There is debate about whether President Trump was right or wrong to send U.S. forces to Venezuela to capture President Nicolas Maduro, but it is hard to argue that the mission itself was successful.

American helicopters swooped in, commandos stormed the bunker, and Maduro and his wife were

apprehended and sent to New York to await trial all within a matter of hours. What does the ease of that

act say to other leaders who might find themselves in conflict with the United States.

From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd.

As my guest will explain, the future of a number of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America

will be illuminated by what happens next between Venezuela and the United States,

what the Trump administration demands

of the country and its resources, the extent to which Venezuela's acting president cooperates

or pushes back, and how Cuba in particular might be affected by being largely cut off from

Venezuelan oil supplies. Will Freeman is a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign

Relations. His article about this titled The Shockwaves of Venezuela appears in Foreign

Affairs. Will, welcome to think. Thanks for having me. So the U.S. action to remove

Nicolas Maduro from power and physically remove him from Venezuela went off without a hitch from the

American perspective. It looks so easy in hindsight that you say some observers suspect the

Trump administration might have had some help from people within the Maduro regime.

That's right. I mean, we saw over 150 U.S. aircraft, that's including helicopters, move into Caracas, barely taking fire.

You know, only a handful of U.S. personnel even injured. And this was as they stormed,

what was thought to be a very fortified bunker where Maduro and his wife were located.

They were able to extract them, take them to an aircraft carrier.

And again, all of that went off without U.S. loss of life. So I think many people are looking at that

and saying it's uncandy. It could have only worked out that way if there was serious help from within,

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