podcast

Venezuela Falls, Cuba Trembles with Marla Dukharan

08.01.2026
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Washington moved on Venezuela, and the shockwaves are racing across the Americas. Oil, refugees, collapsed regimes, back-room deals: this may spell the beginning of the end for Cuba’s 65-year experiment, and the most dramatic geopolitical reset in the region since 1989. We head to the Caribbean to ask who wins, who loses, and who has been quietly complicit all along. Economist Marla Dukaran joins us from Trinidad with jaw-dropping numbers: Caribbean states racked up debts to Venezuela worth 20–50% of their GDP, many of them “off the books,” even as 8 million Venezuelans fled their country. While leaders preached morality, they were bathing in subsidised oil. If Venezuelan oil disappears, and U.S. power reasserts itself, Cuba loses its lifeline. Could that trigger regime collapse? Could stability finally return to Venezuela? Or are we entering a new era where great powers carve up weak states and call it humanitarian? Think Monroe Doctrine 2.0, only faster, harder, and happening right now.

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