President Trump arrested President Maduro for uninterrupted access to Venezuelan oil...but the country’s infrastructure is failing, poverty is high, and the remaining regime is as dangerous as ever. Risks are so high that even money-hungry oil executives are inching themselves away from the chaos. To add on to the foreign policy cyclone, Trump is teasing a U.S. military invasion of Iran. So, what is happening? Why? And how will it affect both America and the international community?
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) joins Jen for an honest break down on the Venezuela crisis, warning that invading without a plan threatens a repeat of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Rep. Smith and Jen also weigh the U.S.’ rumored, upcoming military intervention in Iran and Trump’s love for abusing his presidential power.
Watch the interview to hear Rep. Smith’s full Castro comparison, the status of narco-terrorism in our high seas, Iran, and protecting people during regime changes.
Adam Smith has been the U.S. Representative for Washington’s 9th district for fifteen terms and is a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. Before his election to the House, Smith served as prosecutor and pro tem judge in Seattle.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us Representative Adam Smith, who is the Ranking Member on the Armed Services Committee. Welcome, Congressman.
Adam Smith
Well, thanks for having me back, it’s great to see you again.
Jen Rubin
Good to see you, too. Well, you are right, the boat strikes really were about a crazy notion that Trump had, that he’s gonna practice regime change in Venezuela. No doubt we’re not surprised. Where are we now? It seems that now he has done this thing. There is a new leader, but there’s not a new regime.
Adam Smith
Yeah. Well, you’ve got two things. One, you’ve got the specifics of Venezuela, but then you’ve got sort of the broader Trump doctrine of imperialism, for lack of a better way to put it.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Adam Smith
And not constrained at the moment, even necessarily to the Western Hemisphere. I mean, we are still dropping bombs in Syria, we are contemplating apparently dropping bombs in Iran. So it is a broader vision of U.S. using its coercive military power to force Donald Trump’s will upon the world. Now, another good question is, towards what end? What is it that Donald Trump wants out of this level of control? And that’s a whole other conversation. But taking it back down to Venezuela. Yeah, this was kind of regime change without actually changing the regime. Maduro is gone, but the Chavismo movement that he led is still firmly in power. The vice president I’m spacing out her name, Rodriguez, I think, who’s now in charge, is a Maduro acolyte, isn’t that much different? The one thing that has changed, at least in Trump’s mind, is that he has a more pliable Venezuelan government. Maduro was not going to play ball with Trump. This government has already made noises that, yeah, we’ll make nice with Trump, at least around the issue of what to do with their oil. But how that impacts stability in Venezuela, Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba, China, Russia, the drug trade, all of that seems to go on where Trump’s focus is on the oil. So, again, you’ve got, okay, how’s that going to work out? There’s all kinds of problems with the oil thing, which I can get into if you want, but then the larger question of is, are there going to be elections in Venezuela? The only thing that we are really affirmatively working on right now, other than the oil, is to reopen a U.S. embassy in Caracas. There are representatives, as I understand it, from the Venezuelan government in town. And we’re having that conversation about what that would look like, but opening an embassy is a long way from dealing with the broader problems in Venezuela and the region.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk about the narco-terrorism, which was ostensibly the reason, once upon a time, for extrajudicial killings, and then for going in and grabbing Maduro, and that was the justification for why this is a law enforcement activity. Has anything changed in Venezuela’s Actions, positive or negative, about drug smuggling since Maduro was removed?
Adam Smith
It does not appear that way. We don’t know for sure, but it was always a bit of a myth that Maduro was somehow a key player in the drug trade out of Latin America. Now, no doubt, he… combination of turned a blind eye to took a cut from that. He certainly wasn’t fighting it and was apparently profiting from it, but it’s not like if he dropped off, all of a sudden, you know, they lost their leader and they didn’t know what to do. The drug trade continues. It’s also interesting, I think there’s only been one boat strike since the first of the year. Now, the Department of Defense would tell you, well, that’s because, you know, we’ve been so successful that they’re not running the drugs anymore. But I don’t believe that for a second. So… Yeah, we don’t know where that goes, but nothing really has changed in terms of the drug trade. And keep in mind, even when the operation was going on, we’re talking pretty much exclusively about cocaine. Whereas fentanyl, meth, these are vastly larger problems. Even as legal as marijuana is, a lot of marijuana is run through Latin America as well. So, cocaine’s a small part of that larger picture.
