The Duran Podcast - Can Delcy Rodríguez balance Chavismo and Trump demands? w/ Raymond Zucaro

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Can Delcy Rodríguez balance Chavismo and Trump demands? w/ Raymond Zucaro

All right, Alexander, we are once again joined by Raymond Zuckero, Ray. Good to have you on The Duran once again. Where can people follow your excellent work? And then we are going to talk about Venezuela. There's a lot that needs to be discussed. Thank you again, gentlemen, for having me on. My firm's website is www.rvx-am.com. And I publish some pieces on Twitter at Ray Zuccaro.

And you've published some very interesting, excellent work on the situation in Venezuela, following the capturing or the kidnapping, whatever you want to call it, of Maduro. So, Alexander, Ray, let's discuss Venezuela. Indeed, and nobody better to discuss the situation in Venezuela than Ray, because if I may just say there's an awful lot being said and claimed by all sorts of people, Much of it inconsistent and contradictory. And very, very few people who are commenting about the economics and the finances and the geopolitical strategies behind this really are experts or have expertise and actual knowledge

in this area, which Raymond absolutely does do. So we are very privileged and honored to have Raymond on this program today because he can clarify a lot of the misunderstandings that we actually have about what is going on, about the motivations of the various actors and about where this is all headed. So Raymond, over to you. And perhaps he could take us directly in.

A brief introduction from me, I think the best thing to do is to hand it over to you and you can take it from there. Thank you. Look, you know, I've been doing emerging markets now for 29 years. And frankly, the opportunity I'm seeing in Venezuela reminds me these once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunities, like when you saw the fall of the Soviet Union and the rebuilding of what is Russia today, you have an opportunity here, an economist that used to work at Bank of America named Francisco Rodriguez, says he thinks per capita GDP could triple over the next 10 years. So as I look out on the landscape, whether it being the developed or the developing world,

that kind of growth opportunity, frankly, is hard to find. And I know I see quite a bit of publications about, you know, Venezuela's oil reserves are inflated and, you know, the cost, and it'll take 10 years to get back to production, you know, to get any type of meaningful production growth. But, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, and I remember what happened after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, where you went from about two million barrels pre-invasion to effectively zero during the invasion. And then upon the withdrawal of Iraqi troops, you saw 600 wells, every bit of infrastructure blown up and left literally on fire. But yet in three years, you had back to two million barrels of production. So these, you know, Twitter pundits saying that, oh, it'll take 10 years and billions and billions of dollars to get Venezuela and production back up.

I'm frankly not in that camp. I mean, look, what has happened? Absolutely neglect, sanctions. And frankly, the U.S., there's been a lot of sabotage to whether the refinery systems, you know, upon the kidnapping or capture of Maduro, one of the things that Trump kind of said that hasn't gotten a lot of publicity is like we turned off the power. And, you know, the U.S. has been really actively working against the Venezuelan oil system. And then one other thing I wanted to mention is people also say, oh, their oil reserves, they're not high quality and they're not that robust. Rice University did an interesting analysis.

And they said, okay, let's just say the heavy oil, which trades at a discount to Brent. But the heavy oil, let's just say it's the actual recoverable oil. because oil, when you look at oil reserves, it's what do you have and what is it, what, at what cost do you need to bring it out? If you actually look at Venezuela and recoverable assets or oil, it's closer to a hundred billion versus 300. Wow, that's a big drop. Okay, that sounds like a big drop, but it's actually more than Russia's reserves at 80 billion today, kind of in line with what you see in Kuwait. but I'd also like to point out it's two times what the U.S. has, and everyone says, oh, Canadian heavy oil, you know, it's 43, I'm sorry, 23 times what Canada has. So, you know, no matter how you slice it, I still think Venezuela is an important aspect, but not just oil and gas.

Because, again, you haven't had infrastructure blown up. You haven't had retreating military forces. So I see Venezuela, again, there's a once in a lifetime opportunity. at recovery funds, look at metals and mining. Look at, you look at what the natural resources of Venezuela has. Iron ore, some of the highest quality iron ore on par with what you're seeing out of Brazil. Coal, some of the highest colloric content. And again, these industries have been sanctioned. You know, if you look at Japan, given they've turned off nuclear power and high carbon coal is used in steel, and power production, it trades at a premium.

So you're able to address some of these infrastructure bottlenecks, which is what I call low-hanging fruit. I see Venezuela, and I agree with Francesco Rodriguez, this is a once-in-a-lifetime growth opportunity. What does the Venezuelan government have to do? And is the current Venezuelan government, which is still, in effect, the government that was there before. I mean, we've just had Maduro taken away. We have Delsey Rodriguez, but she comes from within the political structure. Is the current Venezuelan government going to be able to navigate this process? Can they run Venezuela?

