Why Trump Now Controls Venezuela's Future

Francisco Rodríguez on the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.On January 3 of this year, American special forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and extricated him to the United States. But the operation did not oust the Venezuelan regime. Instead, in the subsequent days, the Trump administration announced its intention to work with Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez. President Trump took effective control of Venezuela’s oil industry and Rodriguez obliged, securing some relief from the crushing sanctions that President Trump had imposed during his first term. In this episode we discuss the peculiar arrangement taking shape in Venezuela and examine whether sanctions did help bring about regime change in the country. Francisco Rodríguez is a Venezuelan economist, who is a Senior Research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a Faculty Affiliate at the Josef Korbel School at the University of Denver. He is also a member of the Bologna Initiative for Sanctions Relief. Francisco was on the podcast last year to speak about his research on the humanitarian harms of sanctions. The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Josefine Petrick.To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read the hosts reflections on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/