Episode summary
Trump’s Ousting of Maduro Shows His New World Order Is Here
Bloomberg Surveillance
· · 7 min · Guests: Gautam Mukunda, Sun Chenghao
Summary
The guest argues that Trump’s seizure of Nicolás Maduro marks a return to 19th-century-style great-power politics, where military strength and resource grabs matter more than democracy or ideology. He says the administration is treating Venezuela less like a sovereignty issue and more like a “raiding” or looting expedition, openly tying its actions to oil and natural resources while dismissing the popular opposition in Venezuela.
He also says the United States can now inflict pain abroad far more easily than in the 19th century, but cannot easily occupy and control a country because modern weapons and insurgency tactics make conquest costly. In his view, Iraq and Afghanistan proved that “you break it, you own it,” and he doubts the Trump administration understands that constraint.
The guest further argues that the Venezuela operation looks ad hoc and not fully thought through, pointing to reports that Stephen Miller could be given a central role. He ends by warning that the biggest geopolitical risk is escalation into Greenland or even Canada, which he says would shatter the world order and reflects an administration behaving as if re-election incentives no longer matter.
Key takeaways
- The guest says Trump’s Venezuela move signals a return to 19th-century power politics driven by oil, territory and military advantage.
- He argues the administration is ignoring Venezuela’s opposition and treating the country as a resource prize rather than a democracy to restore.
- He says the U.S. can still coerce countries militarily, but modern insurgency tools make long-term occupation far costlier than in the past.
- He calls reports that Stephen Miller may run Venezuela policy evidence that the strategy is ad hoc and poorly planned.
- He warns that any move on Greenland, or especially Canada, would cause the world order to “fall apart.”
Notable quotes
“I think we have returned to the 19th century”
“There's a there is a there is an opposition party that got 75% of the vote and is clearly the popular choice”
“We have the ability to we have the ability to inflict pain on people. We don't really have the ability to conquer them”
“if you took all 330 million Americans line them up from first to last, he would be the worst person to it, right”
“There is not a single initiative that the Trump administration has launched in its time in power, not one that polls well”
How the episode opens
Well for the midterms. I think the boost is pretty good there. I think Democrats are feeling very confident and they should just for normal secular factors.
It doesn't take a lot of skill to win to win midterms when the incumbent president is running around 37% in the polls. But that's fine. I suspect that in Waltz's case, it's a combination of them not feeling great about the overhang from the scandal, about the daycare fraud in Minnesota.
And also, I think, you know, Tim Waltz is an ambitious guy. I suspect he's thinking about 2028 and he may be calculating that he's got a better shot at the nomination when he's not burdened by running a state than when he if he is. Interesting.
So, Gotham, one of the most read pieces on the Bloomberg terminal today is entitled Trump's Ousting Maduro shows his new world Order is here. What do you think the New World order, according to President Trump, is? So I think we have returned to the 19th century.
And the more I think about this what's happening, the more I think the bad is the parallel. We need to think this is an administration that thinks about the world the way American administrations did in the 19th century, but without the overlay of like, you know, ideology and democratic ideology that is maybe like back there. But if you think about what we are seeing in Venezuela, you could almost think about this like a rating, like a looting expedition.
Right? There's not a pretension that we're going to restore democracy. There's a there is a there is an opposition party that got 75% of the vote and is clearly the popular choice.
The people of of the people of Venezuela and the Trump administration just dismissed that.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- trump foreign policy
- venezuela maduro capture
- global backlash
- china global order
- greenland denmark
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Bloomberg
Watch the episode
Watch “Trump’s Ousting of Maduro Shows His New World Order Is Here” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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