Jen Rubin
Oil. The last time I checked, the oil industry was not game, imagine that, on going into Venezuela, because they rightly see that, hey, a year from now, it could all be taken away once again, and the oil industry is a mess. So how does… Trump think, or what have you heard that Trump thinks, about how we would benefit from Venezuela’s oil, in its current conditions? What’s the plan to, I don’t know, sell oil? Take oil?
Adam Smith
Yeah, a lot of thoughts are churning through my head in answer to that question. I’ll try not to bloviate too long here, but let’s start… forget for the moment about the details of that. Just the mere fact that we have a President of the United States saying to not just Venezuela, but Latin America and the world, for that matter, I’m taking over your country, I’m gonna run it, and I’m gonna take your oil. I mean, that is a level of coercive imperialism manipulation that… is kind of worthy of Vladimir Putin, for that matter. It is an autocratic, offensive way of governing and ruling the world that ought to be alarming to people. And look, I’m not any sort of pie-in-the-eye idealist, and I’m not naive about the motivations of our country and other countries. It’s always a mix of, okay, what do we want, what do they want? But if you try at least to balance how you approach other countries with some respect for their sovereignty and for the people who live there, at least some, I think you get to a more peaceful and prosperous world. And Trump has abandoned that. He has abandoned that in favor of full-on coercive exploitation. And so the way he talks about the oil creates problems, and… I like to, you know, point out that, you know, a lot of people don’t like Castro. I don’t like Castro, I don’t like the way he ran Cuba, but where did he come from? he came from a guy named Batista, who ran the country before him, that we propped up. And we propped him up because his predecessor, whose name I forget, I heard this fascinating fiction book about a family that was working for the United Fruit Company in Cuba in 1958 that really sort of gave a good explanation of what was going on. But anyway, that guy got tossed in 52, Batista was put in place. So he would play ball with American corporations, United Fruit Company, chief among them. Which they did, and exploited the living crap out of the Cuban people, so they were desperate, so they turned to Castro. You know, someone came along and said, I’m gonna push out these Americans who are exploiting you, and no matter what he had to say, they were like, yes, that part of it I’ll go with. It didn’t work out well, because communism and socialism don’t work. But that’s what drove it, so here we go again. Okay, we’re gonna come in, we’re gonna take over Venezuela, we’re gonna run the oil, we’re gonna screw the people. That’s gonna play out into greater conflict again, because you’re not taking care of the people, so they’re going to look for any reasonable alternative. Now, to your point. Venezuelan oil, first of all, their reserves are a little bit exaggerated. Right now, on the global stage, Venezuela is responsible for 1%, 1% of global oil production, and their infrastructure is in horrible shape. It would cost billions of dollars to get their infrastructure to a place where you could generate more oil, even if their reserves aren’t quite as abundant as some people. some people are saying. And then, apparently, and I don’t understand this, but it’s a different type of crude. It’s, like, heavy, and it needs to be light. So it’s complicated, it’s expensive, and there’s not necessarily a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, even if we do it, and that’s why you’re seeing the oil companies express reluctance, because they don’t think it’s a good investment. Even before we get to the point that you raised, which is, okay, if we do this for a while, at what point are the Venezuelan people going to rise up and say, hey, no, it’s not your oil, it’s our oil, and we’re not getting a big enough cut of it, and to undermine that situation. Even before you get there, it’s really expensive, and most oil company executives think it’s a bad investment. Now, what Trump’s going to do is he’s going to try to just force them to make that investment. This is the way Trump approached real estate. You know, he always went for the big, bold move, went bankrupt several times as a result of that. Sometimes those big, bold moves don’t work out, and now he’s playing with other people’s money. So are they going to be willing to put that money up there? But I’m sure Trump will use all of the coercive power at his disposal in terms of how he grants leases. He’s going to use our government. To coerce, leverage, and threaten the oil companies into doing what he wants. He wants to be the oil baron of Venezuela. That’s what he wants. Beyond that, it’s hard to say, but the consequences of how he’s going about achieving that are deeply destabilizing.
Jen Rubin
What would you say to those oil executives who are thinking of playing ball? Do they not imagine that a Democratic Congress is ever going to be back in power, or a Democratic president is ever going to be back in power? And what kind of oversight would you be exercising if you’re back in the majority?
