All across Mexico, we saw acts of violence, narco barricades, and other types of reasons for especially U.S. citizens to shelter in place. I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Ryan Berg, Director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin American Studies program. Dr. Berg joins us today to discuss the recent developments in Mexico, especially the death of El Mencho, the leader of Mexico's Jalisco cartel. We'll also discuss the potential impacts on U.S. national security. And we'll also discuss Venezuela and Cuba. Stay with us as we speak with Dr. Ryan Berg. Ryan, welcome back to NATSEC Matters. Mike, it's great to be back. Two times in two months, that shows the importance of Latin America for the Trump administration. Thanks for having me back. It sure does. And Ryan, we definitely want to get to other events in the region as well. But let's begin with Mexico. Please describe the big shootout that occurred in Mexico over the weekend. Yeah, the Mexican state carried out a pretty important operation against the Jalisco cartel, in particular against the leader of that cartel, a very elusive figure who was on the FBI's most wanted list. It goes by the nickname El Mencho. His full name is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes. He's the leader of the Jalisco cartel, an extremely violent, deadly, and confrontational organization in Mexico. In fact, probably the most dangerous and most powerful cartel in Mexico, given how much it's been gaining in terms of territory on the Sinaloa cartel. So this is a huge operation. They attempted, the Mexican forces attempted to capture him. And they say that in the attempt to capture him, they were unable to do so. He was shot several times and he died on his way to a hospital. In addition, his number two was apparently killed and dozens of his bodyguards and other high level figures in the cartel. And so now what we have is the cartel exacting its revenge in Mexico. And we saw starting over the weekend and moving into Monday and some parts of Tuesday of this week, cartels enacting random acts of revenge or setting up what we call narco barricades along roads to extort people or to block transport. And this took place at over 250 sites across Mexico. So it wasn't just limited to where the Jalisco cartel has some of its strongholds, but it was also in other states. This was a level of coordination, Mike, that we haven't seen in a long time, perhaps ever. Normally, when you have the taking out of a cartel boss like this, there are very violent incidents, but they're highly localized to where that group has a lot of its base and power. In this case, it was all across Mexico. We saw acts of violence, narco barricades, and other types of reasons for especially U.S. citizens to shelter in place. We're recording this on Wednesday. Yeah. And that level of violence has receded. It's now more targeted and isolated in only just a few states right now, but it certainly continues. Well, tell me a little bit about the rivalry with the Sinaloa cartel and how significant is that? And describe a little bit about, in general, who is at the top of the heap. And then I want to get into Claudia Scheinbaum and the apparent bravery of the Mexican government for getting into this, if that's something you would agree with. So first on Sinaloa-Jalisco, I mean, this rivalry has produced a lot of violence in Mexico. Mexico usually features about 50% of the cities in the most violent cities in the world index. year over year it has 30,000 homicides or more in a country that's less than half the size of the United States. So these groups and the rivalries that they maintain generate much of the violence that we see in Mexico. Now Sinaloa is the older of the two groups. Obviously we know that El Chapo Guzman, the famous head of the Sinaloa cartel, once he was captured and extradited to the United States. His sons took it over. Some of his sons have now been captured. There are a few. There's one remaining son in particular who's still on the loose in Mexico and running one faction of the Sinaloa cartel. There's another faction that has split off from the main group. And so they are fighting within the organization and they're also fighting the Jalisco cartel. And so you can imagine that this has created a lot of violence. And then we even have some reports that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so in some cases, there are reports of certain factions of the Sinaloa cartel doing the once unthinkable, Mike, which is allying with elements of the Jalisco cartel to push back on other elements of the of the Sinaloa cartel. The Jalisco cartel was formed as a splinter group by Nemesio Cervantes Oseguera or Almencho because of disagreements and rivalries within the organization. It rose up in Mexico in the 2010s. It got a lot of attention because of its violence, frankly, the tools or let's say the displays of public violence that it was willing to undertake. the scenes that we've often heard of now in Mexico of bodies hanging from bridges, public displays of mutilated corpses, these really macabre scenes, those were pioneered by the Jalisco cartel in an effort to intimidate populations and take over