Latin America analyst, ex-ambassador offer views on 'Trump Doctrine'

Geoff Bennett:

Returning now to our top story tonight, the ongoing fallout from President Trump's decision to forcibly remove the president of Venezuela.

President Trump and his aides are now speaking of a foreign policy where pressure and the use of military might can be applied both to adversaries and potentially allies.

Nick Schifrin is back now with two conversations, looking at a pivot in America's place in the world.

Nick Schifrin:

President Trump has outlined a muscular, aggressive doctrine focused on the Western Hemisphere. It refutes the restrained foreign policy, part of his winning campaign in 2016, and redefines America first in the context of a 19th century foreign policy of regional domination.

To discuss that, we get two views on this Trump doctrine.

We begin with Ambassador Todd Robinson, who served as ambassador to Guatemala and as the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela, before being kicked out of the country and was an assistant secretary of state in the State Department.

Thank you very much, Ambassador Robinson.

Todd Robinson, Former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala: Thanks so much for having me.

Nick Schifrin:

And welcome to the "News Hour."

Here's the Trump administration theory in Venezuela today, that now President Delcy Rodriguez can deliver an environment in which the U.S. can invest in and benefit from a newly refined oil industry and that the opposition, Maria Corina Machado, Edmundo Gonzalez, are not capable of uniting the country.

Can that new U.S. policy work?

Todd Robinson:

I don't think so.

I think, first of all, Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez represent the will of the Venezuelan people. People forget that there were elections not too long ago. Ordinary Venezuelans went out and risked their lives to vote for change in Venezuela.

And I think it's incumbent upon this administration and the international community to respect the will of the Venezuelan people.

Nick Schifrin:

And can Delcy Rodriguez deliver the investments that the president is talking about in terms of U.S. oil companies in Venezuela?

Todd Robinson:

I think it's possible, but we seem to forget that it's not just about Delcy and her brother, Jorge Rodriguez. Diosdado Cabello and Padrino Lopez, the defense minister, is also another major figure in the country.

So I think it's very -- we're rolling the dice. The administration is rolling the dice.

Nick Schifrin:

The alternative argument, though, is that wouldn't it be rolling the dice worse if we -- the United States had done some kind of regime change with an occupation force to actually install democracy at the point of the gun? I mean, that seems to me something that very few Americans would have supported.

Todd Robinson:

Well, what I would say to that is Venezuela is a large country. It's hard enough to control the whole country just from Caracas. I think it's going to be virtually impossible to do, as the president has stated we're doing, run things from either a boat off the coast of Venezuela or from Washington, D.C.

Nick Schifrin:

Literally gunboat diplomacy, that's what we're talking about.

Todd Robinson:

Literally.

Nick Schifrin:

Which broadens us out to the Donroe Doctrine, as the president has now embraced, his new version of the Monroe Doctrine, with direct military threats in the last few days against Mexico, Colombia, and even Greenland and a more general threat against the Cuban government.

The administration says it needs Greenland for national security and that, more locally, it needs neighbors who can better tackle drugs and migration. What does the region hear when it listens to that language?

Todd Robinson:

I think what they're hearing is, this is going to be more about what the United States wants than what the region wants.

And we seem to forget that we need countries like Mexico and Colombia if we're going to be serious about the fight against narcotics trafficking in the region. More broadly, I think our partners in the international community have to be wondering what we're talking about when we're threatening Denmark and Greenland.

Denmark is a NATO ally. They fought with us in Afghanistan. I think they must be both confused and a little worried about what they're hearing.

Nick Schifrin:

And back in Latin America, the administration argues that it does need better partners. It needs these governments to work harder on drugs and work with the United States. Could there be a positive impact to any of this pressure?

Todd Robinson:

Well, again, I don't think pressure works.

We -- during my time in international narcotics and law enforcement, we worked very closely with these countries. Colombia has always been one of our closest partners. For every dollar we spent on training and equipping the Colombians, the Colombians spent three.

They were net security providers in other parts of the world on our behalf. Same with Mexico. Because of the proximity, because of our historic relationship with Mexico, we need them to do more on the fight against narcotics trafficking. But they have done a lot. And I don't think pressuring them is going to make them do more.

