There has always been an appetite for regime change, not only with Maduro, but even with Hugo Chavez, because Hugo Chavez was seen to be pro-Cuba at one time. And this must be seen in the context of controlling the Caribbean and ensuring that you have a buffer, because in Latin America you also have an administration in Brazil with Lula, which is not pro-United States of America. So all those factors conjoined tell you that there is a single threat, and they must not be seen independent of the fact that there is a rising power, China, and that the United States of America has said that, as we speak now, there is a trade war between China and the United States of America.

So you need Venezuela, and perhaps this is stretching it too far, that if I don’t get this particular Nobel Prize, give it to somebody in Venezuela, so that we are going to use that as the basis of ensuring that there is regime change. Remember that there is also Ghetto, who is in the opposition, now is being ignored, is this lady that is the focus. And the President of the United States is on record, I believe, as at the 16th or 15th day of October 2025, I say, have now ordered the CIA to conduct covert activities inside Venezuela.

Rarely does the President of the United States of America say that their intelligence agency is active in a country, but in a very Trumpist way, he has said it. So when you look at all these threads, and you look at the fact that there is a military industry, and that there is something, there is also a business aspect, which may be hidden to the uninitiated, then you can see the linkage. Those who want activity in order to control the oil in Venezuela, in order to control the administration in Venezuela, so that you have a military presence and a friendly government to checkmate the Lula government, which is seen to be socialist and almost part of the BRICS, you must not forget the BRICS.

But in that part of the world, the biggest economy in that sphere is Brazil. And you must not forget that Brazil has now become the supplier of certain products, which China was buying from the United States of America. So if you are present boots on ground in Venezuela, and you are projecting yourself in the Caribbean, you are making something that is useful to the United States of America in that regard.

The military industry must also not be forgotten. They need to sell bullets, they need to sell missiles. So the world is very interesting.

And when I look at this, and I think of the recent display of some of the most sophisticated weapons in China, and I saw the recent parading of what the North Koreans saying is a missile that can hit anywhere in the United States of America. And I see all these apparently innocent activities by the Nobel Peace Committee sitting in Sweden and giving the prize in Oslo, which is where the peace prize originated from. Then you see that a lot of things, a lot of parts are in motion.

But yet there could be a single thread that is connecting them. And the single common denominator in all these things is the United States of America, and of course, President Trump. And if you look at it from that perspective, you can also emerge with one theory, America, which has until now been the dominant economic, military power after the World War Two, is feeling threatened, threatened by China, threatened by Russia, from a military perspective, technologically threatened by China and India, in terms of trade and manufacturing threatened by China.

Difficult. You can see the marshalling of military arsenal in the Caribbean Sea, with a view to with steward classical gunboat diplomacy, to tell Maduro, if you don’t leave, we are going to help you out. And that is the kind of democracy that America plays about it.

So democracy is also very nuanced. It has different meanings. It means that if you are a little country, democracy means doing what America wants you to do.

That is what democracy means, which what Europe wants you to do. When they blow the whistle, you wag your tail, then you are a democrat. Then you’ll begin to get awards.

Then you’ll be invited to the Oval Office and possibly be made to sit and appear to sign. Then you’ll have a press conference with the President of the United States of America. You’ll be interviewed by Fox.

Then you become a hero. That is democracy a la Trump. The United States of America, as it is today, particularly with the Trump administration, came to America and to the world by saying, make America great again.

So that the administration of Trump in this, what is now called Trump 2, is one that wants to be very insular, inward looking. That is how, number one, you cut aid. You say, USID, you are present in different countries offering aid of different kinds of education and health.

That money must now come back to the United States. Two, America has stopped manufacturing. All the manufacturing is happening in China, in Vietnam, in Korea, and in different parts of the world.

How do we ensure that we revive the manufacturing sector in the United States of America? We use tariffs. So the President, when the presidency of Trump is written as Trump 2, he would possibly, he would possibly be known as the tariff president. So tariff becomes the weapon of choice.

Then you also have an America that is grappling with labor, which they say is polluted by illegal migrants. In order to make America great again, you now want to ensure that the immigrants are sent out and you create a body called ICE. And you therefore are expelling people from Latin America primarily and different parts of the world.

You find yourself in that space. And you also hold the view that America has been losing out or hemorrhaging by supporting organizations such as NATO. So you tell NATO, pay your bills.

But you’re also grappling with another reality that the dollar, which since 1970s has become the dominant currency and a fiat currency, is under threat from a new economic grouping called BRICS. So all these wars are being fought from the perspective of the Trumpians or Trumpists on the basis that in order to make America great again, America must be in control. And that is, in my view, a contradiction that you are saying we don’t want to spend too much energy caring about the world, but we must care about the world in order for America to be great again.

One need only have listened to the speech of Trump at the UN General Assembly. And many are the times that he went off script. Many are the times that he sounded as if he was addressing the Joint House of Congress rather than addressing the international community.

And that, I think, is what is happening now. One can actually say that you can see an America which is schizophrenic, split personality. With one side of the mouth, America is saying we want to make America great again.

We are going to look inward. With the other side of the mouth, you see America saying we cannot be outside of the activities of the world. How they are going to reconcile all these things is something that is up in the air for purposes of analysis and debate.

And this is why I think if you look at American diplomacy as we speak now, there is a mix of what one may call economic diplomacy. You see it with how it is relating with African countries, with initiatives such as AGOA and initiatives where America was supporting different activities in health and education. You see it in the manner in which it is using tariffs as a stick.

