, my partner here." So w- what is, what is the relationship here between MAGA, um, and this, and this movement which is now being, you know, uh, st- It, it's not unraveling, but we're learning a lot about kinda what its, uh, kind of under- underground tactics have been.

Yeah, Parscale and Cerimeido are business partners.

They have a consultancy firm together.

And what appears to be is that Parscale, who has a lot of experience and likewise in the United States, finding these issues that can really divide the electorate, building the digital infrastructure to kind of be able to identify it, to, to figure out what are the issues that they can exploit, where are the regions where they think they can best make ground, and this is precisely the model that Cerimeido has, had brought into Latin America.

And so it's the same kind of logic of trying to split the electorate, drive these polarizing issues, and they're, as, as was said, you know, it's, it's not the left wing calling him this, it's The Economist saying he's MAGA's man in Latin America.

Now, uh, the survivor of this attack, you know, this, this assassination attempt, we should be clear that he, uh, the, the justice system in Bolivia is so confident about the situation that they have t- have gone out and, gone ahead and arrested him in connection with this.

There's been some leaked texts as well that say that, kind of explicitly saying, "We need to get rid of her or she's going to, you know, cause trouble for us." So, you know, the, yeah, obviously we need to let justice play out, but clearly, you know, there, there's, there is a link here.

Mm.

And Jose Luis, if you could also talk about the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum's response both to the protests of the teachers and the others and the indigenous people about in- the mis- the disappeared, using this as a moment to highlight that issue, and President Sheinbaum's solidarity with the Iranian team and, uh, the deal that was worked out that they could train in Tijuana.

Tijuana.Yes, of course.

So actually, the, the Iranian ambassador to Mexico made the proposal actually to have the games for that involved the Iranian team be played in Mexico.

It seemed perfectly reasonable, and it was actually something that President Claudia Sheinbaum embraced.

Ultimately, it was FIFA who said that that wasn't going to be possible, that they would play in the United States.

We know that some of the trainers, some of the staff have not been issued visas, and that they're forced to fly in and fly out immediately.

But certainly here, also the Mexican population has embraced the Iranian team.

So if you could talk about the people who are, uh, protesting, whether they're mothers or, or others, uh, and what they hope will come out of this.

And Jose Luis, if you could also talk about the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum's response, both to the protests of the teachers and the others and the indigenous people about in- the mis- the disappeared, using this as a moment to highlight that issue, and President Sheinbaum's solidarity with the Iranian team and, uh, the deal that was worked out that they could train in Tijuana.

Tijuana.Yes, of course.

So actually, the Iranian ambassador to Mexico made the proposal actually to have the games for, that involved the Iranian team be played in Mexico.

It seemed perfectly reasonable, and it was actually something that President Claudia Sheinbaum embraced.

Ultimately, it was FIFA who said that that wasn't going to be possible, that they would play in the United States.

We know that some of the trainers, some of the staff have not been issued visas, and that they're forced to fly in and fly out immediately.

But certainly here, though, also the Mexican population has embraced the Iranian team.

So if you could talk about the people who are, uh, protesting, whether they're mothers or, or others, uh, and what they hope will come out of this.

Is it different to you in, than, than kind of right-wing governments of the past in the region, or do you, do you see more similarities?

You know, I, I wanna quote Marco Teruggi 'cause he actually made a really good comment in the context of the Peruvian election.

We still don't have the results yet as, as of this recording, but he says the following, and I think it's really quite telling.

He says, "Whatever the outcome in Peru, the truth is that Latin America is so polarized that competitive candidates include figures like De la Espriella of Colombia, a lawyer for paramilitaries; Fujimori, the daughter of a dictator she defends; Kast, a defender of Pinochet; or the chainsaw-wielding nutcase," he was talking about Milei, "Plenty to think about." It is, it is worrisome.

It's, it's a one-- I mean, the far right has always existed in the region.

The far right was in power thanks to military coups.

They obviously had the, the support of the United States throughout much of the 20th century.

Does that resonate a- at all in the region?

Is it different to you in, than, than kind of right-wing governments of the past in the region, or do you, do you see more similarities?

You know, I, I wanna quote Marco Teruggi 'cause he actually made a really good comment in the context of the Peruvian election.

We still don't have the results yet as, as of this recording.

But he says the following, and I think it's really quite telling.

He says, "Whatever the outcome in Peru, the truth is that Latin America is so polarized that competitive candidates include figures like De la Espriella of Colombia, a lawyer for paramilitaries, Fujimori, the daughter of a dictator she defends, Kast, a defender of Pinochet, or the chainsaw-wielding nutcase," he was talking about Milei.

Plenty to think about.

It is, it is worrisome.