Because I know there's some people who doubt this. Yeah, look, one of the easiest things for them is to get off all the sanction lists, right? So whether it being using Shadowfleet, not being able to get insurance, one of the reasons Rosneff left, they had tried to come in after a lot of the Exxon Mobil. Rosnev was specifically sanctioned by the U.S. in their fields in Venezuela. So if you remove some of the sanctions in all aspects of the economy, look, I, and again, this is very controversial to my friend and family network. I actually think Delci is in a very good spot, because what is she trying to do?

She has Chavez or Chavezmo in her heart. You look at her family background, and Chavismo is still a very popular system in Venezuela. One of the things that I wrote right after the kidnapping of Maduro is, frankly, I don't think Maria Machado was the right person because she's very polarized. You know, her rhetoric, Venezuela is a very divided country. And yet Chavismo, Chavismo is still 60% popular. Mordura was not. So I think Delci is actually the right person. So she oversees the economy now.

And Trump has said, you know, elections maybe a year or two years out. She could actually be in a very privileged spot because you'll see a recovery in all industries, not just oil, not just gas, but everywhere. You know, if you see the return of Exxon mobiles, that'll help airlines return, health care. You'll see a real regrowth in the economy. Can you tell us what Chavisma actually is? I mean, my own sense about Chavis, Hugo Chavez's actual boluses. was that you basically use the proceeds of the economy and reinvest them in health, social welfare. In other words, a very social democratic program rather than, you know, the kind of,

certainly the kind of economic policies that you would see in a place like Cuba, for example. But maybe you can discuss because you said that she's got Chavismo in her heart, and the sort of thing that you might want to carry forward with. What is Chavisma? And does Chavisma change? I actually think you hit the nail right on the head. You saw a country that was at one point the richest in Latin America, and yet the population got poorer and poorer.

They saw these 12 apostles, these 12 oligarchs, if you will, enrich, and then, you know, frankly take the money out of the country. Chavez was a reaction to the electric. saying, hey, you're not addressing my needs. Chavez was a charismatic speaker. He looked like the majority of the Venezuela. He spoke like the majority of Venezuelans. If you look at historically, you had a power structure

where you had two political parties called Adeco and Coppiano, which frankly mostly looked like European descent. Chavez spoke to the people, looked like the people, and frankly, gave to the people. You saw doctors, Cuban doctors, Yes, but you held doctors going into the poor areas of Venezuela. They're called Ranchitos or in Brazil, the term is favelas. But you saw actual people addressing the population's needs.

Did he switch over time? Absolutely. The U.S. instigated a coup in 2002. And like you did in Cuba, you saw a hard shift, right? A radicalization. But Chavismo at its core was, we are a rich country in natural resources. resources across the board, but we're not delivering to our population. And that idea is, and the idea of Trump, we're going to run the oil company, we're going to

run the country. Again, that goes back to the imperialism that you saw of the U.S. in Latin America. So I don't think that will sell. And having Delsi Rodriguez try to manage the situation, look, she, look, you have to, you have to, I always say geography is destiny. Venezuela is in this hemisphere and the hegemon in this hemisphere is the US so figuring out a way to work with the United States

as opposed to confronting it for the long term will actually help Chavismo and keep the legacy going What about the US I mean this is the other side because obviously what you're suggesting what you're laying out there is what could be an effective

successful program for Venezuela and one that meets Venezuela needs. But there have to be two partners. There has to be Venezuela itself. And you suggest that Delci Rodriguez and the people around her might be the right people in place. What about the United States?

I mean, what, because some of the rhetoric that has been coming out of the United States to the last 10 days has been, I think, quite extraordinary. I mean, we're going to take control of Venezuela. We're going to guide Venezuela. We're going to sell all their oil to Venezuela. Trump himself is going to decide what the money is going to be used for. What is likely to happen with the United States, which is the other side of this equation?

Well, look at in the short term, you've had a blockade of Venezuelan exports, right? in the short term, you have a potential humanitarian crisis as the country has effectively lived off of oil export. So if you do not have capital coming in with the ability to import food again, you have a potential humanitarian crisis. So that needs to be addressed first and foremost. After that, look, again, I go back, I know you gentlemen speak to it often, the unintended consequences of sanctions, right? What do sanctions really do? Did they effectively remove the political opponents that the U.S. saw in Venezuela? No.

