Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Chevron, US Oil Stocks Rally as Trump Vows Venezuela Revival
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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- 0:24Speaker 2: Let's check in with Vincent Gatza, senior equity research analyst
- 0:27Speaker 2: covering all the energy space for Bloomberg Intelligence. Hey, Vincent,
- 0:32Speaker 2: if you're a big oil company, like a Chevron, like
- 0:35Speaker 2: an exonmobile, you're waking up here in the past couple
- 0:38Speaker 2: of days.
- 0:39Speaker 3: How are you.
- 0:40Speaker 2: Viewing Venezuela these days as an investment opportunity?
- 0:43Speaker 4: If for you're one of these big oil companies, Well.
- 0:45Speaker 5: If you're a Chevron, you've been in country for almost
- 0:48Speaker 5: a century now, right, so you take a longer term view.
- 0:53Speaker 5: The assets have been renationalized and privatized and renationalized a
- 0:58Speaker 5: couple of times. Right, Chevron has been there, They've had
- 1:02Speaker 5: a foothold in that country throughout the more controversial times,
- 1:07Speaker 5: and so they are a direct beneficiary. But again, it's
- 1:11Speaker 5: going to take time. This isn't something that you know,
- 1:15Speaker 5: Although the military action didn't harm any of the facilities.
- 1:20Speaker 5: The facilities have been in decay and have been under
- 1:23Speaker 5: invested in for several years throughout the nation, So this
- 1:27Speaker 5: is going to be a slow grind higher. You know,
- 1:31Speaker 5: think about that the nation was producing more than three
- 1:35Speaker 5: million barrels a day at its prior peak, and that
- 1:39Speaker 5: peak was sometime in the seventies, and it was right
- 1:42Speaker 5: around three million and two in the early knots before
- 1:46Speaker 5: it was nationalized. They're somewhere around a million barrels a
- 1:50Speaker 5: day now, So it's going to take a lot of
- 1:53Speaker 5: time and a lot of investment to get back to that.
- 1:55Speaker 5: So we shouldn't be jumping the gun here, but eventually, yes,
- 2:00Speaker 5: when you think about where those flows are headed, the
- 2:05Speaker 5: one one major beneficiary, the one group that will likely
- 2:10Speaker 5: benefit the most is really the US Gulf Coast refining
- 2:14Speaker 5: sector because of their slate, because of what barrels that
- 2:19Speaker 5: they need to maximize their refining capacity. So in the US,
- 2:25Speaker 5: the refining slate is really geared toward the heavier barrels
- 2:30Speaker 5: that are produced in Venezuela and also in other parts
- 2:35Speaker 5: of Latin America. So what this will do it will
- 2:39Speaker 5: put pressure on that light heavy differential. It will bring
- 2:44Speaker 5: heavy barrel prices down and it will benefit the margins
- 2:48Speaker 5: of the refiners. Chevron and Exxon also have refining capacity,
- 2:55Speaker 5: cocher and hydrocracker capacity along the Gulf Coast and they
- 2:59Speaker 5: will benefit eventually. This isn't something that's going to happen tomorrow,
- 3:03Speaker 5: next week, maybe not even next year, but over time
- 3:07Speaker 5: we see those margins improving as that differential widens out
- 3:13Speaker 5: with pressure on the heavy barrels.
- 3:15Speaker 6: Okay, so you say the Gulf Coast refiners certainly benefit.
- 3:19Speaker 6: The ones that don't benefit seem to be some Canadian
- 3:22Speaker 6: oil sands companies which also produce heavy crude. We're seeing
- 3:25Speaker 6: declines in Canadian natural Resources, Sonovas Energy, and Suncore Energy.
- 3:30Speaker 6: Is that just a knee jerk reaction or is there
- 3:32Speaker 6: something more to this?
- 3:33Speaker 5: No, Eventually you'll see pressure on those barrels because once
- 3:38Speaker 5: you have more flow coming from Venezuela, it'll put price
- 3:42Speaker 5: pressure on those barrels from the Canadian oil sands down
- 3:47Speaker 5: into the US. And so more supply means price pressure,
- 3:52Speaker 5: and so there will be a steady bleed south of
- 3:59Speaker 5: those prices as more flows come from Venezuela. Eventually, once
- 4:04Speaker 5: that's lot, once that is unlocked. It's going to take time,
- 4:08Speaker 5: but I think the losers there would be those heavier
- 4:14Speaker 5: barrels coming from our neighbors up north.
