Trump’s Resource Imperialism and Imperial Racketeering
We begin with the President of the United States not just saying he is in charge of Venezuela but setting up private accounts he controls in Qatar to control the revenues from oil that he allows to get to market since Trump has a naval blockade of Venezuela in what can be described as resource imperialism or imperial racketeering. Joining us is Aaron Regunberg, a contributing editor at The New Republic, a climate lawyer, and a progressive organizer. He is the director of the Climate Accountability Project at Public Citizen and previously served as member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. We discuss his latest article at The New Republic, “The Donroe Doctrine Is a Scam.”
The “Putinization” of American Foreign Policy
Then we examine what the historian Heather Cox Richardson describes as Trump’s “Putinization” of American foreign policy and speak with Dr. Louise Shelley, the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair Emerita and a University Professor Emerita at George Mason University. She is the founder of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at the Schar School of Policy and Government. A leading expert on the relationship among terrorism, organized crime and corruption as well as human trafficking, transnational crime and terrorism with a particular focus on the former Soviet Union, she also specializes in illicit financial flows and money laundering and is the author of Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism and Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy is Threatening our Future.
Israel and Gulf Allies Urged Trump to Pause Bombing Iran as US Naval Assets Head For the Region
Then finally we speak with Andrew Miller, a senior fellow focused on the Middle East in the National Security and International Policy department at the Center for American Progress. He most recently served as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 2022 to 2024. He previously served as a senior policy adviser to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, covering the Middle East and North Africa, and also served as the director for Egypt and Israel military issues on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, as well as at the U.S. Department of State in a variety of intelligence and policy roles. He has an article at Foreign Affairs we discuss, “Iran and the Limits of American Power: What a U.S. Military Strike Would and Would Not Achieve.”
Background Briefing offers an educational approach to providing information in an era of “fake news.”