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What's happening with the US and Venezuela

January 09, 2026 • Kiran Menon, Debkanya Dhar

0:00 | 19:01

In episode 71 of Takaro Kids, we kick off 2026 discussing a major global event: President Trump's military strike in Venezuela on January 3rd. Hosts Debbie and Kiran explore the historical context of Venezuela's political instability, including past leaders Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro. They discuss the implications of the U.S. intervention, the country's rich natural resources, and the legality of such actions under international law. The episode wraps up with a quiz on Trump's future ambitions and a correction on a previous quiz about Vladimir Putin's tenure.

00:00 Welcome to 2026!
00:35 A Break and a Fresh Start
01:08 Trump's Bold Move in Venezuela
03:16 Venezuela's Rich Resources
04:01 Historical Context of Venezuela
05:56 Maduro's Controversial Leadership
08:42 International Reactions and Implications
15:35 Quiz Time!

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Kiran Menon 0:05

It is episode 71 and it is a brand new year. Welcome to 2026, and welcome to Takaro Kids, a weekly podcast that helps kids of all ages, all ages understand the events that shaped the world around them. I hope you guys had a great, great holiday. Debbie, did you have a good holiday and a good break?

Debkanya 0:29

Had a wonderful holiday. It was exactly what I needed. all set to start 2026. You know, we did take a short break,

Kiran Menon 0:38

We did. We missed two or three weeks I think. Yeah.

Debkanya 0:41

Yes, yes we did. And I'm sorry about that. I know some of you reached out to us and said, Hey, what's going on? Where's the episode? Well,

Kiran Menon 0:49

It was Debbie's idea. I wanted to do the episodes, but Debbie just said no.

Debkanya 0:56

Yes, because I want to tell you guys it's okay to take a break. It's a good thing to take a break, right? So we are, we are done. We are all rested. We are back fresh, and ready to take on 2026. Of course, if you thought that 2026 would start slowly, that is not what

Kiran Menon 1:16

No, no, no

Debkanya 1:17

had in mind at all, did he?

Kiran Menon 1:19

at all. On January 3rd, he started by going into another country and bringing back, and this is what like blows my mind. He went into Venezuela. Launched a military strike in a foreign country.

Debkanya 1:39

Yeah. He started the year off with a big bang. Now where? Where is Venezuela? It's in South America. Take your maps out. Look at where you know all, you know, the Central American region. Basically place between North America, south America, there are a bunch of countries, and right at the tip of South America, you will see there is Venezuela. So not very far away. Quite a few countries though, separating the two. Trump has had his eyes on this particular country for a while now, by the way. So if

Kiran Menon 2:11

Yeah.

Debkanya 2:11

about it in the news, For one, if you remember we spoke about the Nobel Peace Prize winner last year, right? She, Machado is from Venezuela. Maria Corina Machado from Venezuela. She's been talking about how Venezuela needs a shakeup, machado has been saying that Maduro, who's the president, who was the president of Venezuela, should be removed because he's not, he's not the country in the right way. It was not a democratic election. So there was a lot of talk last year about that. And now suddenly you have President Trump and the United States military going into a completely different country kidnapping the president and his wife and saying that you guys are guilty of drug trafficking. What is drug trafficking? Basically you are selling drugs, which is really, really a very bad thing, uh, and we are going to punish you we're going to take over your country. But the real reason we want to take over your country is because we want all that amazing oil that you're sitting on.

Kiran Menon 3:16

Actually, Venezuela is one of the most resource rich countries in the world. It has a ton of oil, which has still not been sort of extracted. It has a lot of rare earth materials. It has a lot of natural resources, and so for a while it's always been looked at. Perspective into, you know, all of this wealth. And Nicholas Maduro, like you were saying, you know, he and his wife Flores, they were brought into the US on Jan 3rd. Um, but before Ur there was basically Hugo Chavez who was the president of Venezuela. So if we roll back a little bit right, and we go back to the history.

Debkanya 4:05

there's a lot of history here.