- 4:17Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 4:24Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 4:38Speaker 2: One of the most read stories on the Bloomberg Terminal
- 4:41Speaker 2: today starts with this lead paragraph. The US raid that
- 4:44Speaker 2: captured Venezuelan President Nicholas Munduro put America's allies and adversars
- 4:49Speaker 2: on notice. President Trump has a new world order of
- 4:53Speaker 2: his own, and obviously that may have implications for a
- 4:56Speaker 2: lot of different parts of the marketplace and different industries
- 4:59Speaker 2: out there, one of them being aerospace, defense, airlines.
- 5:03Speaker 4: Let's get the latest.
- 5:04Speaker 2: There were joined by Will Leae, airspace and defense analysts
- 5:06Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence, and George Ferson, senior Aerospace, defense and airlines analysts.
- 5:10Speaker 2: George is down in Princeton. We've got Will here in
- 5:13Speaker 2: our New York studios. Will, I'll start with you. You've covered
- 5:16Speaker 2: the defense companies for a long time. Here are they
- 5:20Speaker 2: sensing that there might be a new world order in
- 5:22Speaker 2: one that even though President Trump ran on the you
- 5:26Speaker 2: know the the his campaign said We're not going to
- 5:29Speaker 2: get in any of those wars outside of the US.
- 5:31Speaker 2: We're not gonna bother, but sure we have What did
- 5:34Speaker 2: the defense contractors say.
- 5:36Speaker 7: In terms of looking at the reaction with the stock
- 5:40Speaker 7: performance of the US contractors versus the Europeans, it seems
- 5:44Speaker 7: that the Trump ammurtiation, this the Venezuela's strike was off
- 5:49Speaker 7: was a limited military action. It was an is an
- 5:52Speaker 7: increase expansion in a military role in nation building. This
- 5:57Speaker 7: is more say, a long enforcement action. And so a
- 6:01Speaker 7: lot of the assets that we're being used to execute
- 6:05Speaker 7: operation absolutely itself is something that has been or will
- 6:09Speaker 7: be used for the Asia Pacific pivot in terms of
- 6:12Speaker 7: the shipbuilding, in terms of the need for more manned
- 6:15Speaker 7: aircraft and precision and long race strike low race strike munitions.
- 6:21Speaker 2: George he served in Iraq as an army intelligence officer
- 6:24Speaker 2: in two thousand and three, So you kind of know
- 6:26Speaker 2: that back how this all these operations kind of get
- 6:29Speaker 2: planned out, executed Georgian and it looked like the US
- 6:31Speaker 2: military performed extraordinarily. Well here, you what are you sensing
- 6:36Speaker 2: in terms of any difference about how the military folks
- 6:40Speaker 2: are thinking about their role here, because it looks like
- 6:41Speaker 2: the focus is going to be changing and focusing a
- 6:43Speaker 2: little bit more on this hemisphere.
- 6:47Speaker 8: Yeah. So, I mean, I think that, you know, we've
- 6:50Speaker 8: kind of seen the Chinese and the Russians make some
- 6:53Speaker 8: inroads in Latin America. You know, specifically they were involved
- 6:58Speaker 8: in military supply and Venezuela as well as taking some
- 7:01Speaker 8: of the oil out of the air. And so I'm
- 7:03Speaker 8: gonna I think that the Trump administration is turning back
- 7:07Speaker 8: towards the Gulf of America, the Gulf of Mexico whatever
- 7:13Speaker 8: we would call it in Latin America and saying, hey,
- 7:16Speaker 8: this is this is an area where we're gonna be
- 7:20Speaker 8: the prime, primary influencer. We don't need you know, sort
- 7:24Speaker 8: of Russian and Chinese medaling around here. And and so
- 7:28Speaker 8: I think you're gonna see you know, more military I don't,
- 7:34Speaker 8: I don't want to say action, but at least more
- 7:36Speaker 8: military presence around the region. As Will said, though, look,
- 7:41Speaker 8: I mean, I think you know, as we would as
- 7:44Speaker 8: we look at the Pentagon. We look at the fence stocks.