You look at one of the issues that the United States has with Venezuelans, you've seen a lot of migration from Venezuela. Each time the U.S. has increased sanctions on Venezuela, you saw more people leave the country, right? So the unintended consequences, if you had these 8 million Venezuelans that left the country, it impacts Colombia, Peru, Chile, the United States, all along. So my point is, if you reverse some of these sanctions, if you help improve the local economy, you may actually see some people return to Venezuela. Pre-crisis, even under Chavez,

the quality of life in Venezuela was actually quite nice. It's a great climate. That's why you see these opponents like ExxonMobil at this conference the other day with Trump. Venezuela is uninvestable. I said to myself, okay, Chevron never live. left. Rep. Sal is there, and he's still there. But who was he sitting next to at this conference? Susie Wiles. A classic political maneuver. And so what do I really think he was asked for

after? I want some, I want, you know, to use the Mark Router term, big daddy Trump to give me some type of some type of guarantee, some type of cheap capital, all over what the U.S. did with Intel, Right? You're seeing a blurring of public and private sector under the Trump administration. So ExxonMobil, maybe under the advice of Susie Wiles, maybe not, is saying, oh, it's uninvestable. Okay, so you know what, we'll give you a $5 billion something to guarantee some way to make it easier. But if it were so bad, why did Chevron not leave? And I think it's actually quite interesting. Chevron chose not to leave Venezuela, but is actually leaving California. So you can't tell me that operating in Venezuela is that bad if it's better than operating in California.

What about the internal situation in Venezuela? Because there's been a whole cascade of articles that have appeared all over the media, especially in Britain. But I think also in the United States that the situation is actually extremely unstable, that there's many violent groups, that there's insurgents on the border, that there's organized crime, cartels. functioning, that some of them are very, very close to the Orinoco Basin. Now, I have to say, we did do an interview about a week ago with somebody who was actually in Venezuela.

And he said that, unlike in Colombia, that the situation is quite different. The government does actually control all of Venezuela. That doesn't mean that there might not be some places where there are law. and order situations exist, but the government does have control. What is the actual situation? What is your take of the situation in Venezuela? Again, why I think having Delci continue, Venezuela is a very polarized country, absolutely.

And you have these, what they're called collectivos. They're, I wouldn't say paramilipar. Groups affiliated with parts of the government, mainly through Diastao Covello, who potentially could cause problems. And so, but I would say overall crime rates, actually, you know, part of this migration is, you know, you saw Venezuela empty out and remove a lot of their problematic gang people,

sort of like what you saw in Cuba with the Marialito lift. They had a lot of the crime, the perpetrators leave the country. You know, as one of the campaign issues you saw back in the Trump presidential election, the Strait-Aragua gang. and a lot of them came here. So actually, crime overall in Venezuela is down. Frankly, anywhere in Latin America, it's a very violent region. You always see a lot more crime than you do, frankly, in Eastern Europe.

So I do think, yes, there's a problem. There's a lot of tension in the streets. I would say the same thing, frankly, about Minnesota today. You're seeing a lot of tension in the streets. So to say, well, it's uninvestable or there's not opportunities, absolutely there's a lot of tension. And how do you resolve some of that tension? Get oils flowing back, get money back in the streets,

calm the people down because they saw their leader taken away. And you have Trump saying, we're going to take it where the imperialists. Start having people feel better economically, and it will trickle down, and I think will address some of that issue. Having a gentleman like Diodzio Covello around will still be problematic. He is seen as one of the potential opposition people,

to Delci so that will be a need to be addressed at some point in the future maybe with an amnesty maybe you know looking past prior prior asset grabs if you will to put it in a politically correct way and move on so I so in a long-winded answer to your question it's still tense but I see I see it but I see potentials for it to get better right what about the Venezuelan opposition Machado, Gonzalez, all of those people, because they seem to be very implacable. You said it's a very polarized society.

Would they be willing to work with Delsey-Rodriguez government? Because this is one of the problems with Chavez was that it seemed to me that there was a significant section. Well, we shouldn't underestimate the size of it. there was a significant section of Venezuelan society that vehemently opposed him. If we are going to see a renewal of the original Chavez program, will that opposition continue? How disruptive might it be if it does continue?

And what are the chances that things have changed amongst the opposition themselves? that they've understood that there is really no going back to what existed before Chavez was there. Again, this is my opinion. I saw what happened with Richard Grinnell and Marco Rubi when they tried to work with Machado and tried to address some of the political prisoners with the Maduro regime, and she was unhelpful. I worry that she's still anchored in that historical animosity. So I don't know if she would potentially really be part of a reconnoissell.

government, which is what you need now, right? So I think with time, the opposition could potentially change. Again, this will probably, you know, cause me a lot of grief within my family, but I don't think she is the right person here and now. So with time, again, I don't think we'll see elections for one to two years out, best case scenario. And let's see what could potentially come up out of the opposition that would more be a centrist that could be part of a reconciliation government going forward. If the United States backed a more centrist reconciliation government, where would the opposition go?