Nick Schifrin:

Ambassador Todd Robinson, thank you very much.

Todd Robinson:

Thank you.

Nick Schifrin:

Now, for a separate viewpoint, I'm joined by Andres Martinez-Fernandez, a senior policy analyst for Latin America at the Washington-based think tank The Heritage Foundation.

Thanks very much. Welcome to the "News Hour."

Let me start with you where I started with the ambassador, and let's talk about the Venezuela approach. Do you believe that this approach of relying on Delcy Rodriguez, the now-president of Venezuela, to deliver some kind of environment in which the U.S. can go in, revitalize the oil industry, pull out that oil, do you think that can work and not relying on Maria Corina Machado and the opposition?

Andres Martinez-Fernandez, The Heritage Foundation:

What President Trump did by capturing Nicolas Maduro was upsetting a status quo that had existed for years in Venezuela and favored continuity for the regime.

And now that he has been removed, this is a deeply weakened regime with which we can confront with a series of tools, as we have been using. However, they're going to be much more effective, I think, in the aftermath of this operation.

And, eventually, I think -- I do think that we are going to be able to press this regime's remnants towards the direction of ending its weaponization of drugs and migration against the United States, and also confronting the fact that it has acted as a operating base for our most dangerous extra-hemispheric enemies, including China, Russia, and Iran.

And along that path, I do think that we're going to see the restoration of freedom, stability, and democracy for the Venezuelan people.

Nick Schifrin:

But how can you get democracy back when the president essentially disparaged Maria Corina Machado the other day, despite the fact that this administration has endorsed Edmundo Gonzalez as the rightful president of Venezuela?

Andres Martinez-Fernandez:

I'm sure that this administration would be happy if Maria Corina could just tomorrow assume power with the wave of a wand in Venezuela, but that's just not possible and would likely require a significant force of U.S. military personnel backing her and occupying Venezuela, which is not on the cards right now.

We need to press the remnants of the regime in that direction to the opening of a path towards democracy and stability, and Maria Corina could very well be a part of that at a certain point, when we are able to see that restoration. But the reality is, we're not there yet.

Nick Schifrin:

Let's zoom out and let me ask a question about the region and Ambassador Robinson's last point, which is that pressuring Colombia and Mexico, the two countries that we need cooperation from in order to tackle drugs, is counterproductive. What's your response to that?

Andres Martinez-Fernandez:

When we contrast and look at the approach by the Biden administration to both of these countries, which was entirely hands-off and to look the other way at the degradation of the security environment and security capacities, pulling back -- particularly in the cases of Colombia and Mexico, pulling back operations against the cartels and guerrillas, all of this was done with the United States not putting any pressure on these governments, these leftist governments, and had destructive consequences for both countries.

And we're not going to continue that clearly.

Nick Schifrin:

Doesn't the region hear, when it hears the Donroe Doctrine, doesn't the region respond with thinking about the darkest days of U.S. policy toward Latin America in the 19th and 20th century, and is therefore less willing to cooperate?

Andres Martinez-Fernandez:

No, I don't think so.

I think the region, what we're seeing increasingly, particularly with the slate of elections over the past several months, is that voters and this new group of leaders across Argentina, Chile, Colombia -- Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, they are calling for U.S. engagement and cooperation to confront these challenges, because, again, they are the people who have suffered in many ways most directly from that absence of U.S. engagement in confronting these threats, which has allowed them to metastasize to these terrible proportions that we're facing now.

Nick Schifrin:

And, finally, in the time we have left, how does threatening a territory of a NATO ally, perhaps with the U.S. military, serve U.S. national security interests?

Andres Martinez-Fernandez:

Yes, I don't know that this is a military threat.

I think what President Trump is expressing is the strategic importance of Greenland for the United States. I think that there's a way to do that amicably, and if that's pursued, I'm sure it will be done so with that in mind.

Nick Schifrin:

Andres Martinez-Fernandez, thank you very much.

Andres Martinez-Fernandez:

Thank you.