More than 200 years after the Monroe Doctrine, the United States still seeks to dominate all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Venezuela continues to lead the way along with Cuba for the integration and independence of Latin America.

We need a new system. We need a new society.

We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago,

but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. Welcome to the Socialist Program. I'm your host, Brian Becker.

Today we're talking with Jorge Ariaza. He is the Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance

for the peoples of our Americas, People's Trade Treaty, that's ALBA-TCP.

He is the former Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Jorge, welcome to the Socialist Program.

Thank you. Brian, I'm honored to be here in the Socialist Program and at your service.

Thank you, thank you.

Jorge, you were the Foreign minister of Venezuela in 2019.

I was one of the small group of organizers who was in your embassy in Washington, D.C.

At the time that the U.S. government, the Trump administration, had declared that the elected

president of your country, Nicholas Maduro, was in fact not the president, that Juan Guaido was the president.

The U.S. government and its allies, the U.K., and others were seizing Venezuela's assets, including embassies and violation of the Vienna Convention.

That says embassies are inviolable. We were in the embassy at the

invitation of your government. We had many meetings there and so on. Eventually, we were

arrested at the embassy, the last remaining people, and the U.S. government seized the Venezuelan

embassy in violation of the Vienna Convention.

It seemed at that time that the entire sort of Western world, so to speak, was at the throat

of Venezuela.

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