territory. Yeah. So Jalisco is a very feared organization, a highly violent organization. Initially, Mike, they were involved in methamphetamines, cocaine, sometimes marijuana, ecstasy trafficking in terms of the drug picture. And then later, once they saw that they could make lots of money on fentanyl trafficking, just like the Sinaloa cartel, they got into that business as well. And furthermore, you know, not just disputes between territories, but also disputes between who traffics or who is the key group trafficking in fentanyl has created lots of violence and Mexico as well. So that's what the rivalry is about. It's like we see on anything else. It's about territory and ultimately about money. Yeah, that's right. And probably personal beef between some of the high level individuals in these organizations. Yeah, I hear you. Okay. So I think it's broadly understood that AMLO did not invest too much in going after the cartels. But apparently, Claudia Sheinbaum is leaning forward and maybe not just because President Trump is pushing her. Talk a little bit about what her position is and what it took for her to get to a place where the Mexican army mounted such an invasion, if you will, last weekend. Yeah, I think that she came into office, Mike, with a different idea of what security policy in Mexico had to be. I mean, if we step back and we look at the Moderna party in Mexico, it's a very popular party. It has increased social spending, minimum wage, a number of things that people are very grateful for, and that's the basis of its support. But if you look at polling time and time again, where people express their most amount of frustration or the least satisfaction with their policies, it's on security. And so I think Claudia Sheinbaum came into office understanding that a kind of detente or even a passage, you know, a pass for narcos is not going to work and certainly not the branding that the AMLO government gave their security policy. They called it abrazos no balazos, hugs, not bullets. I think Claudia Sheinbaum understood in order to be successful and maintain the popularity of this political party and the viability, therefore, of this political movement, a different security policy had to be implemented. And frankly, she had a history of a different security policy when she was mayor of Mexico City before becoming president. She was known for governing with spreadsheets, using data to decide sort of where to put additional police presence, where to have intelligence gathering capabilities. And she promised to essentially replicate some of those tactics at the national level. In fact, even bringing in the same individual who was her chief of security at the city level. And he's now the minister for public security, Omar García Harfuch. So much of this strategy has been created with him. He's considered to be a main interlocutor of the Americans. And their strategy is essentially to go after some of these groups in areas of high intensity violence, to go after some of these pockets that seem to be ungovernable or where there's no state presence. And they want to reassert, in some ways, state presence. And so focusing on what we might call problem areas is part of her security policy. So are we in a good place then with them? Or are they obviously last weekend speaks to their desire to go after them. But generally speaking, is the Trump administration thinking to themselves, wow, they're really seized of this and they're going after it? Or was that just a one off in their mind? I think in addition to the praise that I want to give to the shame bomb government for having a different security policy than the previous government, I think we also have to discuss the fact that the Trump administration has put plenty of incentives on the table for the shame bomb government to go after narco traffickers and high level individuals. I mean, obviously, the FAIPA tariffs, which existed until this past week, the 232s, the other forms of trade-related pressure that the Trump administration has brought against the Mexican government have provided plenty of incentives, if you will, for the Mexican government to show results. And they've certainly been keen to do so, always tweeting out or publicly messaging the amount of interdictions that they're doing, drugs seized, very high level narco extraditions, almost 100 of them now to the United States. So shame bomb is is in many ways engaged in this in this delicate balance One of the things that I noted Mike in my observation in the administration is that there are different opinions on just how well Mexico is cooperating with the U.S. Some, and certainly the ambassador in Mexico, Ron Johnson, is singing the praises of the Mexican government, saying that they are cooperating very closely with us. They have a very close intelligence sharing operation with us. And part of the success of this past weekend was a new joint interagency task force called JIAIDF-CC, Counter Cartel, which is being run out of NORFCOM and was just stood up at the end of 2025. But explain that for us. Explain what it is and who's there from across the U.S. government and why it matters. So JIAIDF-CC, my understanding is that it's kind of an intelligence