I mean, do they have majority support? Do they have anything like the necessary support in Venezuela to mount a challenge? And of course, I mean, challenges can take all kinds of forms. They might be able to come back to power in an orderly constitutional way. But let's assume that they don't. I mean, if the United States is working with the government, I mean, what options do they have? Look, again, Chavismo is still popular with 60% of the country, right?

So I also worry about the U.S. putting their finger on any particular political party to try and sway it. I know that's been the modus operandi, whether it being Honduras or, or Argentina and even some aspects of Chile. So I worry that the U.S. would do that. Again, I think the opposition has to really reflect upon themselves and say, look, okay, before our identity was anti-Modoro. Okay, he's gone now. We have to look at reality, and we have to try to really rebuild this country and taking an antagonistic approach. and not, I say, I will not work with them because of this or that. Look, you have to deal with

reality. And I don't, I don't know if this opposition, as it's constituted today, is really the right group to do that. Again, that's why I think it was smart of Trump to say, we'll do elections in the future. Here and now, I don't know if the opposition would win or not. Part of the problem was Maduro was particularly seen as mismanaging the economy. Delci actually has a much better reputation. So again, I think let's give it a little bit of time for healing and recovery in the economy and see who really wins in an actual democratic fashion. Can I just ask actually, this is a personal question in some ways about Maduro,

which is that why was he so unable to run the economy? Well, I've heard it suggested that his real priority, his purpose, if you like, was not so much to run Venezuela successfully, but to keep the oil flow into Cuba and that the Cubans played a big role in actually putting him there and keeping him there, and that from their point of view, and in some respects, with his own point of view, was his job. Is that true? Or is that some true?

If you look at the last months of Chavez's life, he actually spent them in Cuba, and it's really unclear when he actually passed away. and Cuba truly has latched on to Venezuela as the lifeline up until last week, they were roughly receiving about 25,000 barrels of oil a day. So it provided a lifeline that has historically been, whether the Soviet Union or other, frankly even Mexico's now has taken up some of that. So they really latched on to Venezuela, and it is speculated that Cuba was instrumental in picking of Maduro

to take over four jobs. So why did he so mismanaged the economy? Look, in his defense, which also get me a lot of grief, they really ratcheted up sanctions against Venezuela at the time. You know, again, the unintended consequences of sanctions, and I think from not just from, you know, whether it be how it impacts Europe by turning themselves off in Russia, sanctions are a blunt instrument.

And under Trump, he implemented trading sanctions with the Venezuelan debt, which frankly, who did that really impact? Because Venezuela had already raised the capital. They already had the money. Who did that really hurt? It hurt the foreign investors. So you weren't allowed to buy Venezuelan debt. You effectively gave up trading of Venezuela debt. So you saw bonds trade as low as two cents on the dollar.

Today, they've subsequently lifted that trading ban. So now they're up 17, like 1,800 percent since that low. But who really benefited from that? U.S. investors were for sellers because they were sanctioned on having it. Those bonds went to Europe, Middle East, Hong Kong. So these unintended consequences of sanctions, I don't think any government really understands what they're doing. Again, from whether it be migrant flows or who you're actually hurting from a capital point of view, sanctions I don't think are. a wonderful tool for that.

Can I just ask one last specific question, which is about the regional situation, because Venezuela is obviously part of Latin America, but not just Latin America, it's a particular region of Latin America. It borders Colombia. It borders the other

Andes states. It's also close to Brazil. Colombia, another very interesting country, one I know a lot better in some respects, than only Venezuela itself, I should say. But one, a country which I think also, Colombia, has a huge potential, which is never quite fully realized. Obviously, it's had a whole completely different history and different set of problems to the one Venezuela has.

