{"id":15214,"date":"2026-01-12T10:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T10:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=15214"},"modified":"2026-01-12T13:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T13:39:59","slug":"cnbc-tom-friedman-on-venezuela-next-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=15214","title":{"rendered":"CNBC: Tom Friedman on Venezuela, Trump &#038; next steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Friedman is skeptical that Venezuelan oil can be restarted without a change of regime, which he thinks will require boots on the ground. But see the NYT article below the video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NYT&#039;s Tom Friedman: Our oil companies need a legal structure in order to operate in Venezuela\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UXuLDHiJT2g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Venezuela is not Libya and the new leader &#8211; Delcy  Rodriguez &#8211; is super-ambitious and if it&#8217;s in her self interest to suddenly become a capitalist, she will certainly do it. And is already showing signs of willingness to break bread with Trump. Of course ultimately there will have to be democratic elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/10\/world\/americas\/venezuela-oil-tanker-us.html?campaign_id=2&amp;emc=edit_th_20260111&amp;instance_id=169119&amp;nl=today%27s-headlines&amp;regi_id=87616590&amp;segment_id=213485&amp;user_id=1c634a87d1656cc79c8753416632bbac\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/10\/world\/americas\/venezuela-oil-tanker-us.html?campaign_id=2&amp;emc=edit_th_20260111&amp;instance_id=169119&amp;nl=today%27s-headlines&amp;regi_id=87616590&amp;segment_id=213485&amp;user_id=1c634a87d1656cc79c8753416632bbac\">NYT: &#8220;Venezuela\u2019s New Leader Enlists U.S. Troops to Bring a Rogue Ship Back&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tanker \u201claunched without payment, nor the authorization of Venezuelan authorities,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/luchaalmada15\/17624\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PDVSA said in a statement<\/a> on Friday, adding that the U.S. government aided its return. Mr. Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/115866908684935165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">echoed the claim<\/a> the same day, saying that the tanker \u201cdeparted Venezuela without our approval\u201d and was returning to Venezuela \u201cin coordination\u201d with Ms. Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*********************<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Trump said in a recent interview with The New York Times that Ms. Rodr\u00edguez spoke \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/08\/us\/politics\/trump-interview-venezuela.html\">all the time<\/a>\u201d with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a claim confirmed by people close to the Venezuelan leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friedman is skeptical that Venezuelan oil can be restarted without a change of regime, which he thinks will require boots on the ground. But see the NYT article below the video. Venezuela is not Libya and the new leader &#8211; Delcy Rodriguez &#8211; is super-ambitious and if it&#8217;s in her self interest to suddenly become [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,17,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-politics","category-investing-and-business","category-people","category-wordle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15220,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15214\/revisions\/15220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}