The Duran Podcast - Covert operations Venezuela, cutting off Cuba

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

Covert operations Venezuela, cutting off Cuba

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Venezuela. What is going on in Venezuela? The last big report that we got, the last big news item that we got from the New York Times was that Trump has greenlit some sort of covert, not so covert, a secret CIA operation because we all know about it now, aimed at capturing Maduro or removing Maduro. And then the CIA, the New York Times also said that the CIA is or the Trump administration is also talking with Maduro as well. So you have the New York Times saying there's a CIA operation, covert secret operation to capture and remove Maduro. But there's also Trump back channel diplomacy taking place with Maduro.

We do now have the USS Ford. I believe it now is in the region with the other. warships and the other military assets. So that's in position or is about to be in position any day now. So your thoughts on what is unfolding or what may not unfold in Venezuela? Yes, it's very strange. I have to say I've been expecting an attack at any time and the everyday passes without an attack and one does indeed wonder what exactly is going on. You cannot keep naval assets tied down like this indefinitely. I believe you've got about 15% of the U.S. Navy now floating around in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. This can't go on indefinitely.

So you're getting all of these contradictory signals. I mean, a story about the CIA being instructed to carry out some kind of covert operation against Maduro itself. As you said, you make that public, you make that public. It looks to me, frankly, more than anything else as an attempt to scare Maduro. Tell him, you know, the CIA is after you. I've got all my forces prepared. There are rumors, and there are only rumors, that large numbers of Wagner troops have been sent from Russia. I say large, I mean, about a couple of hundred of them.

Quite plausibly, they're there to protect Maduro himself. And as we know, these are tough, well-trained, experienced troops. Probably they would be able to handle whatever covert operation the CIA cobbles together, unless there's a wider coup being prepared, which there might be. I mean, I don't know. But at the same time, there's all this talk about Trump wanting to speak to Maduro. I wonder whether the idea is you deploy all these forces, You try to scare Maduro with this talk that the CIA is coming after him.

And then you try and negotiate perhaps directly between Trump and Maduro the terms of Maduro's departure, which is, I think, what Trump and Rubio want to do. I think that's probably still very much the agenda there. But they want to try and avoid doing something, taking some, form of military action directly. Perhaps they've started to realize that this is deeply unpopular in the United States and that it's not something that the base, the electoral base, supports. Maybe they're also worried that it's perhaps a bit more complicated and difficult than they

originally thought it might be. So they're trying to find a way to persuade Maduro himself to quit. And I suspect this is what we're looking at. at the moment. They had a deal with Maduro, but Maduro stayed. Yeah. Yes. So why didn't they just take that deal?

I mean, all of this is really just about removing the one man. I mean, they put everything into this one man. When effectively Maduro gave them everything that they asked for, if you believe the New York Times reporting, of course you have to say that because the New York Times, who knows, maybe their reporting was not accurate. But if you go off of that reporting from October, Maduro was very open to making deals with the United States. I don't think there's any actual doubt about this. I mean, Maduro himself has always been admitted this and that he had, he developed a good relationship,

or at least a good understanding with Rick Rinell, Trump's envoy, and that a major deal was, you know, was basically there to be made. I think that there are two factors that are driving this. One is personal. I think that Rubio, as we've discussed in several programs, to some extent Trump himself have developed an absolute, well, animus, extreme animus, extreme personal hostility, loathing towards Maduro. They're determined to get rid of him. There's a quality of obsession about that.

But I think there's also a kind of geopolitical strategic rationale. Maduro has been too close to China, too close to the bricks, too close to Iran. And also, I think that in Rubio's case, and I've been told this as well, the idea is that get rid of Maduro put a friendly government. in charge in Venezuela, it'll take a while before the oil industry is up and running fully so that you can replace Russia and all that. But in the meantime, you stop Venezuelan oil deliveries to Cuba and you tighten the blockade on Cuba in that way. And that is also apparently a particular obsession of Rubio's and perhaps to some extent of Trump's. So this might be, this might explain this.

But you're quite right. I mean, it's taking reckless risks focused on an obsessive hostility and an over-concentration on one man. Yeah, focused on emotions. Yeah, the Trump White House is very, very emotional. Even the hostility to Cuba is to great extent. Yeah, I know that's about Cuba, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. I mean, you know, one can argue many things about Cuba and the quiet kind of government has there. But is this really something that the United States should be so fixated about people that have been asking that question for the last 60 years? But, you know, it continues to be asked, and I think validly so. And this administration has it particularly badly. Rubio, exactly, has it particularly badly. And a lot of this is also about bricks in China, right? Absolutely.

You take Venezuela off the chessboard. Yes. And you further hit bricks, but more specifically, you further hit China. That's what it's really all about, right? Yes. Or at least that's the way the neocons are looking at this, because they're always looking at this through the lens of some sort of a chess board, a chess match, even though they're terrible a chess.

But you look at it as, you know, you remove. You remove Venezuela or you capture Venezuela and therefore you do a little bit more damage to China. Yes. I think, again, there is a misconception on the part of the people in the U.S. here. Of course, there is one major oil producer who is quite easily capable of replacing Venezuelan oil in Cuba, and that is Russia. Russia, of course, the Soviet Union used to supply Cuba with oil when the two countries. countries were allies during the Soviet era. The reasons the Cubans started to buy or rather receive oil from Venezuela after Chavez became leader was because at that time the Russians

had stopped supplying Cuba with oil and it was the time of Boris Yolzin and of course the Soviets had stopped doing that. Now, as I understand it, the Russians have various times suggested to the Cubans, we're prepared to do this. Cuba is not a huge market. It would not be a major problem for the Russians to supply Cuba with oil. The people who haven't wanted to receive the oil from Russia have been the Cubans, because of course Cuba has had this very, very close relationship with Venezuela, and they don't want to become dependent on the Russians again.

But of course, if Venezuela was lost, and if the Venezuelan oil were to stop, the Cubans would have no real option but to go back to the Russians. The Russian oil would probably come. There would not be the disruptions in oil in Cuba that the Trump administration perhaps imagines. In fact, the oil situation, the energy situation in Cuba would probably improve

because one suspects that Russian deliveries would be more regular and stable than the Venezuela ones at the. And then, of course, the point is that if Cuba starts taking oil from Russia again, then Cuba will once again drift back into Moscow's orbit, which the Russians have been trying to achieve, but which the Cubans in their own way have been resisting. Now, is that what the Trump and Rubio people actually want to see happen? Again, maybe they ought to think this through. Just so. They won't.

Exactly. Emotions have taken over, yeah. Exactly. The only thing that will persuade them not to do anything are the polling numbers. Exactly. Exactly. In the United States, that's what's putting doubts into Trump. Exactly.

Polling numbers. That's what you're seeing. Yeah. All right. We will end the video there, the durand.locos.com. We are at X-Rumble telegram and also on substack. So check out our substack as well and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch. There's a link in the description box down below. Take care.