I mean, what has that transformation been?

So just for some perspective here, this is a town of about 30,000 people on a little arid hill right next to the port city of Manta, a larger city in Ecuador.

It's a fairly poor, humble place.

But, you know, you see a lot of houses that are sort of half constructed.

And, you know, there's a sense there's some economic movement there.

It's all, the whole town centered around a little artisanal fishing port where people have fished for generations.

Actually, I met fishermen in the town who still knew how to navigate the open Pacific by the stars.

And given, as you said, the global nature of the trade, where would you suggest that the Trump administration sort of, you know, focuses its effort, focuses its money or also the U.S. military?

Sure,

I'll respond.

So coming back to the Western Hemisphere specifically, I mean, I think the paradigm shift in the national security architecture with this administration is we've gone from benign neglect, you could say, which actually wasn't so benign, and I'll get to that in a second, under pretty much all the previous recent administrations, to the bossy big brother.

who is a bully in some cases, who's very heavy-handed, who in some cases is self-dealing, but I think is also in certain other areas produced results that other administrations couldn't.

And I say that as someone who's very critical of this administration, but let me explain why.

And I think first to explain why we need to understand where the quote unquote benign neglect got us.

by 2024.

Follow the money.

Sure,

I'll respond.

So coming back to the Western Hemisphere specifically, I mean, I think the paradigm shift in the national security architecture with this administration is we've gone from benign neglect, you could say, which actually wasn't so benign, and I'll get to that in a second, under pretty much all the previous recent administrations, to the bossy big brother.

who is a bully in some cases, who's very heavy-handed, who in some cases is self-dealing, but I think is also, in certain other areas, produced results that other administrations couldn't.

And I say that as someone who's very critical of this administration, but let me explain why.

And I think first to explain why, we need to understand where the quote-unquote benign neglect got us.

by 2024.

Follow the money.

that's a really interesting question

because, you know, I've got eight year old twins as kids.

And for a couple of years now, they've already known to make the joke, all the games daddy likes are the same.

Because there is this really fascinating thing that, yes, there's a truth to that.

And yet the difference is in the nuance.

Right.

So I do accept.

So, yeah, please tell us about kind of the Pennyfall games.

What happens from there?

Well, let's be clear.

I mean, that is still what we're seeing in the Eastern Pacific and with the fishing boats.

So there's two types of boats broadly that have been hit in this campaign.

One are the go-fast boats.

Those are the speed boats you see often in the videos posted of the explosions afterwards.

And another class were these large civilian fishing vessels, which the administration claims are being used to traffic illicit fuel to narco vessels further out to sea.

What are other countries doing to fight trafficking? Are any of their strategies effective?

So my question to you, is there any amount of crime reduction that would cause you to say the trade-off is worth it?

Well, so I don't believe a lot of the claims about crime reduction because crime has been trending down nationwide in cities that have flock cameras and cities that don't have flock cameras.

So I would need to see more evidence of that to actually trust that it works.

Side effects, be specific.

In the process of putting these ALPRs up and setting up the system, in order to search it, you have to record everyone who drives by.

That's mostly innocent people because not tons of criminals are driving down the streets.

Some of them are, and most of them are not criminals.

It creates a database of where everyone has been for generally the last 30 days, a searchable database.

Be specific

specificOkay.

Side effects.

Yeah, so, uh, in, in the process of, uh, putting these ALPRs up and, uh, setting up the system, um, in order to search it, you have to record everyone who drives by.

So, uh, yeah, that's mostly innocent people because, uh, not tons of criminals are driving down the streets.

Some of them are, and most of them are not criminals.

Uh, so it creates a, a database of where everyone has been for, uh, generally the last 30 days, um, a searchable database.

I, I, I, I guess, I guess it's time for me to, to play the card of, well, don't abduct kids and don't steal cars, and you've got nothing to worry about.

And so what did you hear from the Cubans you met? Do they blame, uh, the government? Do they blame the United States? Is it just resignation? What's, what's the mood?

Um, the mood is, uh, is total exhaustion.

