Eliminating 'El Mencho' & Re-Engineering the Americas: Dr. Ryan Berg

narco-baricades, 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 Bird, director of the America's program in head of the future of Venezuela initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Previously, Dr. Bird was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he helped lead its Latin American Studies program. Dr. Bird joins us today to discuss the recent developments in Mexico.

Especially the death of El Mancho, the leader of Mexico's Holisco 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 Bird. (upbeat music) Ryan, welcome back to NetSec Matters. Mike, it's great to be back two times and two months that shows the importance of Latin America

for the Trump administration. Thanks for having me back. - It sure does. And Ryan, we will 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”

Khalisco Cartel in particular against the leader of that cartel. A very elusive figure who was on the FBI's most wanted list goes by the nickname El Mancho. As full name as the messio.

Also, get us a Vantes. He's the leader of the Khalisco 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 Missina Lola 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. 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 and acting random acts of revenge work or setting up what we call Narco Barricades along roads to extort people or to block transport. In this took place at over 250 sites across Mexico. So it wasn't just limited to where the Harley-Sco cartel

has some of its strongholds, but it was also in other states. This was a level of coordination like 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 basin 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. Yeah. We're running this on Wednesday 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 Cinaloa 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 Shinebaum in the apparent bravery of the Mexican government for getting into this if that's something you would agree with.

So first on Cinaloa, Khalisco, I mean,

this rivalry has produced a lot of violence in Mexico. Mexico usually features about 50% of the states and the most, 50% of the cities excuse me in the most violent cities in the world in Dex. 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, Cinaloa is the older of the two groups. Obviously, we know that a Chappo Guzman,

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 Cinaloa 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 Haleesco cartel and so you can imagine this is 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

in the Cinaloa cartel doing the one-son thinkable mic, which is allying with elements of the Haleesco cartel to push back on other elements of the Cinaloa cartel. The Haleesco cartel was formed as a splinter group

by Namesco Svetvantoso Siguera Almencio

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, mutilated corpses. These really macabre scenes. Those were pioneered by the Haleesco cartel

in an effort to intimidate populations and take over territory. So Haleesco is a very feared organization, a highly violent organization. Initially, 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, 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 in Mexico as well.

So that's what the rival reads 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 Amlow did not invest too much in going after the cartels. But apparently Claudia Shinebaum 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 Modena 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 Shinebaum came into office”

understanding that a kind of date taunt or even a passage, you know, a pass for narcos is not going to work and certainly not the branding that the Anglo government gave their security policy. They call it a passos, no ballasos, hugs, not bullets.

I think Claudia Shinebaum understood in order to be successful in maintaining the popularity of his 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 what spreadsheets using data to decide sort of where to put additional police presence,

where to have intelligence, scattering 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, Omg, I see it hot footage. 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 be ungovernable or where there are no state presence.

And they want to reassert in some ways state presence. So focusing on what we might call problem areas is part of her security policy. So are we in a good place then with him? Or are they obviously less weakened 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 don't want 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, the 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 introductions that they're doing, drugs seized, very high-level narco extraditions, almost 100 of them now, to the United States. So shame-bomb is, in many ways, engaged in this delicate balance. One of the things that I've noted,

Mike, in my observation, the administration is that there are different opinions on just how well Mexico is cooperating with the US. Some, and certainly the ambassador in Mexico, Ron Johnson is seeing 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 in part of the success of this past weekend, was a new joint interagency task force called Jadef C.C. Counter-Cartel, which is being run out of North Common

was just stood up at the end of 2025. - But explain that for us. Explain what it is in who's there from across the US government and why it matters. - So Jadef C.C. 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 hot spots to pass along intelligence that then the Mexican government can act on.

And they've defended this. The Mexican government has defended the US 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 governments' statements after the capture and the killing of Edmancho, 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 US to be, that's a comfortable spot for the US 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 and a good spot, the cooperation is working

in 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 that the head of the Highly School cartel. So if a drone strike is something the US will push for

in the future, I think there is a question about who would be the target, right? 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 dangerous 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 sorta held out there for Claudia Chambaum

- 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 of an 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, right?”

So for now, what we believe is that these are training exercises, the Mexican government was insistent that they're forces carried out this weakens activities. If we don't have any reason at this point to believe, other than that intelligence-sharing part of it,

that special operations forces were part of the rate

on NMSEO's compound. But that is an option in the future of the US pushes for it. And the Chambaum government will have a lot of trouble, I think, sort of dodging and dipping and ducking this pressure of the US 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 may be with, of course, the knowledge and consent of the Mexican government to help with the Intel collection. Is that fair? - Yeah, I can discuss what's been publicly reported,

which is that the Trump administration

has issued its finding, which is important.

But also, the CIA has with enthusiasm pivoted to the Latin American nation 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 NMSEO. 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 newspaper has reported that we produced intelligence packages that really helped with the take-down on Sunday.

- We're gonna 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,

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 in decades of experience

speak and provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. - Talk a little bit about U.S. Mexican relations more broadly. If feels like Claudia Shinebaum is going after the cartels, we have U.S.M.CA coming up,

or 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? - 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 U.S.M.CA. That's coming up in the summer, the revisiting of that agreement. That's a tremendous amount of leverage, one 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. I'd people didn't realize that in November of last year, Mexico actually over took 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 having not a fitting 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 Cheyne Bowman in specific, she's doing this very delicate balance between Washington

and Thalasco. Why do I say Thalasco? Because that's where the retired president Andrés Manuel López Oredor is hanging out at his farm.