Kiran Menon 4:06

Yeah, there's a lot of history. Venezuela was actually a very, very stable country. Right now venezuela is one of the poorest countries, you know, has terrible, terrible infrastructure. But we'll get to that. So from the early 19 hundreds, it's been a very prosperous, very, very good, stable country. Was a very good friend of the US as well. Now what happened is, in 1999 when Hugo Chavez came into power, he basically started getting into this whole, uh, revolution mode saying, Hey, we should not depend on externals. We need to fight, the American, um, sort of relationship to a large, you bordering on communism.

Debkanya 4:53

So basically the country at that time, instead of going into communism in detail, what we could talk about is, we've spoken about all the great superpowers in the world, right? We've talked about United States being a big superpower, and we've talked about Russia and China being superpowers as well. So suddenly, Hugo Chavez said that, you know, we need to move away from the influence of the US and we need to align ourselves with the other superpowers. Countries like Russia and China. Basically people who believe

Kiran Menon 5:23

Is also fairly close to Venezuela. So if you think about it, you know. Seen Cuba as almost a pseudo territory to an extent. No one has acknowledged it, but they've always kind of seen it. There's a lot of Cubans who come into the US through Miami and Florida and all of that. Economic growth perspective. And that's, that's very tough to understand. So lemme try and explain it a little bit. Think that you could easily get rice, water, food, whatever you needed. Snacks, everything right. Now when Nicholas Maduro took over. He basically eliminated all, you know, companies, corporations, everything, and the government started taking everything. In fact, if you wanted to go into a supermarket in Venezuela, you had to have a card. You had to have a card, which proves that you can actually go to the supermarket and you are for certain status, and therefore you can go to the supermarket. Now, even those people who had that card. When they go into the supermarket, most often, those aisles, those shelves that you see with lots and lots of products, they actually didn't have much, very, very little choice. You know, one or two biscuits little rice that you can choose from. So, so it kind of became a completely closed economy. And so Nicholas has literally destroyed the economy to a large extent. Right? And, and that's what most Venezuelans are angry about and, which is why when, you know, this happened on Jan third, there are actually Venezuelans who have celebrated.

Debkanya 6:59

Yeah, a lot of people did celebrate, but a lot of people are also very, very worried,

Kiran Menon 7:03

Yeah.

Debkanya 7:03

I mean, all things said and done. It's like this, if I have a neighbor, for example, who is, um, who likes to play loud music and is generally not a very good neighbor, he doesn't, you know, keep his house clean, he, there's lots of bad smells coming, whatever, many, many reasons could, there could be. And I basically have decided that I'm going to go into my neighbor's house. I'm going to arrest my neighbor. And I'm gonna take him away from his own home because I feel like he's not running his home well, and I am going to now run his house for him.

Kiran Menon 7:37

But the real reason you went in is not because of the music or the loudness you went in because he has amazing chicken kebabs and you wanted to steal that unlimited supply of chicken kebab. That is a terrible, I mean, that was a terrible analogy. I apologies to everyone,

Debkanya 7:54

No, I

Kiran Menon 7:54

but yeah, that's.

Debkanya 7:55

analogy. Kiran, give yourself some credit because that's pretty much what happened, uh, in this case, Maduro was not doing a very good job of running his country. So Trump has said that, okay, I'm gonna get in. With that pretext or with that excuse, I'm gonna come into your home. I'm gonna take you out of there, and I'm going to say my rules now apply in your country. But I also actually really just want all that oil that you're sitting on. Like you said, Venezuela is one of the richest, uh, supplies of oil in the world.

Kiran Menon 8:25

Yeah.

Debkanya 8:26

um. Very difficult to tap into that oil. That's what a lot of people believe. That's why it's not been used up, but also because they've closed up the economy. They stopped selling, they're selling to very specific people, so the US felt cut off. Now, this is not the first time though that something like this has happened. Kiran, that's the most interesting part, right? of people are like, oh my God, how can you do this? This is wrong. it's not the first time. Yes, legally. Legally, you are not allowed to do this. International law says a country cannot use military force to go into another country unless it's for self-defense or unless it's been approved by the United Nations, right? The group of countries that make a lot of laws about how countries should be working with each other, interacting with each other, but

Kiran Menon 9:12

Debkanya 9:12

case for a while now.

