Gov. Ron DeSantis says things can go wrong for the United States in two Latin American countries that have long been regional irritants.
During remarks to The Federalist Society in Washington D.C., the second-term Republican urged caution in dealing with Cuba and suggested that newly-cooperative Venezuela may be playing a waiting game before reverting to how it was before the Donald Trump administration removed Nicolas Maduro.
“I’m hoping that we have a new government there, but I would also say, um, you know, these things are dicey about us imposing this. It, um, it just typically hasn’t worked well for us,” DeSantis said about Cuba.
He added that “the only way it’s successful is if you just have root and branch change, but that’s very difficult to do,” before suggesting that change may prove hard, since “it’s not clear that the people there, you know, necessarily have it in them.”
DeSantis lauded the “yanking” of Maduro also, though he also raised doubts about how enduring change can actually be given that the structure he created remains in place.
“It’s take off the head of the snake and then let the snake grow a new head with the understanding that, well, you know, the new person in Venezuela, do you want that to be used? So they have an incentive to maybe play ball,” he said, suggesting the threat of being removed would spur temporary compliance.
He expects them to revert to their old ways, though, saying “they’re just going to try to wait President Trump out.”
“And then I think they’ll go back to, and I think they’re going to slowly try to do that anyways,” he predicted.
DeSantis isn’t completely bearish on Cuba, saying he’d like stateside exiles to go help “if it got to the point where you could have change.” He also urged strong action against Venezuela before Maduro was removed.
But what’s clear is that he sees limitations to what is possible given entrenched dynamics in both countries.
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