- 7:46Speaker 8: We always think of what the pacing thread is, and
- 7:48Speaker 8: the pacing thread is who's the Pentagon focusing on as
- 7:53Speaker 8: they build their capabilities and train their soldiers and think
- 7:56Speaker 8: about where the risk is of a of a major
- 8:00Speaker 8: conflagration here in the future. And that pacing threat I
- 8:03Speaker 8: think still is China. And so you're gonna still see
- 8:06Speaker 8: the majority of the money spent on systems that are
- 8:10Speaker 8: needed in Asia to project power. But yeah, I think
- 8:14Speaker 8: you may find again US forces hanging around, you know,
- 8:18Speaker 8: our southern neighbors a little more than maybe some of
- 8:21Speaker 8: them expected when they joined the military.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Hey, well, talk to us about just the environment for
- 8:27Speaker 2: defense spending. How the last couple of budgets been. How's
- 8:30Speaker 2: the upcoming budget look? I mean, is the US military
- 8:33Speaker 2: still getting what it needs?
- 8:34Speaker 9: Yeah?
- 8:35Speaker 7: So I would say that with a fiscal twenty six budget,
- 8:37Speaker 7: it was a little up of anomaly because you have
- 8:40Speaker 7: to map that large reconciliation bill that was passed last
- 8:44Speaker 7: year that added about one hundred and thirteen billion dollars
- 8:47Speaker 7: to the overall defense spending. But generally we see that
- 8:49Speaker 7: the defense spending will probably rise gradually, not anything that's
- 8:54Speaker 7: going to be a step funshit increase like what we
- 8:56Speaker 7: saw with the twenty six budget, so something along the
- 9:00Speaker 7: so maybe around one trillion dollars, which is two to
- 9:03Speaker 7: three percent increase from this year.
- 9:06Speaker 2: George, So, going back to kind of the hot spot
- 9:10Speaker 2: areas of the world here, do you feel like our defense,
- 9:13Speaker 2: our military, if one can make an argument, it just feels.
- 9:16Speaker 4: Like it's being stretched so thin.
- 9:17Speaker 2: There's stuff going on obviously in the Ukraine, so you've
- 9:20Speaker 2: got to keep your focus on Europe. We've got the
- 9:22Speaker 2: Middle East of course, China as you mentioned earlier, and
- 9:27Speaker 2: now you know, kind of Latin America here. Is there
- 9:30Speaker 2: a concern when you talk to folks within the industry
- 9:33Speaker 2: that maybe this military is getting stretched a little thin here?
- 9:37Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I think there's always that concern. And
- 9:40Speaker 8: I mean the US military, you know, it continues to
- 9:43Speaker 8: be I think in the of the free nations around
- 9:46Speaker 8: the world, it's the largest, it's the most capable, as
- 9:49Speaker 8: we saw, but it also gets you know a lot
- 9:51Speaker 8: of a lot of missions get pushed upon it to do,
- 9:54Speaker 8: so it's always sort of stretched too thin. I just
- 9:59Speaker 8: you know, I I think that's part of a discussion
- 10:01Speaker 8: that that Trump is having with Europe right now. It's
- 10:04Speaker 8: not always conducted, maybe the most elegantly, But I think
- 10:08Speaker 8: part of the discussion is you're a big economic block.
- 10:12Speaker 8: You have a lot of GDP strength behind you, about
- 10:14Speaker 8: eighty percent of what the US has, yet your military
- 10:17Speaker 8: is almost nothing, yep, and we really need you to
- 10:21Speaker 8: sort of step up, step up not only your manpower
- 10:24Speaker 8: but your capabilities, you know, step up your buive equipment,
- 10:29Speaker 8: high end equipment, and invest in technology so you can
- 10:34Speaker 8: bear some of the burden that we have managing all
- 10:37Speaker 8: these challenges around the world. So it's certainly stretched too thin.
- 10:41Speaker 8: I think we're hoping allies will come into the game more.
- 10:44Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 10:51Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 10:55Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 10:58Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business Listen on demand wherever you
- 11:01Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 11:05Speaker 2: I guess one of the lessons we all learned from
- 11:07Speaker 2: Iraq was if you break it, you own it. And
- 11:10Speaker 2: that's why I think it's leading a lot of folks
- 11:11Speaker 2: to ask the question today. Okay, Moduro is out as
- 11:15Speaker 2: leader of Venezuela, and most people agree that's a good
- 11:17Speaker 2: thing in and of itself, and now.
- 11:19Speaker 4: What's the policy going for it? So let's talk to
- 11:21Speaker 4: some smart people about this coming up.
- 11:23Speaker 2: Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
- 11:27Speaker 2: International Piece down in Washington, DC.
- 11:30Speaker 4: Aaron, what did you make of the.
- 11:31Speaker 2: News over the weekend out of Venezuela.
- 11:35Speaker 9: Thanks for having me, Paul and Scarlet. I don't know
- 11:39Speaker 9: about you, guys. I have more questions than than answers.
