Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.

In the aftermath of the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Venezuela has agreed to submit a monthly budget to the Trump administration, which will release money from an account funded by oil sales. It’s a deal for the interim government led by Delcy Rodriguéz that historian Greg Grandin calls “governing under the blade.” In a further shift away from the nation-building foreign policy of the past several decades of U.S. power, “what the United States is planning for Venezuela is basically to run the country as a vassal state,” he says. “This is an arrangement with transactional details that we’ve never seen before.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the Trump administration’s tightening grip on Latin America and the aftermath of the abduction of the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. On Thursday, Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, signed a law that will open Venezuela’s oil industry to privatization, reversing a key principle of the Chavista movement that’s persevered in Venezuela for more than two decades. This is Delcy Rodríguez speaking from Caracas.

INTERIM PRESIDENT DELCY RODRÍGUEZ: [translated] In this law is President Nicolás Maduro’s vision for the future, because there are those who think we pulled this law out of nowhere. No, we had already studied this law, its reform, together with President Maduro. I feel moved to be able to tell him from Caracas, his birthplace: President Maduro, we are delivering for you. We are delivering for the first combatant Cilia Flores. And we are delivering for the people of Venezuela.

AMY GOODMAN: Soon after the legislation was signed, the Trump administration lifted some sanctions on Venezuela to facilitate access to the country’s crude oil reserves for U.S. companies to buy, sell and store. President Trump also said Thursday the United States plans on opening up Venezuela’s airspace. Trump spoke following a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I just spoke to the president of Venezuela, informed her that we’re going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela. American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there. … We have the major oil companies going to Venezuela now, scouting it out and picking their locations.

AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as President Trump Thursday signed an executive order that would impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, as Trump intensifies efforts to topple the Cuban government. The move appears to be intended to put pressure on Mexico, which has been an oil lifeline for Cuba as the Island has been devastated by decades of U.S. economic sanctions. Trump said Thursday, quote, “Cuba will not be able to survive,” unquote. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports Cuba only has about 15 to 20 days left of oil.

For more on this and other issues, we’re joined by Greg Grandin, Yale University history professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, whose latest book is America, América: A New History of the New World, his recent op-ed in The New York Times headlined “Trump Picked the Right Stage to Act Out His Imperial Ambitions.”

So, we last spoke to you, Professor Grandin, when Maduro and his wife were abducted. They’re sitting not far from here in a Brooklyn detention center, expected to be in court, I believe, in March.

GREG GRANDIN: March, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: But talk about what’s happening now. It surprised many when the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that Mexico would be cutting off oil supplies, but then she had to clarify her comments. I want to see if we can go to a clip of President Sheinbaum talking about exactly what Mexico would be doing.

PRESIDENT CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM: [translated] It is Mexico’s sovereign decision to send humanitarian aid, and Pemex fulfills its obligations under the contract once it ships. I never said........

© Truthout