He's still in charge of quite a bit of the party apparatus in Mexico, many members of the Mexican Senate and the debt 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.

Yeah.

“And I think we've all been surprised at how well”

she's managed to walk this very delicate balance. Within the USMCA, Mike, this is not--

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 bring 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 USMCA.

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 slow collapse. But update is a little bit on how things are going

in Venezuela. I saw that energy secretary went down there with some of the oil companies. He feels like we're still dictating to the Venezuelans how they'll spend oil revenue.

How are things going? The world's attention is 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 is shifted a little bit,”

especially as the Armada 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 Wood call for 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. They're 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 conspends 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's priorities is trying to rebuild at least in part

Venezuela's 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 de-ress. We've seen an amnesty law passed recently

which is going to pardon crimes. I'm doing air quotes. You can't see any 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 are 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 there's 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

did two decades of nationalization in about two weeks. It's an authority past it.

It's already been pasted and they passed it in the first two weeks.

In fact, it was passed even before the Amnesty bill was passed recently.

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 that 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 and our own hemisphere. And right now we're not there. So, I sort of assumed after the raid,

when we said we wanted Delcy 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 rock. Like, let's not decapitate everybody with any authority. They'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 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 schedule. But 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. Mighty Aquarina Machalo, the most popular figure in the country and 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 needed 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 ten 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 Mighty Aquarina herself that she's going back to 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 like 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 announced 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.

They've 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 is something that might finally push them over the edge.

Where are you on Cuba generally? I'm always really skeptical about predicting some sort of

regime change. But unpack this when forests, including the articles that seem to say the Secretary Rubio is talking to people, maybe it's roll, cast, row is the power behind the throne. 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 and 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 Rao Lito who is the grandson of Rao 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 Canal, the president. He's not talking to foreign minister.

He's not talking to anyone who's currently in office as a recognizable kind of office holer

the family of Rao 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 were going to go straight to the Castro family. Now Rao Lito is the grandson in the Obama administration. They dealt with one of the sons of Rao 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, et cetera. Apparently, with Rao Lito, 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 bent 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 Rao Lito than from other figures in the regime and where Castro's 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 Ruby was asked about these conversations by Bloomberg in an interview after his speech. And he said, Cuba's economic model doesn't work. He 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 notice that talking to Rao Lito 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 GAISA, 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

US 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 the Cubans have tried to resurrect their more of an 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 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 Cuban saying, "No, we're true to the ideology." And here we are with Cuba with its Marvin economy. And the US, in fact, the ones trying to open the Cuban economy as a way of getting a political opening. Yeah. So just to go back to the oil,

it's said 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

ITI with the Mexicans on Cuba, those who know their history well, know that Fidel and J. Matt in Mexico City, they launched their invasion of Cuba and their overthrow of Fulhencio about Tista from Mexico. So there's always been a kind of romanticism in Mexico about about Cuba. But we have message very clearly to the Mexicans that we do not want to see the next sending oil to Cuba thus far. We believe they've respected our red line. We have allowed them to send humanitarian

“assistance and to 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 are

a million Cubans leaving the island because it's in an acute state of malnourishment is not

but not any oil. The last thing I would note here, Mike, is that the threat that the president

has codified, basically, 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 railroad castro and others? Or would you call it more reform over time or put it in a category for it? 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, that kind of collapse could produce the kind of out migration 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 reforms, 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 that economic system and any kind of political opening we can get. I believe the administration is looking for a similar for an analog really in Cuba. So call it reform went from within or call it a regime management. That's something at CSIS. 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 day-to-day things that they might have to deal with. But it's

not the sort of day to the night-to-day kind of overnight express regime change that we talked about

“the last time I was on the podcast that we saw in Iraq and other places. Which I think is an implicit”

criticism, as we mentioned, of those push 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 two more 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 that's almost a 70 year recurring trend now. So the Cubans always find a way it seems to 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 and the Cuban government or have heard through third parties from officials and 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 cut off of that Venezuelan nexus given the operations last month with Maruto and that's the 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 and 40,000 barrels. So what the Venezuelans were giving

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, the 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 $67 billion in revenue is a year. The administration has

been pressuring countries to close up those programs. We've seen Juan Mala, 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 on a line 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 right word shift across the hemisphere, sort of right wing parties or 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 be overseeing. I mean, it's they're focusing on Latin America at a great time, like because they are benefiting from the pendulum sweet swing in Latin American elections back to the right and therefore more governments than 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 invite to the list, Mike is is mostly the Santa right presence, right? Presidents in Central America, in Costa Rica, in Panama, in Honduras, in Al 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. I think it's 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 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 inviteees. And then the other big country that has

“elections in 2026 is Brazil, do 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 US.

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 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. Brian, 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

“NatSec Matters very soon. Thanks very much, Mike.”

That was Ryan Berg. I'm Michael Allen, please join us next week for another episode of NatSec Matters.

NatSec Matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with a Citizens from Ashley Berry.

“NatSec Matters is a production of Beacon Global Strategies.”

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