fusion center that is meant to package intelligence and use some of the unmanned aerial surveillance flights that we've been flying over Mexico, sometimes four to six a day, to figure out hotspots, to pass along intelligence that then the Mexican government can act on. And they've defended this. The Mexican government has defended the U.S. using UAVs to have overhead surveillance flights in Mexico because it gives them or it nets them actionable intelligence, which they have trouble producing with fidelity on their own. So that's the crux of the relationship. And importantly, I think, Mike, we should highlight that the Mexican government's statements after the capture and then the killing of El Mencho, all of them mentioned a close working relationship with the United States, and particularly in the intelligence realm. And so for the Mexican government, that seems to be where they like the U.S. to be. That's a comfortable spot for the U.S. in their minds. And as I was saying before, there are some in the Trump administration who I think believe we need to go further. And they would like to see special operations forces on the ground in Mexico, or even the use of a drone potentially in Mexico to kind of send a message or to do what they think the Mexican government is unwilling to do. And I think probably it goes without saying that the Mexican government has been messaging that as a red line. If I had to categorize, I would say most in the administration believe that we have Mexico in a good spot. The cooperation is working and certainly the incentives from Washington are there to continue going after cartels. There are a few voices, however, that I think are pushing for further action to send that message. I would just add, finally, one of the top targets or one of the targets that I would have assumed as a top figure for a potential drone strike has just been killed this past weekend, the head of the Jalisco cartel. So if a drone strike is something that the U.S. will push for in the future, I think there is a question about who would be the target. Who or what would be the target now that one of the top targets has been killed by the Mexican forces? So this Tom Clancy clear and present danger scenario of deploying special operations troops into Mexico, is that just fanciful? Do people really think that that's an option or is it just sort of held out there for Claudia Sheinbaum as pressure, as a stalking horse for her to do more? It's a great question, Mike. I think it depends on who you ask. I do think that there are some in the administration who find it to be a viable option and would like to see it happen. Now, it should be noted that the Mexican Senate has to ratify or approve all operations and all entrance of foreign military forces on Mexican soil. they've done that now in two instances by my cow and mostly what we know is that these special operations forces are in mexico conducting training exercises yeah right um so for now what we believe is that these are training exercises the mexican government was insistent that their forces carried out this weekend's activities and we don't have any reason at this point to believe other than the intelligence sharing part of it that special operations forces were part of the, you know, the raid on Nemesio's compound. But that is an option in the future if the U.S. pushes for it. And the shame bomb government will have a lot of trouble, I think, sort of dodging and dipping and ducking this pressure if the U.S. decides that that's the right pathway to take. Yeah. Okay. So for now, neither of us are briefed on CIA covert action, But there was an article some months ago. So it seems like we're very likely, I'm guessing here, flying drones, maybe with, of course, the knowledge and consent of the Mexican government to help with intel collection. Is that fair? Yeah, I can discuss what's been publicly reported, which is that, you know, the Trump administration has issued its finding, which is important. But also the, you know, the CIA has, with enthusiasm, pivoted to the Latin America mission. and John Radcliffe, by I think most accounts, is doing a terrific job of generating significant amounts of intelligence that have led to major successes like the capture of Maduro and now intelligence that was shared with the Mexican forces to get Nemesio. I think the other thing that's been publicly reported and the Mexicans have defended it is that the drones that are flown over Mexico are generating intelligence. And those are taking place four to six times a day. Great. All right. Well, that's good. I like that we're leaning forward and helping them with intelligence. And of course, as you mentioned, the newspapers have reported that we produced intelligence packages that really helped with the takedown on Sunday. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with Ryan Berg. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives business leaders the decision advantage. Advantage. Founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth, and navigate a complex geopolitical environment. With a bipartisan team and decades of experience, Beacon provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. Talk a little bit about U.S.