when lawmakers manufactured. public wells. when the ruling classes project themselves. in the final very go around. the world. we can all middle of the room. rule the world. and it's well as beleaguered president nicolas maduro is weathering the storm while

united states and its allies are pushing for his removal as washington still able to achieve political goals in latin america well ask jon kalish president of the us cuba trade and economic council. latin america has long been the united states exclusive playground with washington imposing trade deals assisting regime change and moving in the internal affairs of the region's countries now with the continuing pressure on cuba and washington's backing of the protesters in venezuela well the white house moves it and will the u.s. decisions help bring about any kind of peaceful resolution to south america's problems will the current policy only deepen the worlds of a complex and troubled region. john kerry of us trade and economic council welcome to my show it's great to have you with us so well let's talk about but allow me to start with because it's such a hot topic right now in news. from once. we have the u.s.

government that is supporting the opposition legitimate leader putting its actions 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. result dizzying it will actually have to intervene directly. 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 murdoch 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. and how do we do it efficiently with respect to the biggest problem now is where does he go because the likely place would be cuba and of course cuba's relationship with

venezuela is well known 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 those far is not announcing that he would not stand for president. so to say to the venezuelan people in 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. china may then look at it is 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. 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 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 much so you've mentioned yourself that if the opposition leader. were to say i'm not running for president. and the american involvement in that so i

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 cut 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 far as we can from there on then that's fine but america is very vocal about supporting one side why a thing. well 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 i think in terms

of members of congress specifically looked at it in terms of this is an issue that potentially is good politically and also we can make a change the problem is the connectivity with cuba and when cuba's interest is to maintain its commercial economic relationship with venezuela and that means mr mann dural in place you now have this triangle is ation and in u.s. politics whenever you can add cuba to something you're going to maximize its value and with venezuela. and i hate to say it but it is true. the state of florida is incredibly important politically now 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 dissent 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 tantalizing 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 so there is a political message that political dynamic to this the optics as you said that the u.s. has already invaded venezuela and the optics global way or you know this is we created it now we are trying to manage it and we're trying to then. had some kind of resolution i certainly understand the domestic optic and the logic we had because elections are coming i understand that but there's also the international optics. so when america is at socialistic terror who treats people really badly

that argument would stand ground if american list 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 the people badly but really you re seeing chavis his legacy. the child as a legacy is. it's going to take much more than just erasing mr meridor to erase chavez's legacy but 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 or high oil prices or good it's a producer it's an exporter china is a net importer 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 wear 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 or what needs to be high. but that doesn't help cuba because then the subsidies go where the subsidies go up but still the price goes up and then you have opec opec wants 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 so you've got a. point of all that is there isn't anyone that can win in any one the 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 for them that country would be in shambles like libya or iraq because there is no post-war intervention strategy that would actually put that country on. as a progressive democracy you know what i mean i think it would be fair to say that. if we want to talk about syria for example 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 a more syria it's

a great example because when that conflict began internally the smart play during the obama administration would have been to ask libya 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 everyone's so cautious look at an american involvement in minutes well i know because the big question is do you have a strategy or is it all about overthrowing that's a big question i don't know what the trump of mr ation strategy is but how they

presented it. 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 with the trump of ministration has is who is out front and what they're saying out front is supposed to. what they're trying to do behind the scenes from. it there isn't going to be a nice clean resolution to this they're going to be some big players. here talking. trade and economic council stay with us.

to shape out. and engage. the party. to look for common ground. officer. told you to get up off the ground serve began to. hurt them on the sounds of. a grown man like mislead essentially your officer. john. twisted away from the officer.

the officer did they kind of lunge for the weapon once missed and then when it happened on tree swung as i didn't hit him i never saw any contact between the two any kind went back to where they were so the officers back here their guy again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer pulled out his gun and he did it on three. join me every thursday on the alex song i'm sure i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics sport this less i'm show business i'll see you there.

and we're back with jon kalish president of us about trade and economic council john do you see trump's logic behind his moves towards cuba because it was a big breakthrough during the obama era the relations between the united states and cuba were finally starting to normalize i mean even people over here were like whoo that's great why anything has reversed that why seeing. everything that obama has especially. with the trauma station has of this world reaction when the president does basically whatever his predecessors did in office he looks to undo and whatever they didn't do he looks to do in the case of cuba. there's shared blame here the obama administration and 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 and it 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 was 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 unknown so then we get to present and trump is elected and then what happens during the transition fidel castro dies. so it puts cuba right at the center and everyone looking for a job in the trump of missed ration now is out doing themselves to be harder on cuba than the next person and then you move into the two thousand and seventeen

there isn't much done at the beginning then the president starts to do some things and 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 they can. as 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 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 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 tubas 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 humans haven't been great. state of florida i understand that's a very important state for the election. but are the cubans who are living in a state of 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 at this two million potential vote bloc they're not nine to ten they're not eighty twenty

they're not seventy sixty 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 not 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 and 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 or 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 basically has all those credentials i predict that he'll probably be a one term president will it really matter how they do they do. i'm not endorsing it and one thing is great but they do and when you know fidel castro the scraggly beard the military uniform. did that remind people of the role castro the 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 rowe 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 see 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. states.

so i think the answer is the question is when. i think that much will happen one role castro dies just make it easier for people to take that next step. 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 more cuba does traditionally. cuba has done that grab defeat from the jaws of victory when they have an opportunity to move forward and to make the relationship a better one there's always sort of something that they decide to do that your son 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 of what the cuban government is 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 do. all the. how. political decisions are taking because they want to people want to score points and. this wall. 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 cages this is all for the cameras everyone seeing that from one hand you understand that probably he's elected. 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 and 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 has. 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. 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 barrier burn whatever you want to call it but that he didn't go to it he can stand in front of it he can say. you can argue on home 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. the best of luck. thank you. for the tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been frayed only implement inside venezuela things look different we're going to announce sanctions against. venezuela associated. have a supplemental. that outputs that polling data to. the people

look at the moment the focus of the whose story isn't new nixon called in henry kissinger to tell him that it would not be tolerated in latin america an alternative economic and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make. the chilean economy scream so wants and making the economy of venezuela screed. they're bred for a single purpose. they have a super. star training very young. eight months of intensive schooling. rats. and they save lives.

you know world of big. law and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door. 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 for watching closely watching the hawks.

so the time unlucky for to resume a british lawmakers roundly reject the prime minister's last ditch attempt to force a. u.s. secretary of state claims russia has interfered in every u.s. election since two thousand and four. the german rock band faces a huge backlash for the group's controversial depiction of the holocaust in their new single video we discussed the reaction from the public and.