So just to, to put this in perspective, because people don't have power, they can't- If they have a fan, they can't use it.

They certainly don't have AC.

It's boiling hot in Cuba and high humidity, so people aren't sleeping, right? Most people aren't eating.

They're maybe eating once or twice a day, and they're spending virtually all their time trying just to figure out just how to survive, right? So the mood is exhaustion and frustration.

When you dig a little deeper into the politics of it...

I don't wanna prejudice the, the tale on that score.

Put this into broader context for us.

Well, it comes at a moment of extreme uncertainty, I'd say, for the future of the authoritarian regime on the island.

Of course, it's persisted a long time, uh, and, you know, through a lot of other crises when people thought that it might finally collapse.

But the current moment is really unprecedented.

I mean, I just want to underscore a few, uh, figures.

Uh, uh, one, tourism down over 70% since 2018....

the military and other authorities that rule the island had transformed the economy to revolve around tourism.

Mm

Do you think the intelligence community is underestimating the opposition in Venezuela?

Um, unfortunately, I don't.

I think their assessment is probably correct.

And I think that they said that not despite her connections to other regime insiders, but because of them, because she commands such power, uh, and already has for a number of years.

She and her brother, uh, were instrumental in continuing to make the Venezuelan economy run when it came under heavy US sanctions.

They figured out how to continue producing oil, selling it, k- skirting sanctions, evading them, and selling it around the world.

Um, they, uh, have been crafty negotiators in a number of circumstances, sometimes directly with the United States.

Even if that's what they wanted to do, is- is Venezuela even in a position where elections are possible right now? Is the president right? Is there some degree of fixing that needs to take place first?

Mm-hmm.

...

the oil tankers leaving Venezuela.

Now, those are really crucial economic, uh, crucial economic lifeline for the regime, unlike the small speedboats carrying drugs.

Uh, what is Maduro saying? He's actually saying, according to The New York Times, that he may put soldiers on some of these oil tankers, Venezuelan soldiers, carrying that oil to China.

Now, if the US tried to seize or board those vessels, uh, as we've seen with others in recent weeks, what could happen? Could we end up with, um, a shootout between US and Venezuelan forces, and the situation escalating out of the control of both leaders? Um, that's what I think I, I'm worried about.

You know, it's that we could also have that potential for just an accidental, uh, escalation here that puts the two countries in war.

The president's had nasty things to say about-

I mean, how do you expect Maduro will respond to this latest threat by President Trump? Is there a lot of pressure that Maduro's feeling now given these latest escalations?

Look, targeting the oil, uh, tankers is more significant than the drug boats.

I mean, the idea that somehow the Maduro regime was sustained by little speed boats carrying packets of cocaine across the Caribbean, that was just ludicrous.

The oil actually does matter.

It's the economic lifeblood of the regime.

Um, now that said, this is a dictator in Venezuela who's shown an incredible capacity to survive economic hardship and pressure before, right? We should remember that Venezuela, as of 2019, was already experiencing what economists call the worst economic crisis outside of a war zone in the past few decades, right, and he survived all of that.

He kept his generals unified around him.

I know you think that regime change is probably unlikely, at least in the short term, but if it were to occur, h- how destabilizing would that be in Venezuela, and would it practically do anything when it comes to the illicit drug network?

What'd you see? What's the reality there?

Yeah, look, well, I think, uh, on that point, there was a bipartisan consensus going back at least until the last year of the Biden administration that, uh, China looked like it was developing the capacity to potentially interfere in canal operations.

Keep in mind, this canal handles 40% of all US container traffic, uh, maritime traffic every year.

So, look, it's a real issue, but I think that there the rhetoric hasn't necessarily been productive.

So, you know, you're hearing these j- claims, "We're gonna take back the canal." What exactly does that mean? Uh, if it means just the concessions, the deals we've worked out so far, okay, so be it.

But by raising that idea of taking back the canal, it's really weakening the pro-US president in Panama.

Ironically, I think it's taking one of our best partners, one of Trump's best partners in the region and putting him in a tougher and tougher political spot.

Will Freeman, thank you so much.