and. one of the richest companies certainly and now it's one of the poorest countries of the world. a company not country a slip of the tongue exposed president real thoughts on venezuela. a ship hijacked by migrants who were pulled from the mediterranean arrives in malta more than one hundred people are on board including children. mean surely the campaign demands a u.s. drugmaker return billions of dollars allegedly overcharged for medication. for news updates right on your mobile device up next though u.s. policy in latin america is up for discussion.

and it's well as beleaguered president. is whether in this well united states and its allies are pushing for his removal as washington able to achieve political goals in latin america well ask. trade and economic council. states exclusive with washington imposing trade deals. of the region's countries with the continuing pressure on. the protestors in venezuela when the white house moves it will the u.s.

decisions help bring about any kind of peaceful resolution to south america's problems. are the words of a complex and troubled region. john carroll president of u.s. trade and economic council welcome to my show it's great to have you with us so let's talk about but allow me to start with because it's such a hot topic right now in the news. from one side we have the u.s. government that is supporting the opposition leader as the legitimate leader putting in sanctions on the other hand the government is still somehow holding on or what do you think will happen at this point because america is so involved in this crisis and the crisis is no nowhere close to be resolved to using it will actually have to intervene directly in vain and so at some point venezuela has become a contagion in the americas just like syria has become a contained in the middle east it's quite likely that mr murderer will eventually leave the challenge will be how do you go about doing that i think that the chinese

government in the russian government have privately come to terms that the relationship that's important with venezuela is a commercial one so this is now about how do we extract what we're owed and how do we do it efficiently with respect to mr endure of the biggest problem now is where does he go because the likely place would be cuba and of course cuba is relationship with venezuela as we all know but the problem is that if cuba were to say to mr dural. come here and if mr murderer were to leave then for a moment cuba would be looked upon as great you've helped solve a problem now we can move forward but the problem with that is immediately the united states and other countries would call upon cuba to send mr moore to the world court so then we have another problem in terms of mr. he's

played a useful role but i think that the mistake he's made thus far is not announcing that he would not stand for president so to say to the venezuelan people and the international community i've done my role which i believe is a constitutional one is the interim president but don't look for me to run i think if he were to do that this situation in venezuela would be perceived as less one of the united states control and countries like russia and countries like venezuela and countries like china may then look at it as something that's a little more easily resolvable i don't think they'll be military confrontation because there are too many players in the venezuelan military of the cubans the russian federation the united states brazil colombia there's a lot going on there that would be combustible and i don't think would bring a resolution so i don't see a military confrontation but i do see mr murderer eventually leaving the likely

places cuba but cuba is going to need some assurances that in the morning it won't be seen as a hero to resolve something in the afternoon. be penalized for not sending them so you've mentioned yourself that if the opposition leader. were to say i'm not running for president. and the american involvement in it wouldn't be so. so to say spoken loudly about because if you go outside america for this part of the world for instance. intervention. inside politics. very clear america is taking sides and is making a point to be on one side why do you think the united states administration is so deliberately taking sides because they're saying other countries like russia and china are also having a separate. thing and as far as we can move from there on then that's

fine but america is very vocal about supporting one side why do you think venezuela you know it's somewhat metastasize it was initially a venezuelan issue you had the president of venezuela that was causing economic and political pain within the country the united states looked at that link in terms of members of congress specifically looked at it in terms of this is a issue that potentially is good politically and also we can make a change this is to maintain its commercial economic relationship with them as well and that means mr meridor away place you know have this triangle is a she and in u.s. politics whenever you can add cuba. you're going to maximize its value with venezuela. and i hate to say it but it is true. the state of florida

is incredibly important politically you know and during the last presidential elections the last three of them the state of florida. has been won by approximately less than one percent of the vote so when you have what is now estimated one hundred fifty thousand people who have been as well in descent living in south florida when you have two million people of cuban descent living in florida and south florida remains very very important terms of how the state goes from many administration that's going to be telling lies and so you have two u.s. senators senator rick scott from florida senator marco rubio from florida who have taken the lead in terms of helping the president as you said are that the u.s. has already invaded venezuela in the optics globally or you know this is we created it now we are trying to manage it and we're trying to. have some kind of

a resolution i certainly understand the domestic optic and the logic we had because the actions are coming i understand that but there's also the international optics . so what america is. socialistic tara who treats people very badly. that argument would stand ground in american last ration all throughout twentieth century didn't change regimes in central and south america and didn't put up dictators that would actually also treat their people just as badly and in some cases even worse so i'm thinking maybe it's not that much about treating people badly but really. saying chavis is legacy. the the child as a legacy is. it's going to take much more than there is a reality and the reality is that ben is a whale is an economic mess and because venezuela is an economic mess because it can't pump oil you then have the oil issue coming into this and this is where it