Adam Smith
Yeah, I think we could exercise some oversight, but that’s part of the problem. I think what the oil companies would say is, yeah, Democrats may well be back in power. But you guys like representative democracy. You’re not going to abuse your power to punish us, okay? And they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong about that. What I would say to them is the basic constitutional republic that we have set up has been very good to you, alright? It has worked out in your favor. Stability is good for business. So to the extent that you acquiesced to Trump’s demands and undermined that stability, forget about whether or not a Democrat’s gonna get back in power and punish you at some point, the country that made your life and your company possible the United States of America is going to be deeply destabilized, and we’re seeing it, not to pivot topics, but, you know, in Minnesota now, I mean, we’ve got riots and conflicts going on between… sorry, riots is the wrong word. We’ve got conflict, because I showed up, you know, did heavy-handed, brutal enforcement. People are standing up for their rights, and the clashes are happening. Every time Trump becomes president. This level of conflict is generated, because he’s out there punching everybody in the face, and not… and imagining, in his world, you punch people in the face, and they never punch back. That’s not the way it works in the real world. If you say that strength and conflict are the only way to resolve differences. then people will say, okay, that’s how we’re gonna play. And there’s gonna be more conflict. And that’s not good for anybody, except for the few oligarchs in Trump’s immediate orbit, who in the short term will make a little bit of money. So that’s what I try to appeal to them, and it’s… That’s been one of the more disappointing aspects of Trump 2.0, is the number of powerful leaders, whether you were talking tech executives, media companies, law firms, who have simply knuckled under to threats, coercion, and… sorry, to Trump’s threats and coercion.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. You mentioned that Trump’s ambitions are not limited to this hemisphere. Greenland is a NATO ally. If we attack Greenland, I suppose, NATO is kaput. What do your Republican friends think, is possible here, and are they willing to stand up Even for a NATO ally to prevent conflict.
Adam Smith
They’re not really willing to stand up. We’ve had a couple say some things publicly. But thus far, we haven’t had much evidence of any Republicans being willing to stand up and try to stop Trump from doing this stuff. There’s been little uprisings here in the last month or so on a couple of issues. you had 5 Republicans vote to block further military action in Venezuela, or at least vote to allow that to come to the floor for a… Yes. And they’re still working on that. But no, I still see no evidence of the Republicans in Congress, House or Senate. being willing to challenge what I know they know are dangerous and absurd policy approaches, like the U.S. trying to take Greenland from the Greenlanders and from Denmark. It’s a complicated relationship. Denmark is only really in charge of the foreign policy. They don’t… they don’t manage Greenland’s day-in and day-out affairs, but Greenland has thus far not opted for independence. So they’re troubled by it, but they’re not going to do much about it, and I think there’s a real risk here. Trump is feeling emboldened. He has done all of these things, and he just keeps moving forward. And he doesn’t care about Republicans getting wiped out in off-year elections as evidence that it’s not popular. He’s president, he’s still in power, nobody’s stopping him. So, I’m worried about it. I mean, I was talking with my staff earlier, it wouldn’t shock me if he had a plan out there for, like, to have 500 Marines hit the shores of Greenland and claim it for the United States of America, just like it would not shock me if he decided to do some sort of bombing campaign in Iran, in the next several days. In fact, that’s, you know, my current prediction is that will be the next action. Trump likes to use and abuse power. He likes to bully and coerce other people into doing what he wants. And he’s feeling emboldened in that regard, so I expect more of that to come in different places in the globe. on the globe.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk about Iran. no one in America likes this regime. It’s brutal, it’s pursuing nuclear weapons, abuses its people, and there is now widespread unrest because it abuses its people. How in the world would America take military action against the regime in a way that only hurts the regime and not the people. And what then? Do you have any sense of any policy here? Any plan? Any coherent strategy?
Adam Smith
Well, there is the possibility of that, and Iran is a deeply, deeply conflicting issue, because Iran is a brutally destabilizing force. I mean, from the time the new regime came to power in 1979, you know, their stated goal was death to America, death to Israel, and they’ve been destabilizing the region in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Iraq, across the board. Not even towards the end of wanting necessarily to control those places. just to make sure that they’re chaotic and destabilized enough that they don’t pose any threat to Iran. So if we were to have an Iranian government that was focused on Iran, that was focused on how do we build a better economy for the people of Iran instead of focused on exporting revolution, that would be a huge positive, for the Middle East and for the world. But, you know, a lot of the same things could be said about Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein, and people forget, he was really bad for the people of Iraq, he was bad for the neighborhood. Started the war with Iran, started the war with Kuwait, you know, so we could imagine, gosh, if that guy was just gone. But we saw the cost of that, because you don’t know what comes next. You don’t know what level of chaos is going to be. I mean, the revolution in Iran was originally supposed to be a democratic one, when they threw out the Shah, but the religious nutjobs actually gained power over… The Democrats took over and set up the government and gave us what we have today. Now, in terms of a cohesive plan, there actually is something that could be done, which would be to target the Iranian security forces. not to target the Iranian regime. But to target the IRGC and their other security forces, you know, hit command centers, weapons dumps, whatever, in a way that would weaken the regime’s ability to repress the current uprising. Now, I don’t have well, I can’t share a lot of the particular details of that, on how feasible that is. And there is also always the risk that if the U.S. stops… starts dropping bombs in Iran, that that will give the Iranian regime a rallying cry, to say, those foreign invaders are trying to disrupt us. And believe me. We may not remember Mozadec in 1953 and the coup that overthrew him, Iranian people.
