RUBIO’S BRUTAL WARNING: Iran will ‘lose tankers’ if they attack US warships - #NewVM #NewNewsupdates

The American public attention focused on the latest status of affairs in Iran. Can you speak about the U.S. strikes on the Iranian tankers and explain what the back and forth has been in the last 24 hours? Yeah, the back and forth is pretty straightforward, and that is that Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they're going to lose tankers. And I think you'll see that again today. Can you talk a little bit more, I know you already addressed this in Spanish, but for the English speakers here, about the security cooperation with Colombia. I mean, are the boat strikes going to continue? They don't seem... Well, those are tactical decisions. Here's what I could say to you, and that is that the United States already has a long, standing and very deep security relationship with Colombia. Unfortunately, it was impeded over the last three or four years by political leadership here, but that has now changed. So our hope is not just to get back to what we used to do together, which was a lot, but perhaps to build upon it. And I think you have a president here now that's very interested in making that happen. And so I know that there are ongoing talks directly engaged between the security forces here and the Department of War on exactly the kinds of things they want to cooperate on, the kinds of equipment they would like to purchase. In the end, the majority of this fight, the Colombian authorities are willing to take on themselves. They just need our help with equipment, they need our help with intelligence, they need our help sometimes with some specialized training. And by I say help, I mean oftentimes they want to purchase these things. So that's a very active and vibrant conversation that's going on right now, and I think we have a great foundation to build on because we have almost two decades of very close, the closest security cooperation in the entire hemisphere was between the U.S. and Colombia for almost two decades. So that's an incredible foundation to build on. So I don't think it will take long to get back to the levels we were at before, and in fact, potentially exceed it, again, based on what the Colombian authorities asked for. I don't think that that's what they've ever asked us for. The Colombians have never asked for American soldiers to come into Colombia and take on drug cartels. They've asked for our help and training. They've asked for our help with intelligence and targeting and things of this nature in the past. They've asked for the help with specialized equipment. So I've never heard anyone suggest that to us. What's your read on the latest with Russia and Ukraine after the weekend talks with the President? I think it was a good, you know, sort of a, they were substantive talks. I don't want to characterize them as good or bad or productive or unproductive other than they were substantive. New ideas were bantied about. It's a very difficult conflict, one that we've seen, you know, for now an extended period of time. You haven't seen much movement on either side in terms of their willingness to make accommodations, and both sides have very bright red lines up to this point. But these were substantive talks over the weekend, both in Kiev and in Moscow, and hopefully from that we can create a path forward to restart talks that the United States has always been willing to play the role of a mediator. So I don't want to be overly optimistic, but I also am not pessimistic in the sense that I think there's an opportunity over the next few weeks to develop a roadmap moving forward to restart talks and maybe reach a conclusion there that that's acceptable to both sides, because that's what it's going to take in order for it to end. Both sides will have to agree to it. So the way I would characterize this weekend was it was productive in the sense that it restarted engagement after months of not really being engaged in this, and from our end anyways, because we just didn't see it progressing, and there were substantive ideas put on the table that for the first time at least there seemed to be some general openness to. But a lot of work remains. I don't want to... The UN has warned about potential for a humanitarian crisis in Cuba because of the lack of oil and electricity. Is it a concern in terms of the impact on the Cuban people? Yeah, of course. But the problem is the reason why Cuba has a lack of oil is because Venezuela doesn't give them free oil anymore. Understand, they were getting free oil from Venezuela. They were stealing oil from Venezuela and they were getting it for free. Some of it they would use about 30% of it for their own needs, and then they would resell the rest of it for cash. And that stopped. So that's number one. That's the number one reason why Cuba's having an energy crisis, is because Venezuela no longer gives away their oil for free, which is what was happening. The second reason is they were having blackouts before that, even with the Venezuelan oil. Cuba had multiple blackouts over the last three or four years because they didn't invest a penny into their own energy infrastructure. Their economic model doesn't work. If Cuba's a humanitarian catastrophe, and we've offered them $100 million of humanitarian aid, others have as well, no one's impeding that from coming in. If Cuba is a humanitarian disaster, it is because their government, their regime, is a disaster. Because the economic model they follow doesn't work. In fact, it's nonsensical. Because they don't allow private sector to flourish, because they don't allow individual Cubans to choose their own path in life. So I think it's important to remind everybody, this did not start last week. Cuba has been a humanitarian catastrophe now for three or four years, and maybe even longer, because they didn't invest in their own infrastructure, they stole all the money to build hotels and line their own pockets, and because they're no longer stealing oil from Venezuela for free. Well, I told them there was a possibility, among other possibilities, to help the Venezuelan oil industry understand that the Venezuelan oil industry was non-functional, it was largely controlled by PDVSA, most of its fields were unproductive, the little they produced was being stolen and sold below market rate, none of it was benefiting the Venezuelan people, and a lot of the fields that were sitting there inactive and unused, their lease rights were being held by Chinese, Russian, and even Iranian companies. So as part of reconstructing Venezuela, you have to professionalize that industry. In this particular case, you had the largest private operator that offered the United States an equity position in the company and access to 20% of the production at cost, and it was an opportunity to help these fields come online much faster and produce royalties and revenues that will ultimately go into the hands of Venezuelan authorities, but a democratically elected Venezuela in the future. I don't think there's any mystery that a core component of reconstruction and rebuilding Venezuela will involve revenues from their energy, but you have to have that through a normal systemized way, not through the system they had before in which the fields were unproductive and the profits, to the extent there were profits, were being stolen by individuals linked to the government instead of being provided, paying royalties to the government and benefiting the people of the country. Did you meet with or speak with Alejandro Betancourt? I've spoken to him before, but ultimately that deal was negotiated through the Department of War because they have the ability to hold equity positions in companies. It's a phenomenal deal. It's an extraordinary deal that's going to benefit the United States, no doubt about it. I work for the United States of America. That's who I work for. My job is to further the national interest of the United States, and this deal furthers the national interest of the United States in terms of energy security, but it's also beneficial to the people of Venezuela because those fields are going to produce more than they could have without our involvement. They're going to generate royalties and revenues that are going to go into government coffers, not into the pockets of individuals, and ultimately you will have a democratically elected government in Venezuela that will benefit from those royalties to rebuild that country so that its people can once again benefit from the richness of the country, not corrupt individuals or narco-trafficking. Thank you.