- 11:43Speaker 9: I worked for Rebublicans and Democrats voted for them. Jimmy
- 11:46Speaker 9: Carter Bush forty three. It just seems to me that
- 11:49Speaker 9: when US deploys its forces abroad and needs to ask
- 11:52Speaker 9: some pretty basic questions, not just can we, but should we?
- 11:57Speaker 9: What's next? And what's it going to cost? And I think, think,
- 12:00Speaker 9: what we know almost seventy two hours into this is
- 12:03Speaker 9: that a very bad man, a bad actor, and his
- 12:05Speaker 9: wife have been taken offline. The US military has demonstrated
- 12:09Speaker 9: a tactical brilliance extraordinary, an extraordinary complex set of circumstances.
- 12:17Speaker 9: Beyond that, it's hard for me to understand what the
- 12:20Speaker 9: Administration's end goals here? Is it a control loyal and
- 12:25Speaker 9: oil to produce a regime that's stable, not caring whether
- 12:30Speaker 9: it's democratic or not. And then how does the United
- 12:33Speaker 9: States and a country roughly what twice the size of
- 12:36Speaker 9: California with thirty one million people embassy has been closed
- 12:39Speaker 9: there since twenty nineteen, How does the Terman administration make
- 12:43Speaker 9: its impact and its influence on internal Venezuelan politics felt?
- 12:49Speaker 9: And how does it bend the Maduro Light government to
- 12:53Speaker 9: its will? Those are the core questions I've got this morning.
- 12:56Speaker 6: Yeah, and these are great questions to pose. They feel
- 12:59Speaker 6: unabas miserable right now, erin because we don't know how
- 13:03Speaker 6: it's all going to play out if you were running
- 13:06Speaker 6: a neighboring country of Venezuela. What does this mean for Cuba,
- 13:10Speaker 6: for Columbia, because the president seemed to imply that they
- 13:13Speaker 6: were next.
- 13:14Speaker 3: On his target list.
- 13:16Speaker 9: Well, they're bad actors, certainly on the Trumpet administration list,
- 13:21Speaker 9: it's always Greenland, or at least the Danes, who, when
- 13:24Speaker 9: the presidents view, really shouldn't be in control of Greenland.
- 13:29Speaker 9: I think, Look that the Columbians already come against this
- 13:33Speaker 9: pretty strong. So is the Cubans eighty people, civilians and
- 13:37Speaker 9: military were killed in this operation. Press is reporting the
- 13:42Speaker 9: thirty two of the eighty were Cuban security of personnel.
- 13:47Speaker 9: So I think one of the demands I suspected the
- 13:51Speaker 9: trumpetministration as it deals with this Maduro light government headed
- 13:56Speaker 9: by right now the acting President Elsea Rodriguez, is to
- 14:00Speaker 9: basically get this government to break its ties not just
- 14:04Speaker 9: to Cuba, but to stop exporting oil to China, to
- 14:10Speaker 9: Russia and to Iran. Russians are already concerned about this,
- 14:17Speaker 9: convinced that if the Americans control the largest proven oil
- 14:21Speaker 9: is in the world, that they will flood the market
- 14:23Speaker 9: and the price of Russian who is going to drop.
- 14:27Speaker 9: So there are a lot of echoes and ripples here,
- 14:30Speaker 9: But for the moment, I think the real core question
- 14:33Speaker 9: is who exactly is the administration going to work with
- 14:40Speaker 9: in order to accomplish its goals in Venezuela, And right
- 14:44Speaker 9: now it seems to me they're banking on stability and
- 14:50Speaker 9: prepared to work with the remnants of Maduro's government. If
- 14:54Speaker 9: that is in fact the case, then I think the
- 14:57Speaker 9: lift is going to be a lot harder. The Venezuelan
- 14:59Speaker 9: milit terry has not spoken, but they've got about one
- 15:02Speaker 9: hundred and twenty three thousand total forces. They've been humiliated
- 15:06Speaker 9: by the US military. They can't be happy about this,
- 15:09Speaker 9: and they're probably relieved in the sense that the president
- 15:13Speaker 9: has all but dissed the Nobel Prize winner. Every Machado
- 15:19Speaker 9: probably the most popular of Venezuelan politician in the country today.
- 15:23Speaker 9: So again, a lot of questions probably should have been
- 15:26Speaker 9: asked before Grant. Yeah, day one, but it's all going
- 15:34Speaker 9: to come out in the wash. Whether it's positive or
- 15:36Speaker 9: negative remains to be seen.