Jen Rubin
I remember.
Adam Smith
They are not fond of us. They are not fond of imperialism, of Western powers in the United States coming in and trying to manipulate their politics. And it is quite possible that any effort to do those strikes that I just described would backfire, empower the regime, and undermine the resistance.
Jen Rubin
Now, let’s say, for sake of argument, the regime does crumble. They have nuclear facilities. We can quibble about how far in advance they are, or where they are, but what would secure those, and do we have any sense of who might come to power in place of this regime?
Adam Smith
I don’t believe that we do, and that’s part of the problem. There is no logical, you know, next person up. Yeah, in part because the regime set it up that way. They consolidated the power so that there weren’t any other, you know, people out there. I mean, there’s various different leaders from different times in Iran who conceivably could step up. Now, I will tell you, and don’t laugh, but the Shah’s son, is…
Jen Rubin
Wouldn’t have, yes, but yes.
Adam Smith
increasingly being talked about, and I’ve… look, I’ve had people for a couple of years now, I have a sizable Iranian-American community. who have met with me and said that the Shah’s son should be put back in power as a transitional leader to a new Republican form of government. And this is something that is starting to get ahead of steam behind it. I think it would be a terrible idea, as I joked with my staff, that’s so 1953. The idea that Western powers are gonna come in and prop somebody up. I know you remember Chalabi, the guy in Iraq, that was gonna come… and these are people, just like the Shah, that haven’t lived in their country in 40 years, over 40 years. that are somehow gonna walk back in and know how to lead it. But there’s talk about him. But the truth is, nobody really knows what would come next. What would come… what would certainly come next would be, a power struggle. To see, you know, who emerges, and whether or not what ultimately emerged would be better or worse than what’s there right now, that I don’t think anyone can say for sure.
Jen Rubin
So, let me take a step back for a moment. The Munich Security Council, is coming up, other international gatherings. what are our allies saying to you? Or what are they… what questions are they asking? How concerned are they that this is, a whole lot crazier than Trump won?
Adam Smith
Yeah. Well, our allies are kind of… there’s two paths that they jump back and forth from. One is the well-known thing at this point, how do we suck up to Trump to make him not do anything terrible to us? And we all know the playbook on that. You flatter him, you give him an award, you make him feel important. And just how frickin’ pathetic is that, by the way, that the United States has come down to this? That, you know, it’s like some petty dictator or a tyrannical patriarch who you know you have to appease their ego lest they start smashing things. So, our allies, you know, they’re… they’re somewhat… they’re realists. Trump’s the president, United States is the United States. Is there some way that we can appease this guy, so we can find a way to get along? You saw it with Zelensky as he tried to figure out, okay, I’ll wear a suit, I’ll say thank you, you know, all that nonsense. And then the second part of this is they are really worried. Because what has sort of been the bedrock of much of the world for the last 80 years has been American presence and leadership. It has been important psychologically, as much as also in terms of the strength of our military, our economy, our ability to help in different ways. And if we now imagine a world where that leadership is gone. and that power is, in some cases, an adversary, as in Greenland, it completely scrambles the dynamic of how they have to survive. And they are adjusting to that as well. Now, Trump always takes credit for the fact that, you know, NATO is building itself back up again, and they’re getting to 3% or 5% of their GDP on defense and all that. And that’s fine, but if they are thinking that they’re going to pull away from America, then we lose a whole bunch of partners and allies that have been enormously helpful to us in a wide range of places. And the other piece of this, of course, is the world is different than it was even as late as, say, the turn of the millennium, in that you have other power centers. China is a massive, powerful economy with a growing military. Russia has reconstituted itself, at least in terms of its military power, since the end of the Cold War. But then you’ve got Brazil, and India, and South Africa, and Argentina, and Nigeria. The Middle East is now much more of an economic power. So, Europe, being practical, will look for other partners. To help them meet their economic and security needs. If it’s not the U.S, they have other places to turn. And that’s part of this great challenge that we have in terms of maintaining U.S. influence in the world. There are competing centers of power that want to try and weaken us now. And, you know, partners and allies and the undecided vote matters. I would rather have India thinking it’s better to work with the