Discussion on Venezuela's Political and Economic Crisis

President Trump had last night with acting President Delcy

Rodriguez. Can you tell us about what was discussed, what you-

Yeah

... what you shared, what she shared?

Well, um, it was a short meeting, but it was an important meeting,

and obviously

there are three things that were discussed that are important.

Number one is, look, at the end of the- the-- I'll go back to what

we said from the very beginning. Venezuela is dealing with almost

twenty-something years of destruction, okay, uh, in economic and otherwise.

Um, and then you add to that probably the worst earthquake in the

region,

maybe ever, according to seismologists.

I am not a seismologist, so I rely on their expertise on it,

but certainly a very

devastating one. And by the way, an earthquake that could have been far

worse had

it hit inland versus on the coast, but it was very bad.

Uh, the full death toll is still not known, and as you saw,

they struggled to

respond to it because they had not invested in the mechanisms to do so as a

government. So Venezuela has a lot of problems.

They have probably the world's largest sovereign debt that has to be

restructured. They have an economy that is still suffering from,

um, the remnants of kleptocracy and, and, and graft and,

and, and, you know, the fact that that regime was held together,

the glue that held

the regime together was corruption, and the fact that individuals

tied to government got sweetheart deals that they have to disentangle from.

Um, th-there is eight million Venezuelans

living abroad, many of whom would

desire to come back to Venezuela, live there, invest there,

rebuild their businesses there, but they need to have confidence

that that's going

to happen. So there's a lot that needs to be fixed in order for

Venezuela to be

successful. So we discussed the steps that remain to make that happen, and debt

restructuring is key to that. Obviously, um, you know, we wanna be helpful in that

regard. It has to be done in the right way.

The second, and equally important, is there has to be a political transition

process, which is underway. Uh, leadership from the twenty fifteen

National Assembly have been engaged now in regular talks with the interim

authorities to create the groundwork and rebuild the institutions

necessary in order to have free and fair elections in Venezuela, which

is critical.

What we don't want to see, right, what we wanna see is not only

that you have free

and fair elections, but that you have an enduring republic.

What would threaten an enduring republic in Venezuela would be that someone is

elected and they inherit a complete catastrophe, economic and

social. And then the whole project is endangered because now

anything can happen. So we want to do two things at the same

time.

We want to help them rebuild their economy, may-- you know, not perfect, but

certainly to a level of stability that allows an elected government to

succeed. And second is build back all the things necessary

in order to truly have free and fair elections.

What are the things that are required for that to happen?

You need media.

You need media coverage. They-- You need-- Candidates need to be able to

communicate with the public, and there have been positive steps in

that regard.

In just the last two weeks, underreported fact, but a number of

independent Venezuelan outlets that had not been allowed to broadcast in

Venezuela

for almost seven years are now broadcasting in Venezuela.

If you watch some of these opposition figures, they do press conferences,

and there

are literally fifty microphones on the table.

If you had gone there two years ago, there would have been three microphones at

the

table. You need to rebuild political parties.

Many of the leaders of these parties are still abroad.

It's not just Maria Corina, who's a very brave woman, but there

are other people

that are abroad. These parties need the opportunity to

rebuild, to organize, to

become not protest movements, but political movements.

You need to have an electoral process that people have confidence in.

In essence, are the votes gonna be accurately counted

and accurately

reported? So you need to have authorities

that govern elections so people have

confidence that those elections are real.

So we made that point, that in the end, for this project to be successful, it

culminates in a free and fair election in

which the leaders of that country have

the credibility, uh, that the private sector will have

confidence in.

But obviously, we also need to, at the same time,

work on the economic conditions

that need to be improved, because if you have societal breakdown,

if you have,

uh, you know, economic crisis in Venezuela,

it not only endangers elections, it

endangers

the survival of a democracy there, which is ultimately what we want to see in

Venezuela: a stable democracy with a functional

economy that

allows its people to have prosperity and allows many of the millions of

Venezuelans

who have had to leave the opportunity to go back and live in their country again,

invest in their country again, participate in their country again.