-Mexican relations more broadly. It feels like Claudia Sheinbaum is going after the cartels. We have USMCA coming up. Are there any other major irritants? I mean, isn't it a bit of a surprise how well President Trump has gotten along with the Mexican president? Yeah, it's certainly been a surprise to some observers that she's managed as well as she has. But that said, Mike, I think that the Mexicans are in a very difficult position. The U.S. has a lot of leverage on the Mexicans. You mentioned USMCA. That's coming up in the summer, the revisiting of that agreement. That's a tremendous amount of leverage when 83% of your exports go to the United States. and you've just become both the largest market for the United States, both on the export and the import side of things. People didn't realize that in November of last year, Mexico actually overtook Canada as the largest export market for the United States. So that means that Americans are benefiting from having access to the Mexican consumer, just as the Mexican market is benefiting from having access to the American consumer. And that means a rising wealthier Mexico is increasingly a market for U.S. products as well. So there's a lot of integration here, but with integration, of course, brings leverage. And the Mexicans, and Sheinbaum in specific, she's doing this very delicate balance between Washington and Tabasco. Why do I say Tabasco? Because that's where the retired president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is hanging out at his farm. And basically, she's trying to satisfy both of these polls. He's still in charge of quite a bit of the party apparatus in Mexico. Many members of the Mexican Senate and the chamber of deputies and governors still owe their loyalty to him. So in many ways, this is not really her party, not fully at least. And at the same time, she's trying to please the Trump administration and the very clear leverage that they're using on her. So she's in a very tight spot. And I think we've all been surprised at how well she's managed to walk this very delicate balance. Within the USMCA, Mike, it's always been my opinion that this is not going to be strictly a trade conversation. It will be mostly about trade and ways to make the trade agreement better, raise regional content requirements, box out China, et cetera, et cetera. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration, as it so often does, brings some of these miscellaneous buckets into the conversation about USMCA. And that's where in the summer we might get conversations about security or migration issues, all of a sudden entering the conversations on USMCA revision. And that creates a whole new strategy that the Mexicans then have to respond to and have some answers for in order to push forward on the trade agreement, and which I said is existential for them when they're so integrated into the U.S. market. So let's talk a little bit about Venezuela, and then I would love to get your view on the increasing number of articles that seem to suggest that Cuba is in some sort of of slow collapse. But update us a little bit on how things are going in Venezuela. I saw the energy secretary went down there with some of the oil companies. It feels like we're still dictating to the Venezuelans how they'll spend oil revenue. How are things going? The world's attention has shifted elsewhere, and I don't know that we're hearing as much about Venezuela as we once did. You're right, Mike. I think the attention has shifted a little bit, especially as the Armada of looms in the Middle East and the questions about will President Trump or won't President Trump strike Iran and how those negotiations led by Steve Whitcoff are going. A little bit of the focus has been removed from Venezuela, but more or less what you describe is what's happening in Venezuela. They're still under a lot of pressure. There's still a large enough naval presence in the Southern Caribbean that we essentially have our quarantine there, therefore controlling what goes in and what goes out of Venezuela, therefore controlling revenue streams for the government and thus what it can spend its money on. We've seen in the last couple of weeks, a few deliveries of humanitarian assistance and so very clearly and medical supplies And so very clearly one of the administration priorities is trying to rebuild at least in part Venezuela dilapidated health system I wouldn't be surprised if the education system was on the to-do list as well. We've seen some significant actions from the Venezuelan regime as well, certainly under duress. We've seen an amnesty law passed recently, which is going to pardon crimes. I'm doing air quotes, You can't see me right now, Mike, but I'm doing air quotes, crimes allegedly committed by political prisoners. There are many issues with that piece of legislation. It's not a complete amnesty. I could go into the details, but I don't think that they're important here. The point is that they have moved at least one step forward on some kind of amnesty against individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned. It's not as wide. It's not as large as we had hoped. but it's a step in the right direction