Does that resonate a- at all in the region?

So how is this different, if it is? And what does it tell us about the larger web closing in on Latin America?

Yeah.

So it reveals to us that, you know, it's not a conspiracy to think about what the U.S. is doing in the region.

I think we have more and more evidence every day that they're basically pulling out all the stops.

Right.

That there is going to be this intent to try to dominate the region by any and all means necessary and that are available to them.

And this one is really interesting because, you know, so this these.

Sure, invade Mexico.

So may- uh, walk us through how the, the different ways in which that might be achieved.

You're absolutely right.

They want things as simple as possible, and I think in a lot of ways, what's happened in Venezuela after the kidnapping of Maduro is pretty instructive.

They want stability.

They want to make sure that the country is accessible, particularly for the Cuban exile community, largely based out of Florida, so they can come back in, take everything that was nationalized back, and, you know, turn it back into what it looked like during the Batista years.

What could it look like? I think it's, you're right about the strategy being trying to suffocate the population as much as possible.

That's sort of the easy way, which is just to create so much, so much suffering, so much need on the island that almost by inertia, the government ends up collapsing.

but, but i- i- it just makes you wonder, and what's going on, you know, uh, with Millet and sort of like w- can you see a broader plan here, or, I mean, uh, uh, you know, it's hard to say plan, uh, coming out of the, the, the Trump, uh, administration, but do you see the shapes of one here?

So can you just share a bit more about what you found there?

The interesting thing about the Hondurasgate story is that when it came out, you know, it was a bombshell.

It was this incredible narrative of a grand conspiracy that essentially talked about multiple state actors.

We're talking about Honduras, but also the United States, and apparently Israel as well, conspiring together to undermine the will of the Honduran population in order to install a very close ally in the Honduran presidency with a vision towards actually returning Juan Orlando Hernández to power.

Juan Orlando Hernández, who actually served two terms as president of Honduras, was convicted by a US court of drug trafficking, was pardoned by Trump, and in fact, when that happened, you know, right before the actual election took place last year, late last year, you know, it left a lot of questions.

Why? Why intervene in Honduras, right? It looked like there was gonna be a right-wing victory there anyway through Salvador Nasralla.

Well, it now turns out that through this leak, we now know why, 'cause the, the idea was to not only ensure a right-wing victory in Honduras but also to have somebody who was going to work in the interests of US imperialism, not just in Central America, but in Latin America more broadly with this grand conspiracy, in their own words, right? That's the amazing thing about these leaks is that it's the actors involved saying out loud in these audio messages exactly what they intended to do, which is to create a fake news website, try to undermine support for governments in Colombia, in Honduras, the Libre, the Zelaya family there, in Mexico as well.

And so I'm curious how you read this particular escalation in the broader context of US-Mexico relations and the broader context of the power struggle between Trump and Claudia Sheinbaum in particular.

No, I, I am curious at what were... what are the conditions on the ground, you know, day to day? Has there been an easing? I know some fuel and supplies have been able to get in, so, so what were you able to witness, uh, w- in regard to that?

You know, the situation is dramatic.

It's very difficult.

You know, I was there attending, uh, the Patria Colloquium.

It's the first one that they've had, and this one was held in very challenging circumstances.

But despite that, you know, what we saw was a very well-run operation, people really going, you know, all out to try to perhaps insulate us a bit from the realities.

But of course, it's undeniable, right? You know, there were power outages in the middle of a presentation, and we'd all have to patiently wait and wait for the power to come in or the generator to kick in so that, you know, the microphones would work again, and people would be able to participate in the event.

What, what was, what was his reaction to, um, the increasingly, you know, explicit threats from, from the US?

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Well, if it's just the United States that doesn't trade with or deal with Cuba, then why can't they look for others? Well, precisely because they end up putting even more restrictions.

Or even the case of, I believe it was a pharmaceutical company, where they were able to get some certain medicines, it got bought by a US firm, and suddenly it's not eligible anymore, and Cuba can't buy from them.

But really the key one, the one that I think should be causing a lot of concern amongst, you know, the entire world, really, but the region, Latin America, more specifically, has been the oil blockade.

Now, this is already happening in Venezuela.

I think it's important to mention that Venezuelan oil was very important to Cuba, not just for the provision of, you know, supplies in order for them to be able to keep their generators going and provide electricity to the country, but also as a source of revenue, right? To be able to buy the imported goods, they need currency.

That currency they were able to secure by selling some of the oil that they got from Venezuela.

Talk about the connection between the kidnapping of Maduro in Venezuela, from Venezuela, and what is happening now in Cuba.

And again, if this is a message that Donald Trump is sending to Latin America, is this the way you expect or want or that we should expect or want Latin American leaders to respond to Trump's threats?