Kiran Menon 9:19

Yeah, for a while now, it's just been like you somewhere there. No.

Debkanya 9:27

Yeah, it's like, the world decided that there's, there's gonna be this class monitor and uh, suddenly the class monitor is being ignored continuously, and that's what's been happening, right? They keep admonishing countries. We saw what happened with Israel and Palestine in the Gaza Strip again. ignores the un, unfortunately. Um, but it plays a very important role. That's the other thing. But in this case as well, there's, there was no UN approval sought. There was no UN mandate, there was no international agreement. US just went in and did what they felt was right for their country.

Kiran Menon 9:59

Even when you think about next steps, what Trump has very clearly said is that US is going to stay in Venezuela. The country there is the vice president who's taken over. The vice president was Nicholas Maduro's vice President. Um, now if you think about it, uh, it's interesting. What do you do when you're the vice president and your president has just been captured by a large, strong country? You can't do much, even though you may not. Yeah. Even though you may not like it, you can't do much. You're gonna have to play ball. Um.

Debkanya 10:34

It's super interesting because, so the vice president is this lady called Delcy Rodriguez. Okay. She's been named as interim leader by the Venezuelan courts. And the thing about Delcy is she's always spoken up against the US. She's

Kiran Menon 10:48

Yeah.

Debkanya 10:48

a big supporter of, um, Maduro. When Maduro was kidnapped, she actually went out and said, oh, you know, our president, we have only one president. Our president has been kidnapped. This is all wrong. She spoke out really loudly and then I think the next day or just a few days later, she said, you know what? We should work with the US on a common agenda. Let's work together. So. I wonder what happened there.

Kiran Menon 11:10

the big bully don't work.

Debkanya 11:15

Yeah, you have to work with, with the US you have to work with our interests in mind. Otherwise you are out too. So then what do you do? guess as a leader of a country, you say, okay, fine, let's not shake things up too much. Let's see what we can arrive at in a peaceful way, and let's call for elections again. I think that is the interesting thing because ultimately that's what Venezuela has been, um, has needed for a while, and multiple people have spoken about it, that they need a fair, proper election where a leader is elected by the people in a democratic fashion.

Kiran Menon 11:50

A lot of conversations have happened where, um, people are drawing parallels to the Iraq invasion as well. Again, it wasn't the most successful sort of invasion then getting out. It's still the country still in tatters. Um, you know, so many people have drawn parallels to Venezuela and Iraq exactly the same way going out. Getting Saddam Hussein, um, over there, they executed him, but, uh, over here they brought back Nicolas Maduro. What is also very interesting is, you know, does this give the license to other countries to do the same? So now suddenly, you know. Russia to back off from Ukraine, and then that peace deal. But now does Russia suddenly have a clean saying, Hey, now I can actually go in. Ukraine. Ukraine, does it give China, um, a, a, you know, a way to go in and take over different parts of other countries, other parts of the world. So yeah, Taiwan, but President Trump has basically said China would never dare do that when I'm in. Right. So, so it's

Debkanya 12:58

is.

Kiran Menon 12:58

so interesting. Yeah.

Debkanya 13:00

That's the funny thing because he is like, oh, oh, no, no, you cannot take over Taiwan because again, the US has interest in Taiwan. Again,

Kiran Menon 13:08

Yeah.

Debkanya 13:08

uh, very important for the whole, whole, uh, rare

Kiran Menon 13:12

Semiconductor and

Debkanya 13:13

semiconductor chips, all

Kiran Menon 13:16

yeah.

Debkanya 13:16

things that the US needs. So obviously they don't want China taking over Taiwan because that. Means they lose access. So Trump is clear that that's not gonna be allowed. He's not gonna, he's also been clear that he doesn't want Russia to take over Ukraine completely because, you know, then Russia's power increases in that region.