and hopefully it can be built upon. There have been prisoner releases in the past couple weeks. So we've seen hundreds of political prisoners released and going home to their family. The conditions of their release are not what we would like them to be, but they're nevertheless not in prison. There are not as many of them who have been released as we'd like, but nevertheless, they are slowly releasing. So these are the types of things that are happening in Venezuela, slowly but surely. And then you have the visit of Secretary Wright, looking specifically at some of the oil infrastructure and some of the things that have been done on the reform to the hydrocarbons law, which was the other big legislative push to try to get more private sector investment in Venezuela. The reform to the hydrocarbons law was pretty remarkable, Mike, in the sense that it essentially undid two decades of nationalization in about two weeks. So they've already passed it. It's already been passed. It's already passed it. And they passed it in the first two weeks. In fact, it was passed even before the amnesty bill was passed recently. Right. So it shows you where their priorities are, not necessarily primarily on political prisoners and loosening the political system. Is this thing working? I mean, we're making real progress in Venezuela and things are going well. We're making progress. But I would say that by working, at least as someone who's followed Venezuela for as long as I have, by working, my definition is we have to be trending in the direction of some kind of transition away from this regime. Yeah. For us to fully have security and guarantees about Venezuela in our own hemisphere. And right now we're not there. So I sort of assumed after the raid, when we said we wanted Delce Rodriguez to be in there, you know, I think we talked about this last time. It was sort of an implicit criticism of the Bush administration on Iraq. Like, let's not decapitate everybody with any authority or there'll be total chaos in the country. So on the other hand, I assumed they would later come around to some sort of democratic government down the road. Do you do you sense that that's ultimately the plan and what benchmarks along the way? What milestones do you think we will see? Will it be free elections? You know, before we go in that direction as to, as you say, get rid of the regime. Well, I think one of the first things that needs to happen, Mike, is that there needs to be an election timetable that's actually scheduled. Right now, we have wildly different estimates from different figures about how long it would take to organize an election. You can't just organize an election in Venezuela in a matter of months. You actually have to clean up the voter rolls. You actually have to make sure that all the amnesties are in place. You have to provide the tools for opposition figures to come back to the country and not just to come back, but to reconstitute their political projects. Maria Corina Machado, the most popular figure in the country in the Nobel Prize laureate, is still outside the country, right? And it's unclear what would happen if she tried to go back to the country at this point in time. And so a number of questions need to be answered. What she has said and what some in the administration have agreed with is that when an election timetable is announced or when an election is announced, we can do this in nine to 10 months. That's her estimate of how long it's going to take to properly organize, to make sure the conditions for a free and fair election are there, and to go back to Venezuela, reconstitute the project, and compete for power. Nothing has been announced in terms of a timetable for an election, much less any kind of pronouncement from Maria Corina herself that she's going back to Venezuela. So there's so much uncertainty here about when an election is going to take place. And I think if you're the regime, Mike, you think that's totally fine. You're trying to push this out as far as possible because in the meantime, you're trying to consolidate your control even as you're economically opening up the country to more investment. So as I think we talked about the last time I was on, it's likely going to be an economic opening and a liberalization of the economic system without any kind of meaningful political opening or very small amounts of political opening. I reckon that's the regime's strategy. And as long as we're not pushing for an election and for a defined timetable on that transition piece of the three-pronged approach, the regime has time and space to continue consolidating their control. Gotcha. All right, let's go to Cuba. There have been a series of articles lately talking about the weakness inside of the regime. Some are calling it a slow collapse. Others are citing the gradual cutoff of oil and gas transfers into Cuba as something that might finally push them over the edge. where are you on on Cuba generally I'm always really skeptical about predicting some sort of regime change but unpack this one for us including the articles that seem to say that Secretary Rubio is talking to people maybe it's Raul Castro is the power behind the throne well what's going on down there yeah I'm also glad we're going to talk about Cuba Mike because you asked before about irritants in the U.S.