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Make Me Smart

Venezuela and Trump's new Monroe Doctrine

Make Me Smart

Marketplace

Business, News

4.6 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the wake of U.S. military action in Venezuela, including the capture of the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro, we’re left with questions about what this moment could mean for the future of U.S. foreign policy and the global economy. On the show today, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center Jason Marczak joins Kimberly to explain why the Trump administration is shifting its focus back toward the Western Hemisphere, harkening back to the Monroe Doctrine. Plus, what it would take to revitalize Venezuela’s economy.


Here’s everything we talked about today:




Join us tomorrow for “Economics on Tap.” The YouTube livestream starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

0:12.7

So today, we are going to dive into what's been happening in Venezuela and what that means for us here in the U.S. as well as kind of the rest of the world.

0:22.5

In the wake of the U.S. military actions in the country, including the capture of Venezuela's leader, Nicholas Maduro,

0:28.5

we're left with a lot of questions about what all this means for the future of U.S. foreign policy and the global economy.

0:36.0

So here to help us unpack this and get smart about it is Jason

0:39.3

Marzac. He's vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council's Adrian Arst Latin

0:44.4

American Center. Jason, welcome to the show. Kimberly, great to be on the show. What was your

0:51.0

reaction when you started seeing the news about the capture of Nicholas Maduro over the weekend?

0:56.9

Well, my reaction was, this is a seismic moment for Venezuela, and it's a moment that the Venezuelan people had long hope for.

1:06.8

The Nicholas Maduro regime has been one that's put Venezuela on an incredible downward trajectory.

1:15.9

Everything from the economy, 500% inflation, 90% of the people that live below the poverty line.

1:22.1

But as well, of course, the political repression, the hundreds of people that are locked up in Venezuela in

1:28.4

jails, including wrongfully detained Americans. Can you sort of lay out why this moment matters

1:34.7

in terms of the overall Trump administration foreign policy? Well, the Trump administration

1:40.4

foreign policy is a shift from what we've seen in previous administrations.

1:45.7

And why? Well, every year, there's a new national security strategy that gets put out.

1:50.4

And the national security strategy of this new administration was released toward the end of last year.

1:56.9

And that has a heavy emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.

2:00.7

Previous national security strategies, including the first Trump administration, gave the

2:04.6

hemisphere maybe a page, maybe a few paragraphs, but the Western Hemisphere focused more prominently

2:11.6

in this strategy than any other region of the world.

2:15.6

It was like four pages, right?

...

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