Kiran Menon 13:32

In fact. Uh, he's just basically, um, agreed to a 500% tariff for any country still using Russian oil, which will impact India if that goes through. Right? So that is a completely different conversation. So that just happened again over the last week or two. So, so much going on.

Debkanya 13:54

Yeah. Yeah. In, in fact, you know what Kiran, I was just reading this very interesting interview of Donald Trump where he talks about how, you know, they asked him like, when are you going to stop? Like, aren't you worried about all this? You know, the legality of what you're doing? And he said, you know what, my, it's only my morality that's going

Kiran Menon 14:11

Yeah.

Debkanya 14:11

doing

Kiran Menon 14:12

Yeah.

Debkanya 14:13

right? He's like, I basically, his whole. Yeah, it's, it's actually so interesting to hear him speak because this man has literally said that I'm not going to hide behind any pretense anymore. Like we were saying earlier, the US has done this before. Panama is another example that we've not

Kiran Menon 14:30

Oh yeah.

Debkanya 14:31

actually, right? Where they went in. Took the leader, they imprisoned him. In fact, he was, uh, charged with drug trafficking, same charges as Maduro. And he died, of course, in custody. Later they took over. Panama is actually one of the few countries that's doing well, um, after that intervention because it was really going down the drain before that. Um, so he's like, I'm going to go in. I'm gonna establish that I am the superpower. No one's messing around and not, and I don't care about what the world says pretty

Kiran Menon 15:01

I mean, right now, still the most powerful nation in the world. A large right. So he, yeah, just acknowledge. Go for it.

Debkanya 15:11

No hiding. No hiding behind any excuses. This is what I want and I'm gonna go get it. Very interesting Times we live in 2026 has begun with a big bang like earlier.

Kiran Menon 15:25

So, which brings us to.

Debkanya 15:35

Well, today's quiz question again, if you've been, uh, an avid listener of Karro kids, this should be very, very easy for you. The question is, other country did Trump say he wants to take over? Okay.

Kiran Menon 15:52

Easy.

Debkanya 15:54

Easy. One, is it Sri Lanka? Option two, New Zealand. Option three, Greenland. Option four, Madagascar.

Kiran Menon 16:09

Excellent. Okay, let's see who knows that. And remember, you don't need to be the first person who send the answer. You don't need to be the last person who send us the answer. You don't need to be the first time that you're sending us the answer. Keep sending in the answers. And one lucky person is gonna win and it's gonna give a T-shirt, aro kids t-shirt, and a voucher in. Last week, Ooh, this was not last week. Last year. Last year,

Debkanya 16:41

last

Kiran Menon 16:42

had asked you a question, which was, how long has Vladimir Putin been the president of Russia? And, and there are some clarifications with this question though, right? Debbie? In fact, one of our listeners. Sent us back an answer saying, Hey, by the way, I think you may have got this wrong. Um, you may wanna clarify and be a little bit more specific. The what were of

Debkanya 17:08

I want to say that, oh, we put that in so that we are checking who's paying attention. But no, that would be

Kiran Menon 17:14

smart. Oh, why didn't.

Debkanya 17:16

I would be wrong. No, no, no, no. She's absolutely right. The options we gave you were 10 years, five years, 24 years, and 14 years. This is the, years, but he's been Prime Minister for four years in the middle. So it's

Kiran Menon 17:52

So in total, about 25.

Debkanya 17:54

Yes. 25. Correct. Exactly. So, yep. I messed that up a little bit. Apologies. I hope the correction is clear. Let us know. Uh, and keep listening by the way, and keep correcting us and keep letting us know what you think because this keeps us on our toes and keeps us sharp. Yeah.

Kiran Menon 18:16

Week until, make sure that you reach out and send us the answer either on our website, www.takarokids.com or on Instagram. Ask an adult to send us the answer as a message. Which other country did Trump say he wants to take over? Is it Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Greenland, or Madagascar? So.