U.S. than Russia and China. There’s layers within that. But as we lose those partners… now, of course, the other Another part of the problem is. the vision that I’m outlining always contains with it, you know, autocracy versus democracy. Rules-based system versus the power of the gun. Which side of that are we on now? Okay? You know, it seems to me at this point that that’s not even really a question anymore. We are on the side of coercion and autocracy, and the end of international law. The whole point of the alliance, in large part, was to give some stability to the world, and I know, everyone says, well, you know, here’s an instance where we didn’t follow the rule of law. The rule of law is never perfect, alright? But if you’re at least trying, if you haven’t given up to the complete, you know, law of the jungle, might makes right, that’s better. I know a lot of people, well, that’s hypocritical. Well, that’s sort of life. I mean, I have this terrible analogy to a football game. Officials make bad calls from time to time. That doesn’t mean that the answer is, well, let’s just go out there and not have any rules. You know. you need to have that structure, and that structure is crumbling because of the way Trump is approaching the world, and we’re going back to a sort of pre-World War I, you know, might makes right, and that… this was sort of international law. It was basically, if you… sovereignty wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t.
Jen Rubin
Yeah.
Adam Smith
You know, the most powerful countries were free to do what they wanted to do if they could do it, and that led to an endless number of conflicts that grew in their level of devastation and destruction.
Jen Rubin
Last question for you. China, as you say, very powerful economy, growing military. Are they now looking at Taiwan in a different light and saying, well. Trump seems to care about his stuff. We won’t mess with his ambitions in Venezuela. Maybe now is a great time to go grab Taiwan. Is that in the cards? And if so, is his administration concerned about that? Would they actually stand by Taiwan?
Adam Smith
Yeah, that last question’s hard to answer, but yeah, certainly. And most people, and Secretary Rubio answered this question at one of the briefs in the last week, by saying China’s going to do what they want to do, it’s not like they’re going to look at what we’re doing and take permission. They wouldn’t have paid any attention to the rule of law in the first place. And the thing is. Past a certain point, there’s some truth to that, in the sense that it, in and of itself, probably wouldn’t be a sufficient check on China, but it is a factor, because that interconnecting global world that I just described applies to China, too. They want partners and allies, and they want people who don’t impose them. And if the overwhelming majority opinion is, no, you can’t take Taiwan, because that would be a violation of our sense of what the international rules-based system is, that is at least a little bit of a discouragement to China. Is it… controlling if China got to the point where they felt like they just absolutely had to have Taiwan, and they weren’t getting it any other way, and they had to take it by force, would they look at it and go, yeah, but international law says we probably shouldn’t and not do it? Sure, no, they wouldn’t, okay? But it is a factor in the overall planning, and once we’ve chucked that factor and don’t have that argument anymore, yeah, it undermines it. And it’s part of Trump carving out this sphere of influence world, which, again, is a very 19th century way of looking at it. And so you would have the Putins and the Cheese and anyone else, frankly, who managed to accumulate enough power to threaten their neighbors. You know, Thailand decides we want Cambodia. We had them once upon a time, let’s do it again. I mean, it encourages that sort of thinking. And, you know, back when Saddam Hussein had that same sort of attitude and took Kuwait. And we were powerful enough to show up and say, yeah, that’s not gonna happen. I think that did discourage a lot of would-be, you know, dictators and imperialists and people who imagined themselves the ruler of some ancient empire that their people used to control. I think you throw that open, and you’re gonna have a lot of people in a lot of different places in the world taking advantage of it, and I think that definitely undermines global security, and ultimately undermines our security.
Jen Rubin
I find it peculiar that Senator Rubio, former Senator Rubio, now Secretary of State Rubio, would say what America does doesn’t really matter to China, since he’s built his entire career on supposedly dissuading aggressive dictatorships and caring about things like human rights. I suppose he’s had a change of heart over there, or at least he knows on which side his bread is buttered. Congressman, it is always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much for your time, and we will be back as this very, very scary, brave new world plays out in front of us. So, we’ll talk to you soon.
Adam Smith
Yeah, thank you very much. Very insightful interview, as always. I appreciate the chance. Thanks.
Jen Rubin
Thanks.