gets byzantine but in order for russia and china to get repaid oil prices need to be high because that way as well if we can pump more oil you can get more for repay what it owes the problem is that for russia high oil prices are good it's a producer it's an export or china's and that in order so in order for trying to get money that venezuela owes oil needs to be high but it's not in china's interest for oil prices to be high cuba which has a role in venezuela they want to or prices to be low in terms of what they pay for but in order from a door to have enough money venezuela tough enough money to provide them with subsidized oil will and needs to be high. but that doesn't help cuba because then the subsidies go the subsidies go up but still the price goes up and then you have

opec opec once high oil prices but that's not necessarily good for the united states the united states needs relatively high oil prices to help the domestic producers the fractures. my point of all that is there isn't anyone that can win and anyone that can lose it's not zero sum do you think the u.s. has a strategy because. what has been done time and time again is that the u.s. would involve itself in a war with a country that has on a dictator that that country would be in shambles like libya or iraq because there is no post war or pushed intervention strategy that would actually put that country on. as a progressive democracy you know what i mean you know i think it would be fair to say that. if we want to talk about let's say syria for example because you have libya. disasters in terms of what came next and that i think was

a problem of every actor that was involved and they're trying to look at today and they're not looking at tomorrow syria is a great example because when that conflict began internally the smart play during the obama administration would have been to ask libya as jordan to ask turkey to close the borders. and basically snuff it out. it would have been much easier at that stage as opposed to what they decided not to do and then closing the embassies. all of all of the european union and other countries you leave diplomats on the ground you leave the embassies open it makes it much harder for governments to take actions that are very harsh so there were a lot of mistakes there and look where we are today and look what we have in terms of the catastrophic damage that's in syria that's why every cautious look at an

american involvement in minutes because the big question is do you have a strategy or is it. a question i don't know what the trump of mr ation strategy is. but how they presented that. elliott abrams who is the special envoy he has a lot of experience but he doesn't have the greatest table manners when it comes to sharing what it is he wants to get done. i think that's one of the problems of the trumpet ministration has is who is out front and what they're saying out front as opposed to. what they're trying to do behind the scenes. but it did have it there isn't going to be a nice clean resolution to this they're going to be some unhappy players there. take a short break right now while we're baffled continue talking. trade and economic council stay with us.

most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth right answers. the. question. seize private companies that have got a lot of v.c. venture capital funding are ready to go public this year i saw the last they're all

going out of forty fifty sixty seventy billion dollars valuations so the prediction here is that it will be the end of this cycle you're going to have a like two thousand and one style crash back due to the fact that there's nothing to support the valuations of these companies and no value very quickly will crash. join me every thursday on the alex salmond shill and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see you then. you know world a big part of. law and conspiracy it's time. to dig

deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. and we're back with john carroll president of u.s. trade and economic council john do you see. behind him towards

because it was a big breakthrough during obama. relations between the united states and cuba finally starting to normalize i mean people over here lou that's great. that. everything that obama has done especially in terms of. the troubled history of this world reaction when the president does basically whatever his predecessors did in office he looks to undo in whatever they didn't do he looks to do in the case of cuba. there's shared blame here the obama administration the castro ministrations did do quite a bit but they also didn't do much of the hard stuff and primarily the reason that neither of them did the hard thing was because they both expected an election

outcome in two thousand and sixteen that didn't happen the way they expected the cubans were basically going along and slow walking because they figured mrs clinton would win during the transition then they could deal with the obama administration who would want to clean everything up and move on obama administration you could have water boarded them and they would have told you there is not going to be a victory by donald trump so they never planned for a war what they didn't want or didn't expect they didn't plan for the so then we get to present a trump is elected and then what happens during the transition fidel castro dies. so it puts cuba right at the center everyone looking for a job in the trump of missed ration now is outdoing themselves to be harder on cuba than the next person the president starts to do something it's because they're focusing on a lot of issues just like george w. bush when he was elected the perception was he was going to get very hard on cuba

right away and he did with president. it's been disappointing from the business community standpoint today cuba is a country with an educated. there are such good business opportunities for americans and present. even so many things about him but he's a good businessman i mean he should surely be understanding that this is something he shouldn't passing on it and it's frustrating right now in the u.s. business community we want the claims to be resolved because that's basically the foundation upon which everything else rests and it would be natural because the trump president says i'm going to go shoot or like to negotiate what they've done thus far with cuba isn't about negotiating in this isn't about moving the commercial relationship sort of back together or healing it it's more about the politics and it's more about looking tough and it's more about basically. creating

distance as opposed to solving problems couldn't business. interests into this for the most part businesses is just not worth it and that's one of the problems one of the my recent travels been meeting whether it's with the representatives with companies with governments is to try to get them to encourage the cubans to agree to negotiate the claims because the claimants are very willing and very interested to settle the claims they're basically the cuban government's best supporters and who are trying to do is get the trumpet ministration to say look you said that the purpose of recent policy changes is yes to courage democracy but it's also supposedly to settle these issues well then why aren't you doing some things to settle these issues you seem to be going the other way and unfortunately again it's politics it's domestic politics it's the state of florida but also why humans