But how could this play out? I mean, we've had the current Colombian president very unhappy, obviously, about what happened in Venezuela. We've had lots of stories, we've had lots of information, that the situation on the border between Venezuela and Colombia is unstable. If Venezuela took the trajectory that you were outlining, the very positive one, would that have a positive effect on Colombia too? Potentially, but I will give you one caveat. One of the larger country recipients of the migration of Venezuelans was Colombians,

was Colombia. And frankly, those were Venezuelans, oftentimes not absolute, with capital that ran businesses. So if the situation in Venezuela gets better, you may actually see some high net worth individuals return back to Venezuela. So from a potential GDP point of view, problematic. And frankly, from a resource point of view, if I look at Colombia versus Venezuela, from a geographical point of view, less mountainous, deeper reserves in Venezuela, I actually think some of that money that had been focusing on Colombia in terms of coal and oil could actually turn back to Venezuela. In addition, my concern is Petra has been very anti-Trump. They did have a reconciliation call, and he's supposed to go to the White House.

I think it's in March to try to reconcile things. But he's up for elections later this year. So as you've seen Latin America slowly turn back from the rights, you know, Argentina, Chile, Peru, working its way up the Andes. Columbia is obviously the one that's potentially next. But I also think, you know, you look at winners and losers. Who am I actually very concerned about here and now is actually Brazil, right? Bricks, one of the founders of the bricks, the B and the Bricks.

So again, a country that's very polarized. And if you look at from this geographical playbook, what is the U.S. trying to do to capture resources? And unfortunately for China, there's still a food importer, right? Who are the world's largest soy producers? The U.S., Argentina, and Brazil. If you're trying to, again, from a grand strategic point of view, if you can control food, it potentially puts Asia in a much weaker position.

And I don't know if you've ever seen the work of Mike Benz. He's done some great analysis of what USAID did against the Bolsonaro administration. Again, this is funny enough, under Trump won, USAID was actively working against what the Trump administration won, to the point where Mike Benz actually testified in front of the Brazilian Congress. He stated that if USAID had not put their finger on the thumb, he thinks Bolsonaro would have president today. You have presidential elections later this year in Brazil. So if you see the pendulum swim back in a little bit of, you know, you got a benefit before. now I'm going to penalize you, I think Brazil could be the next target.

You know, in the piece I wrote for December, it almost seems like Trump is acting like a gangster. You know, I'm not sure if you've gentlemen have seen the Netflix series that talked about Padlo Escobar. Blatha or Plomo, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Whether it be him talking about literally those words referring to Greenland, I worry that Brazil could be the next target for administration. And that would effectively clean up the map of Latin America and complete a shift back to the right. Raymond, we must talk about Brazil because it's a very interesting country and one that, again, I think it's underperformed quite a lot, actually. But I'd be very interested to hear your views. Anyway, I want to say thanks to your discussion now.

And I don't know whether you have anything further to say, but I do want to say one thing, which is that the major priority, the major concern for everybody who is following the situation in Venezuela is the future of Venezuela and the well-being of its people. If Venezuela takes off economically, that is a good thing. Put aside all the geopolitical chess games that people play. This is about Venezuela itself and the people who live there, if things turn out in the way that you say, I hope they do, and the outcome will be good for the people of Venezuela,

just to say that. So if there's anything further you want to add, Raymond, I would be very interested. I mean, we can talk about anything you're like from, you know, from the US taking a much more aggressive stance against the Fed. I really think Venezuela, for an emerging market point of view, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So again, I ensure the comments in the Twitter's field

has a lot of potentially disagree with me on. But again, I've been doing this for a long time. And unlike, frankly, a recovery fund in Ukraine versus a recovery fund in Venezuela, I don't see a country divided. I don't see a country, I don't see the military losses and the infrastructure loss in Venezuela.

A little capital in reducing of sanctions can really go along. long way. So I'm quite optimistic, specifically Venezuela. Well, that optimism is exactly what Venezuela needs. Optimism itself and a return to confidence can achieve extraordinary things, as I've seen myself many times in several places in my lifetime. Thank you very much, Raymond, and we look forward to having you again to discuss these things in further detail.

Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Ray. I just want to ask you one quick question. Could the potential of Venezuela have been achieved without kidnapping Maduro? Well, you'd have to have a lot of eating crow on the Trump administration, and if they had chosen to work with Maduro, I mean, effectively lifting sanctions and allowing other things to take place, could have taken place with Maduro,

but that would have been seen as, that would weaken Trump. I'm sorry, would have weakened Trump and his macho image, right, if we had worked with the man that we'd been ostracizing and making the devil for the last six years. So unfortunately, if he had chosen the step down, perhaps, but it played out as it played out. And, you know, I'm sorry, go ahead. We are where we are. Exactly. That's the point, yeah.

All right. Thank you, Ray, for that. Once again, where can people follow your work? The company's website is www.RvX a.m.com and I published some things in my December market thoughts at Twitter or

at Ray Zuccaro. All right. That is in the description box down below and I will add it as a pin comment as well. Thank you, Ray.