-Mexico relationship. We can talk about this in a subsequent question, but that's another irritant beyond the trade and the security stuff is we see differently on Cuba and we always have. So there are reports that Secretary of State Rubio is talking to Raulito, who is the grandson of Raul Castro. I think this is notable for a number of reasons. First, Secretary of State Rubio has completely bypassed the current political leadership in Cuba. He's not talking to Diaz-Canel, the president. He's not talking to a foreign minister. He's not talking to anyone who's currently in office as a recognizable kind of office holder who does the and performs the public function of leadership in Cuba. He's going straight to the family of Raul Castro, essentially messaging that the Castro family still maintains all the power on the island over the most important decisions, especially of the nature of how to deal with the United States. And so he's completely bypassed the current political leadership there, essentially sent the message that these are figureheads. We're going to go straight to the Castro family. Now, Raulito is the grandson. In the Obama administration, they dealt with one of the sons of Raul Castro in their very brief opening, which was then reversed by the Trump administration. And in most conversations with the son, it was apparent that the ideology was getting in the way, that the rigidity of the communist outlook, etc. Apparently with Raulito, he's more well-traveled. He understands how things work outside the island. And he's seen, in fact, I think he's maybe even been to Miami before. He's seen the potential that Cuba could have if there was some kind of economic opening on the island, especially given its proximity to the United States. And so I think the calculus here is that there is a potential for more flexibility from Raulito than from other figures in the regime and where Castros are still in power, essentially, even if they're not exercising the daily functions of the offices. In these conversations, it's unclear what they're talking about. But at the Munich Security conference, Secretary of State Rubio was asked about these conversations by Bloomberg in an interview after his speech. And he said, Cuba's economic model doesn't work. It needs to open up. And with an economic opening, you may, in fact, be able to get a political opening. That's about as much as we have at this point, Mike, in terms of the strategy that they might be employing. The last thing I would note is that talking to Raulito is interesting for one more reason, which is his ties with the military. He's got control over one of the large umbrella organizations that goes by the acronym GAESA, which is a military-run entity that controls a lot of hotels in Cuba, a lot of other sectors, and they have billions of dollars in bank accounts, most of which are outside of Cuba. And so it's interesting that he's gone directly to him in the sense that it's another sign that the military will be a key player in any kind of change on the island, absent some kind of U.S. action on the ground, because they have the ability to either stymie or go along with any kinds of changes, and in particular changes that are as important as an economic opening. Last, I would say one more thing, Mike, which is So the Cubans have tried to resurrect their Morabind economic model. And when they've traveled to some of their partner countries, they've gone to Russia, they've gone to China. We have reports specifically of the Chinese Communist Party saying you need to be more flexible. essentially they're telling the cubans you need to be less communist because communism doesn't work and it's just hilarious to hear the chinese communist party is telling them you need to be more flexible and pragmatic and perhaps even market oriented to make this thing work and the cubans saying no uh we're true to the ideology uh and and here we are with cuba with its moribund economy and the u.s in fact the ones trying to open uh the cuban economy as a way of getting a political opening. Yeah. So just to go back to the oil, so the reports are true. The Mexicans are cooperating with us and cutting off oil and gas to the island. Yeah, that's that other irritant that I mentioned. So we've never seen eye to eye with the Mexicans on Cuba. Those who know their history well know that Fidel and Che met in Mexico City. They launched their invasion of Cuba and their overthrow of Fulgencio Batista from Mexico. So there's always been a kind of romanticism in Mexico about Cuba But we have messaged very clearly to the Mexicans that we do not want to see Pemex sending oil to Cuba Thus far we believe they respected our red line We have allowed them to send humanitarian assistance into naval vessels And that clearly shows, I think, that the Trump administration does not want an outright collapse in Cuba. An outright collapse could contribute to the out-migration of millions of Cubans. And we're getting into midterm election season. The president just last night in the State of the union, of course, hit on migration and border