Trump's New Strategy for Latin America: Venezuela, Cuba, & the 'Donroe Doctrine' | Brian Winter

January 8, 2026·1 hr 29 min·5 clips

Venezuela's remaining rulers aren't afraid of losing power — they're afraid of a U.S. supermax prison, and that fear drives everything.

The premise is grave. Kofinas places the conversation inside The 100-Year Pivot, his series on economic, political, and geopolitical reordering. Brian Winter is brought in as the regional interpreter, with America's Quarterly and years living and working in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico behind him. Venezuela is the pressure point. The speakers treat Maduro's exit less like a clean ending than a dangerous opening, with no obvious answer yet on who really governs next. Oil sits over everything. Venezuela's reserves are described as the world's largest, but Winter warns that companies may wait until Chavistas are gone and a legitimate democratic government is in place. Legitimacy may be the tougher asset to rebuild. A six-month or one-year transition gets floated, though the mood stays cautious because the crisis still feels early. The Iraq analogy gives the discussion its sharper edge. Kofinas contrasts earlier national security leadership with Marco Rubio's combined role and his background as the son of Cuban immigrants. In this telling, personnel is policy. Winter argues that Trump's second-term appointees have an unusually strong focus on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. Then the map widens: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Canada, tariffs, and a $20 billion rescue package all come into view. Rubio is not a side note. His Cuban family background, Spanish-language context, and long interest in the region are treated as real inputs into U.S. policy. The commercial outro returns to Hidden Forces house business: membership, research access, Q&A calls, dinners, production credits, and contact channels.

As heard by us

A sharp geopolitical risk conversation on Venezuela, Rubio, and Latin America's return to the center of U.S. strategy.

Hidden Forces frames Maduro's reported removal from power as the start of a wider U.S. strategy shift in the Western Hemisphere. Demetri Kofinas, Grant Williams, and Brian Winter use Venezuela as the anchor, then pull the discussion toward oil, political legitimacy, regional…

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Venezuela just had a cinematic regime change. Three smart people explain what actually happened.

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