haven't been great in the state of florida i understand that's a very important state for the election. but the cubans who are living in florida again that the cubans there are living on a cuban island what do they want to they want a better relationship was or not. it's not bringing a lot and that's the problem is that if you're a political consultant and you see that you may your victory and defeat may be one percent then it no longer matters whether someone tells you look this two million potential vote bloc maybe fifty fifty but if you're looking for a victory here. ok how many of my going to lose if i'm tough. how many of my going again if i'm tough. and the calculus now so far and we see it in every

presidential year is generally get tough and you're likely to keep more votes than you're going to lose so also i'm thinking you're saying castro died everyone was quick to. the worst timing ever but i mean you still have a castro rule in cuba saying normally between normal relations between us and possible while the cost is at the helm of the country to great question the answer is no until both of them are underground there's a certain segment of people in the united states not just cuban americans but political people that just conservative that are going to say until they're both dead we're not going to move on now the good news is the president. is the perfect post castro president because he's sort of benign he's a technocrat physically he's not threatening doesn't wear

a military uniform so he's he basically has all those credentials so i predict that he'll probably be a one term president will it really matter how they do they do. i'm not endorsing him not saying it's great but they do and when you know fidel castro the scraggly beard the military uniform. did that remind people of castro of a military uniform the same being older the same sort of thing. how people perceive a country is is really important especially the united states so when you've had two presidents that are wearing military uniforms and now you know one wearing civilian. it makes that messaging a little easier but you're right the military is still in very much control of cuba and roe castro still controls the military. and that's another issue because the trump administration is now grabbed on to that the military control of the cuban

government and that scared off companies sort of circling back to what you asked about one of the reason companies are very quiet is the trump ministration has been brilliant about connecting commerce and the cuban military so no company wants to go on your program go on c. and b. c. go on fox news or c.n.n. and say yes we like dealing with the military we think it's good to have military controlling a country controlling the economy no one wants to go there so do using it or will ever go back to time paradigm between cuba and the united states. it has. so i think the answer is well the question is when. i think that much will happen one role castro guys you know just make it easier for people to take that next step thing ok i may not still forgive everything but the two of them are dead so maybe

now i can make some things work the other will be what cuba does traditionally. cuba has done that grab defeat from the jaws of victory when they have an opportunity to it is something that they decide to do that just makes it really tough sometimes it's it can be as little as a statement that they might make about north korea or about libya or syria or something and it just sets the political momentum backwards and then everybody just freezes in place and no one wants to be out there sort of supporting the cuban government when their own sure what the cuban government's going to do next right now it's basically about the claims that the certified claim settled everything else starts melting away and what's most important countries that are involved in the russian federation is in meaningful ways china is. the value of all their

assets go up as soon as the claims are wiped away because then there are no impediments so from that standpoint it's all in their interest to have some question of. how. political decisions are taking because they want to people want to score points and in domestic. this war. in terms of being so unpopular in his own country because of this. he has walked into a media scandal p.r. crisis for him solve. everything that's going on in that war like families separated children in cages this is all for the cameras everyone seeing that from one hand you understand that probably his electorate. and he wants to

fulfill his. promises on the other hand we're talking about the fact that florida's vote is very important how would that be fair for the latin american voter in america building a wall be could have been. managed in a much more different way some of the you know the visuals are just they're horrifying when you see specially with the children but they decided rightly or wrongly but they've decided that all of that. doesn't matter as much as pushing forward and being able to say that as he says he does and has he successfully that's. when i ran i gave you a list of what i was going to do. and rightly or wrongly people wanted or not i'm checking off of this move in the embassy you know in israel so he's going through the stuff and for him. i don't think it's it doesn't much matter how

many kilometers how many miles get done it's that there's something there that's happened under his watch that will generally be defined as a wall as opposed to a fence built to it he can stand in front of it he can say. pyrite you can argue one how long it is and the rest of it and i told you that we were going to build something and we are. all right john thank you very much for this very interesting insight wish you all the best of luck and have a nice rest and thank you.

after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next the ball different clubs on one hand it is logical to go from fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and a fresh perspective i'm used to surprising. i'm going to talk about football not or else you can think i was going to go. by the way ways of. the great tragicomedy known as russia is slowly becoming part of history the resistance continues to resist triumph but clearly the president has the wind at its back now is a time for a great awakening what are the lessons to be learned in can the liberal media

recover from this fiasco. investigated president bill clinton outline grounds for impeachment against him is our special guest. we'll hear his take on the mulla report on this edition of politicking. politicking on larry king special counsel robert muller as we report on his investigation into ties between the trunk campaign and the russian government is over who will decide what parts if any of moles will forte will be released to the public for his fought for as they are informed calls the report a complete and total exoneration of him and his associates but is it let's talk

about that with ken starr he served as the independent counsel who investigated bill clinton and his administration and then i.