- 15:38Speaker 2: Aaron about thirty seconds left. What do we know about
- 15:40Speaker 2: the existing situation in Venezuela. Can this government keep it
- 15:45Speaker 2: together or is it do we run the risk of
- 15:48Speaker 2: some type of task ensuing.
- 15:50Speaker 9: You know, a borrow a line from Sam Adams in
- 15:53Speaker 9: Our Revolution when he said, basically in reference to the British,
- 15:57Speaker 9: where they're going to hang together or hang separately? Seemed
- 16:00Speaker 9: to me that the Maduro government, which administration has described
- 16:03Speaker 9: as literally a crime syndicate, has a stake in trying
- 16:08Speaker 9: to maintain a degree of cohesion. To see exactly how
- 16:11Speaker 9: the United States, What kind of pressure is the United
- 16:13Speaker 9: States going to bring and can the acting President Elsea Roder,
- 16:17Speaker 9: You guys keep her feet in both camps, pleasing than
- 16:21Speaker 9: Trump administration on one hand, but also keeping her ties
- 16:24Speaker 9: with the current regime.
- 16:28Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 16:35Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
- 16:39Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 16:42Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 16:45Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 16:49Speaker 2: Let's check out with Edward Price, non resident Senior Fellow
- 16:52Speaker 2: at NYU and.
- 16:54Speaker 4: President Trump certainly made good on his strong rhetoric.
- 16:59Speaker 2: Really over the last several months as it relates to Venezuela.
- 17:03Speaker 2: What's your view now that we've had a little bit
- 17:05Speaker 2: of time to digest this news here, Paul So, On the.
- 17:09Speaker 10: One hand, it's a very very good thing that the
- 17:12Speaker 10: United States has the power and the reach to monitor
- 17:15Speaker 10: and seize drug dealers and bad guys, even if those
- 17:19Speaker 10: bad guys happen also to have a side hustle as
- 17:21Speaker 10: the president of a sovereign country. On the other hand,
- 17:24Speaker 10: it could prove in the long run to be a
- 17:26Speaker 10: bad thing that any power seizes the president of any
- 17:30Speaker 10: other power, even if that president is also a drug dealer.
- 17:33Speaker 10: And this is a net calculation that we will not
- 17:35Speaker 10: know the full effects of as people who watch you
- 17:38Speaker 10: monitor the situation, as the phrase goes, and watch history
- 17:42Speaker 10: in real time, probably for another twenty years. And that
- 17:45Speaker 10: is another way of saying that maybe other powers elsewhere
- 17:47Speaker 10: in the world will decide to follow this example that said,
- 17:51Speaker 10: they don't quite have the capability we did. And I'm
- 17:53Speaker 10: very heartened to see that the United States can still
- 17:55Speaker 10: pull this kind of thing off.
- 17:57Speaker 3: We can pull it off, but then what happens.
- 18:00Speaker 6: We've heard the president talk about how we'll run Venezuela
- 18:03Speaker 6: and the new president Dlcia Rodriguez acting president who's been
- 18:08Speaker 6: sworn in, would.
- 18:09Speaker 3: Work alongside the US.
- 18:10Speaker 6: What does that mean from where you sit, that the
- 18:13Speaker 6: US will run Venezuela.
- 18:15Speaker 10: I think it matters more what it means from where
- 18:17Speaker 10: the Venezuelans sit. And it could be that the remnants
- 18:21Speaker 10: of the Maduro regime do in fact comply scene as
- 18:25Speaker 10: that they're facing the barrel of a gun. It might
- 18:27Speaker 10: be that they get on board. And let's not forget
- 18:29Speaker 10: that Madua himself offered some kind of deal on the
- 18:32Speaker 10: oil industry, on the energy industry. But on the other hand,
- 18:35Speaker 10: we don't know what run Venezuela means. It could be
- 18:38Speaker 10: that Venezuela ends up in some kind of further or
- 18:42Speaker 10: extended civil collapse. The economy has lost about three quarters
- 18:45Speaker 10: of its GDP in recent years. Its total energy production
- 18:48Speaker 10: has been down annualized eight percent between twenty eleven and
- 18:52Speaker 10: twenty twenty one, so it's already more or less on
- 18:54Speaker 10: its knees. And I would suggest that we're at something
- 18:57Speaker 10: of a fork in the road.
- 18:58Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think next steps are likely to
- 19:02Speaker 2: be here in Venezuela, Because I guess what we all
- 19:05Speaker 2: want to avoid is something where the US and its
- 19:08Speaker 2: resources really need to get involved here.