No, I would hope that the response to some threats is a greater sense of a need to better exercise the defense of sovereignty.

To pick up on what some of her comments is, you know, if he's saying something worse is going to happen, that sounds like a death threat to me.

Yeah.

Certainly.

And so I think they are... very much willing to engage, as he said in his press conference, in an even larger, more deadly strike.

It's been really kind of unfortunate because of the coverage of this that we actually haven't had a lot of information out there in terms of how it went down.

But I don't get the sense that they have a plan whatsoever of what to do next.

Um, I, I just, I ca- it just doesn't make any sense because at one point people are gonna say, "Justify why you've got, mm, you know, spending millions of dollars on sending troops and ships down there."

Yeah.

And, and he als- also talks openly about boots on the ground when he had talked about avoiding another kind of military conflict abroad.

So, I think really they are struggling to figure out a way to make sense of this.

There is one possibility, which is that Venezuelan leadership finds a way of explaining this in a way that is palatable, because of course, the number one issue for Venezuela has been the unilateral coercion measures, the sanctions, the blockade, the fact that they can't actually sell their oil in a normal way in the international market because of the dominance of the US dollar and the power of the US Navy enabled to, to kind of enforce that blockade worldwide, and we saw them just chase the ship throughout the world trying to seize it.

So, if there's a way for Venezuela to feel like they can finally get this noose off their neck, to actually see their economy recover in a serious way by no longer being subjected to this, it's possible that that may be enough for the Venezuelan population to say, "Okay, we will tolerate this over the short term, because at least we still have our government in place and our project is still there." You know, the Venezuelan project, I think, certainly in a lot of ways is very much emphasized on, you know, using the country's oil wealth to spread the wealth around, but there isn't a lot of that right now to spread around because of the, you know, the years-long campaign, but there are other elements to it, right? Like, there is also the, the Commune project inside of Venezuela.

These are the kind of autonomous self-governed territories that also have their own interest in terms of how they envision a future for the, for the country, in some ways ar- in cooperation with the state, but in sometimes also in opposition to it.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

...

Nicolas Maduro, uh, but we do know that there are at least 20,000 troops nearby, either in Puerto Rico or in then... on the ships that are stationed off the coast.

So, I don't think that's enough to invade the country, but that is a si- sizable amount of manpower there that could easily be mobilized and used as part of another invasion.

Trump talked specifically about a second round of attacks, that they were actually prepared for a second one, that they actually didn't carry it out, but they were willing to do it, that they're willing to kidnap any Venezuelan leader who rises to fill the power, uh, vacuum, we could say, that is the situation right now, given that we now know that Nicolas Maduro is indeed in US custody, uh, aboard the Iwo Jima.

Trump also said that he would be sent to New York to face these federal indictments.

So, that means that obviously there has to be, at least for the time being, some kind of transition inside of Venezuela, given that the president cannot rule if he's detained.

Mm-hmm.

I recommend people check out.

Absolutely.

And that's another example of it.

And so what does that mean? They're retreating back into their traditional spheres of influence and they very much view Latin America as their backyard.

As much as we detest that, that phrase here in Latin America, they do view it that way, and I think they do see Latin America as the place where they can kind of rebuild their forces in order to, in a future moment, dispute global hegemony again with their rival, principally China.

And so because of that, we see them playing a great amount of emphasis on the region and giving favors to their allies, like we've seen with Milei in Argentina with this bailout, uh, but then punishing their opponents.

Mexico is the only one that's kind of have to balance this position of being a leftist government that normally would provoke the ire of the United States, but precisely because what you said, because of the leverage Mexico has, we don't see that.

Um, what is the status of her attempt to be the coup, uh, uh, figurehead in Venezuela?

(laughs)

... not the Castro regime.

(laughs) And so he's, you know, instrumentalizing it because it's useful politically for him, right? That's- that's- that's his intention here.

But yes, he's very much the one who's the driving force right now behind th- this policy.

He said it himself, it was one of those, they say the quiet part out loud moments, while in Mexico, he was here on a- on a visit, a s- official visit and he says, "Well, this old strategy of simply interdiction, of- of capturing and arresting is not working, so we're just gonna blow them up." You know, it's basically trying to intimidate all of the actors in the region......

through the threat of force.

And I think the fact that we've now seen it twice, and not, not to mention as well this one's actually in, in some si- in some ways somewhat more severe, was the, the, the, the detention of a fi- a fishing vessel that was in Venezuelan waters, right? And so they seem to have no regard at all whatsoever for respect for sovereignty, and I think that's really important for the entire region to pay attention to.

So, how could this be sending a message to Mexico where from my estimation Mexico has all the leverage over the United States right now?