security. So half a million Cubans or a million Cubans leaving the island because it's in an acute state of malnourishment is not what the administration wants at this point. So the Mexicans are sending humanitarian assistance, but not any oil. The last thing I would note here, Mike, is that the threat that the president has codified, basically, he put it into an executive order to have secondary tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba. That is on the basis of an IEPA interpretation that may be threatened now, given the Supreme Court's decision last week. So, Ryan, there's so much talk about regime alteration instead of regime change. Is that what you think the United States is up to with Cuba by working with Raul Castro and others? Or would you call it more reform over time? Or put it in a category for us. Help us understand it. Reform over time might be a good way of expressing it. I think President Trump on numerous occasions has said that he believes Cuba is going to collapse under its own mismanagement. But again, And that kind of collapse could produce the kind of outmigration that I don't think the administration wants to see, as I mentioned. So I think this is an attempt at finding someone within the regime who can be pragmatic enough to talk to the United States and enact some kind of reform, some kind of openings. in the same way that we've found someone in Venezuela who I think we understand very clearly. She's part of the regime. She's part of the apparatus. She's part of the machine. She's overseen some horrendous things and eventually cannot be permitted to just remain in power. But she's useful for the time being in order to kind of open that economic system, any kind of political opening we can get. I believe the administration is looking for a similar, for an analog really, uh, in Cuba. So call it reform from within or call it, uh, regime management. That's something at CSIS we we've called it for a while, you know, taking the sources of leverage that we have over a particular country to try to manage some of the most important, uh, day-to-day things that they might have to, uh, to deal with. Um, but it's not the sort of day to the, the, the night to day kind of overnight express regime change that, uh, we talked about the last time I on the podcast that we saw in Iraq and other places, which I think is an implicit criticism, as we mentioned, of those Bush administration policies. So I think they're willing to try to find folks who will reform from inside as opposed to taking the risk on these kind of express overnight regime changes working out, mostly because those types of regime changes require much more commitment and potentially even boots on the ground to survive. Okay, so one more on Cuba and then we'll wrap up with just sort of a broader view of the hemisphere. Do you believe, however, with regard to Cuba, that their economy is being squeezed to such a degree that it could collapse? Because it feels like we've been predicting the collapse of Cuba for decades and it never actually happens and that they can just continue to soldier on. If we're not getting cooperation and we're just trying to do maximum pressure, where do you think it leads? Yeah, you mentioned before, Mike, that plenty of people have predicted regime change or regime collapse over the years on Cuba. And that's almost a 70-year recurring trend now. So, you know, the Cubans always find a way, it seems, to make things work, despite how bad they might be. I think that we have a few reasons to believe that this time might be different. And I've spoken to a few people who have recently come back from Cuba, and some of whom have even spoken to some officials in the Cuban government, or have heard, you know, through third parties from officials in the Cuban government. And some of them appear to realize that this time is different as well. This may be the end. They may need to enact some reforms in order to stay in power or that they risk an outright collapse. And that the difference here is just the extent of the squeeze. Right. It's not just from the United States, but it's actually the United States preventing the delivery of oil to Cuba from from third countries. Right. And that that could be the difference maker. Right. It's the cutoff of that Venezuelan nexus. given the operations last month with Mauro, and that's this executive order threatening the secondary tariffs on any country that provides Cuba with fuel. The Cubans can only produce a small percentage of what they consume domestically. We think the Cubans need about 100,000 barrels of oil a day. And with their domestic production, they can produce between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels. So what the Venezuelans were giving them, what the Mexicans were giving them was crucial. And so therefore, you have to wonder just how long can they keep the lights on? How much do they have to kind of move resources to essentially just keep the lights on government buildings or a few of the hotels where tourists are coming? Their sources of revenue are really drying up. And the other thing the administration is going hard after is the medical brigades, the sources of hard