And you also see it in the manner in which America is using what I call gunboat diplomacy with Venezuela, saying you must do what we want. And if you don’t, we are going to bomb boats out of the Caribbean Sea. So this is a power.

And this, if you look at history very keenly, when powers are declining, then they become very epileptic in the manner in which they undertake certain enterprises. And I think the United States of America during this time is a little bit epileptic in the manner in which it’s confronting different issues. How far it will go is a different debate.

Look at the people on the opposite sides. Look at the sobriety with which China deals with these issues. Look at the firmness with which Russia deals with the issues.

Look at the clarity with which India is dealing with these issues. And the activities are almost subterranean and non-threatening, very little rhetoric as opposed to the United States of America. And I think we are going to see a lot more of these going forward, particularly when the American consumer is going to begin to bear the brunt of more expensive goods.

Only a few days ago, I was looking at the tariffs that were imposed on luxury watches from Switzerland. And you can see that the American discerning buyer is already beginning to bear the brunt. The wine industry in California, the absence of cheap labor in different parts, particularly in the southern part of the United States of America.

And I think that that is going to manifest in midterm elections when the people are going to vote to say, we don’t particularly like the direction that the United States of America is taking because we are beginning to feel the pinch in our pockets. Not easy to deal with, but let’s see what it will give birth to. When you see a power such as the United States of very undiplomatically saying, one, that we have operationalized CIA within Venezuela.

We have moved our military assets in the Caribbean Sea. Without being paranoid, what is being projected and telegraphed is that we are ready to put boots on the ground. And the reason why we actually were allowing the CIA to operate is to tell us where to hit.

So that before we get boots on the ground, we soften the ground. And it is very easy in a country that is divided to create an environment where the leader runs away. Because once you create an environment that makes it unsafe for Maduro and the people around him to feel uncomfortable, then they run away.

And when they run away, then there is a vacuum. And once there is a vacuum, then America can fill it with whoever you want. Remember at one time, there was even an attempt at creating a government in exile.

So you can very quickly have Maduro out and bring in people to say, you are now the ones that are going to be in charge of Venezuela. And once you are in charge of Venezuela, the great old America will give you the necessary support as you go through transition. I’m not saying that that is what will be the case, but these are scenarios that I believe everybody, even in Caracas, must be thinking about the possibilities.

And even those who say that they are supporting Venezuela would not want to get into that space because the nature of these wars is that if you get into those spaces, you are stuck in mud for a long time. Who wants to be stuck in mud? So in my view, what is happening in Venezuela and the American attitude is very deliberate. Not only at the level of the United Nations is coordinated.

That is why the opposition leader gets the Nobel Prize in order to raise our profile. That is how the Americans then in a very coordinated fashion are also saying that they are at the head of a drug cartel. That is why they are saying we are now deploying CIA into Caracas.

We are deploying CIA on covert activities and overt activities. What is the whole idea? We want regime change. They want somebody else to replace Maduro.

Remember also that during that period, the president of the United States has very loudly wondered why it is not him that won the Nobel Peace Prize and it went to a Venezuelan. And he sees himself as the peacemaker in chief in the world at this particular time. You know, when you talk about drug trafficking in Latin America, somebody posed a very interesting question.

He says, but why don’t you persuade Americans not to take drugs? Of course, that is an interesting response to it. But the other thing is that the demand and supply side is they are things that are tied in the heap like Siamese twins. But the reality is that these cartels are to be found in Mexico, the Escobars of this world, the bigger people in Colombia, in Mexico, in Venezuela, as we know.

And the reality is that Venezuela is a soft target, is a soft target because we now know beyond paraadventure that some of the people whose have been struck are fisher people. They are not drug dealers. And that this extrajudicial killing is without basis.

What one would do in ordinary circumstances, given the Americans dominance on the sea, is to arrest these individuals. You arrest them and bring them to the United States of America for purpose of being tried. But in the case of Venezuela, I think a number of things are designed to be achieved.

That you have Maduro here, who is a leftist and is seen not to be playing ball with the United States of America. You have Lula in Brazil, who is at the heart of BRICS, which is trying to impact negatively the dollar and American economic hegemony. So how do we start by sending a clear message to everybody in Latin America? If you don’t play ball, we are going to deal with you the way we dealt with Venezuela.

And remember the oil deposits in Venezuela and the geographical location in Venezuela is also very important from a geostrategic standpoint. Therefore, America would to see some kind of lapdog, some kind of poodle of leadership in Venezuela to have comfort that that area and by extension the Caribbean is under their control. And that is why I think the United States of America, particularly during the Trump administration, is behaving the manner in which it is behaving.

And when Trump says, make America great again, and he’s telling the world we are looking inward, I think there is also a sense in which he wants to project America as the dominant power. And if you don’t restrict my examples in thinking about this issue, look at the recent statement in the Asian, in the Asian meeting, he’s telling the Asian, make sure that China does not dominate. And that message is reverberating.

Look at the message to Malay. We are going to give you money in Argentina, but only if you elect Malay or people related to him. So America is saying we want to occupy our immediate war post 1945 position in which we tell the world what is good for the world.

And the Venezuelans of this world are the examples that will be used that if you don’t follow that script, then we destroy you. So elect leaders who know what to do. Leaders who respect and obey instructions unquestioningly.

That is, I think, the message that is being sent by the current administration in the United States of America. So when you hear people saying that certain Western agencies financed Osama Bin Laden in early days, financed Boko Haram, financed all these organizations, we must be very slow to say they don’t. We must be very slow because the way the world works is that things are more complicated than we see on the surface.