Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the US' actions in Venezuela, Trump's focus on oil

US taxpayers could be on the hook to subsidise the rebuilding of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.  

The US launched strikes over the weekend and took President Nicolas Maduro into custody, shipping him back to New York under duress and detaining him on drug-trafficking charges. 

It’s pressuring Venezuela to end drug smuggling and let in American oil companies. 

US President Donald Trump has floated the idea of the US subsidising energy companies for the rebuilding of the country's oil production and distribution infrastructure. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Andrew Dickens Trump has been focused almost entirely on the oil, saying, among other things, that they’re going to get the oil “flowing the way it should be”.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
America, we go Richard at our Good morning to you,
morning Andrew, and it's all Venezuela today. Yeah, and here's
the rob Trump is saying now that US taxpayers should
reimburse American oil company so subsidize the oil business for
the cost of rebuilding Venezuela's oil industry. Maduro is expected
to make his next New York court appearance sometime in

(00:37):
March on all counts narco terrorism, cocaine importation and conspiracy,
and possession of machine guns and other destructive devices to
cocaine mostly was sent off to Europe, not to the
US of A. Venezuela is not much involved in the
fentanyl trafficking either. What Trump is speaking about mostly is oil.
Venezuela has the world's most extensive underground oil reserves. And

(01:00):
here is a bit of a montage of what Trump
has been saying about it.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
The oil business in Venezuela Oil Company is the biggest
in the world. The oil infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Venezuela unilaterally seased and sol American oil oil industry massive
oil Venezuela and oil.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Rebuild the oil infrastructure with the oil companies.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
We're going to get the oil flowing the way it
should be.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
They saw our oil oil is very dangerous.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
We're in the oil business.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Who will be selling oil, will be selling large.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Amounts of oil. Venezuela currently sells only about one percent
of the world's oil, despite its huge reserves. It puts
out a bit over one million barrels a day performand
euro produced about three point five million. But the equipment
has rusted, or it's been stolen, or it's fallen apart.
It will require years of work and billions of dollars
to set it going at a significant pace. So who

(01:53):
pays for all of that? How long is it going
to take? History has some lessons. The US spent two
trillion dollars on the Iraq wars. Trump has told news
anchor Joe Scarborough today in a phone chat at Venezuela
will be different from Iraq.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
The difference between a Raq and this is that Bush
didn't keep the oil.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
We're going to keep the oil.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
That's what he says. Trump told him today. And they're
being open about it, don't they. In Iran. Back in
nineteen fifty three, the British arranged a coup against the
democratically elected Prime Minister Mazadek to ensure BP's access to
Iranian oil at the time. That led to the corrupt Shah,
who was overtaken by the Mullers, who've sponsored worldwide terrorism

(02:35):
ever since. Pretty much this time will be different, says
the Trump team. Trump aid Stephen Miller says the spoils
belonged to the powerful.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
He says, we live in a world in which you
can you can talk all you want about international niceties
and everything else, but we live in a world, in
the real world, that is governed by strength, that is
governed by force.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Trump already is talking about other potential targets, like Greenland.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
What he days.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Greenland from a national security to the situation, it's.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
So strategic twenty days he's saying there. Stephen Millers says,
no one is going to fight the US militarily over
the future of Greenland.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
The United States should have Greenland as part of the
United States.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
That would put an end to NATO, the Western alliance
that has protected the West since the end of World
War Two, say many. If the US were to attack
another NATO country, then quote, everything would come to an end,
says the Danish leader. Russia's Putin is saying response to
the Maduro capture that no one can criticize Russia now
over its actions in Ukraine. Meantime, Trump is warning that

(03:48):
Columbia could be your target soon as well.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Columbia is very sick to run by a sick man
who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,
and he's.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Not going to be doing it very long.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Cuba also is quote ready to fall, says Trump, while
Republican Senator Lindsay Graham says of Cuba, but if you
tell people.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
In Cuba you need to out being a communist dictatorship
threatening America, you should go somewhere else. You better take
the offer. Duro has nobody played but himself.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Trump also is pointing to Mexico.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
You have to do something with Mexico. Lexico has to
get there packed together because they're pouring through Mexico and
we're going to have to do something.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
So Greenland's Cuba, Mexico, Colombia. However, in Venezuela, the government
still has been run as you've been hearing by Maduro's team,
including Delsea Rodriguez, who has been sworn in as interim president.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Mercado, who was forced out
of the country before the last election, says Rodriguez cannot

(04:51):
be trusted and was quote the architect of the Maduro repression.
One other quick note, Trump has ignored Macato, saying she
lacks respect within Venezuela, but The Washington Post says Trump
became somewhat disinterested in her when she accepted the Nobel
Peace Prize, even while call herself a Trump supporter of
the Washington Post saying that if Mikado had turned down

(05:12):
the Nobel Prize that Trump openly coveted, quote, she'd be
the president of Venezuela today.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
A good stuff and thank you, Richard Arnold. There from
the United States of America.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
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