currency, another source of hard currency that the Cuban government has had for a long time, sending Cuban doctors to various places around the world and taking a significant portion of the money that those doctors are paid. We think that this scheme nets them six, seven billion dollars in revenues a year. The administration has been pressuring countries to close up those programs. We've seen Guatemala, we've seen Honduras, we've seen a number of Caribbean countries recently close up those programs and ask Cuban doctors to go home. that's going to hit the bottom line and the revenue streams for the Cuban government as well. So I'm going to go out on a limb here, Mike, and say that this time might in fact be different just because of the extent of the squeeze and the pressure on third countries as well to not intervene and prop up the Cuban government. Amazing. Big things are happening. Okay. So I hear so much from Latin American experts about a rightward shift across the hemisphere, sort of right wing parties are winning more frequently. Tell us about as we wrap up here, tell us about that and sort of give us a preview of what you see happening in the coming months. Yeah, it's a great phenomenon for the Trump administration to to be overseeing. I mean, it's a they're they're focusing on Latin America at a great time, Mike, because they are benefiting from the pendulum swing in Latin American elections back to the right, and therefore more governments in the region that expressly want to have a close working relationship with Washington. And so the president is going to invite a number of them to Miami on March 7th. He's putting together a conference that he's calling the Shield of the Americas Conference in lieu of the Summit of the Americas, which was supposed to happen last year in the Dominican Republic. This is the first time that there's a large multilateral gathering between a number of countries in Latin America and the United States. In the invitee list, Mike, is mostly the center right presidents, right? Presidents in Central America, in Costa Rica, in Panama, in Honduras, in El Salvador, presidents in South America, like in Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, of course, Paraguay. So we're bringing together a broader coalition of countries around a number of issues, mostly related to security, related as well to trade. A number of those countries have signed reciprocal trade agreements with the United States recently. And the other thing that the conference wants to do, Mike, is come up with a counter China agenda, which I think is terrific. And if you can get countries in that grouping agreeing on a set of principles for how to deal with China, how to think about inbound investment, how to erect some barriers to this flood of Chinese products that has been dumped on a lot of Latin American markets and is hollowing out industrial production in the region, that would be a great win for the administration. And the last thing I would say, Mike, is the administration is going to benefit from a number of elections that are to be held this year in Latin America. So in addition to that grouping that I just mentioned, you've got important elections coming up in Colombia. And the right is poised to do well in that election. That could change a lot of the strategic orientation of the region. You have elections coming up in Peru. if that government goes to the right, which I think it has a very good chance of doing. You've brought another ally into that fold. And in another iteration of the Shield of America's Conference, you've got at least two additional invitees. And then the other big country that has elections in 2026 is Brazil, which I think is a much more wide open election, but where the right may do well there too. And so the broader macro point is the pendulum is swinging to the right, you have a number of countries coming to power on the basis of a tighter security policy, on the basis of some questioning of the country's previous relationships with China, and also a serious interest in a lot of publics in Latin America and having a good relationship with the Trump administration because of the importance of connections, of course, to the U.S. So the administration is choosing a great time to focus on the region. Not only do they have folks like Secretary of State Rubio who understand it extremely well, but they're benefiting from these pendulum shifts. The point being, there's a lot of countries in the region, and there will be even more with elections this year that want to work with us on certain initiatives. And stay tuned for March 7th, because that will be an important conference in Miami when President Trump gathers a lot of these center-right leaders to put together a more robust agenda for us to pursue together. Ryan, thank you so much. We're really fortunate to have you explain the significance of these events in the hemisphere. And we hope to have you back on NatSecMatters very soon. Thanks very much, Mike. That was Ryan Berg. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of NatSecMatters. NatSecMatters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Berry. NatSec Matters is a production of Beacon Global Strategies.