- 19:10Speaker 4: How do you think this might play out?
- 19:13Speaker 5: Well?
- 19:13Speaker 10: Again, as I say this is a widespread my money
- 19:17Speaker 10: would be on the Venezuelans getting in line. Broadly, the
- 19:20Speaker 10: United States has demonstrated an incredible capability, and part of
- 19:25Speaker 10: the reason that we had our fleet there for sol On,
- 19:26Speaker 10: I imagine, was to get people to think in Venezuela
- 19:29Speaker 10: about whether or not they actually wanted us to put
- 19:32Speaker 10: boots on the ground or continue with a second wave
- 19:34Speaker 10: military strike. And I would add in as well. But
- 19:37Speaker 10: it's important to look at what Venezuelans think, and Venezuelan's
- 19:40Speaker 10: around the world, and also in Venezuela do seem to
- 19:44Speaker 10: be very pleased that Maduro is gone. Maduro was and
- 19:48Speaker 10: is a bad guy. We're going to find out just
- 19:50Speaker 10: how bad at noon and in the coming weeks, no doubt.
- 19:53Speaker 10: So I think the Venezuelans will probably welcome this liberation,
- 19:58Speaker 10: if you like. Albeit there are within Venezuela and within Colombia,
- 20:03Speaker 10: and of course within Cuba and Russia that would probably
- 20:05Speaker 10: want to see something else go down.
- 20:08Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a little bit about Russia.
- 20:09Speaker 6: But in the context of whether this Austin gives putin
- 20:14Speaker 6: the green light to renew efforts to topple Vladimir's Zelensky,
- 20:17Speaker 6: whether China can push forward with removing Taiwan's president.
- 20:22Speaker 10: So this is the multi billion dollar question. I think
- 20:25Speaker 10: the Secretary of State markar Rubio has put forward the
- 20:29Speaker 10: proposition that the United States has the right to break
- 20:32Speaker 10: international law if it is enforcing its domestic law. And
- 20:36Speaker 10: that's another way of saying that the United States has
- 20:38Speaker 10: long looked at international law askew, because of course, the
- 20:41Speaker 10: United States is based on its constitutional law and cannot
- 20:44Speaker 10: supersede constitutional law. So we will do what we want
- 20:47Speaker 10: to do in the world. And as I say, Maduro
- 20:50Speaker 10: is and what a bad guy. So I think in
- 20:51Speaker 10: the short term it's a good thing that we did it.
- 20:54Speaker 10: Putin has tried to assassinate Zelenski more than once, and
- 20:57Speaker 10: I'm sure there are a few officials in tai Wa
- 21:00Speaker 10: that the Chinese would like to get their hands on,
- 21:02Speaker 10: and we could well have let the genie out of
- 21:04Speaker 10: the bottle. To your good question on this kidnapping of
- 21:08Speaker 10: foreign leaders as a new norm, I mean the caveat
- 21:11Speaker 10: again is that the United States can do it. We
- 21:14Speaker 10: just rolled over Chinese air defense systems and we have
- 21:17Speaker 10: the best intelligence and military in the world. So whether
- 21:19Speaker 10: other countries can do it is an open question, but
- 21:22Speaker 10: I think you're right to suggest that they may try.
- 21:25Speaker 4: How worried should Cuba bee?
- 21:27Speaker 2: Should Greenland be Columbia today?
- 21:32Speaker 10: Well, I mean my eyes are on Greenland. I've always
- 21:35Speaker 10: said to you guys that I think the President is
- 21:37Speaker 10: serious in his foreign policy declarations, and there is a
- 21:41Speaker 10: strategic sense, in some way, a strategic rationale for the
- 21:46Speaker 10: United States controlling Greenland because of the President rightly points
- 21:50Speaker 10: out there are Russian and Chinese incursions in that area,
- 21:53Speaker 10: and it's going to get more and more as climate
- 21:55Speaker 10: change continues. I think Mexico should probably have a think
- 21:59Speaker 10: about how many cartel members it's harboring. And as for Cuba, again,
- 22:03Speaker 10: we've long had a relationship that is adversarial with Cuba,
- 22:07Speaker 10: and I wouldn't myself be opposed to a similar operation there.
- 22:10Speaker 10: But of course you have to then, as you've pointed
- 22:13Speaker 10: out in these questions, start to wonder about what kind
- 22:15Speaker 10: of international environment you're introducing.
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