⚓ BlackRock buys and Trump’s two teams

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The two factions vying for Trump’s ear on Venezuela

When US special envoy Richard Grenell was pictured smiling and shaking hands with Venezuela’s top officials earlier this year, agreeing to release US hostages and send Venezuelan gang members back to their home country, many analysts thought President Donald Trump had struck a deal with one of the continent’s most authoritarian governments.

State of play. Those negotiations raised fears among the president’s Latino supporters in the US, compounded by other controversial Trump decisions, including the cancellation of Venezuelan migrants’ temporary protected status, which could lead to their deportation.

• But developments last week, with Trump forcing oil giant Chevron to withdraw from Venezuela over the next 30 days and his son Donald Trump Jr. interviewing cloistered opposition leader María Corina Machado and showering her with praise, showed that the Republican administration is far from allying with Maduro.

America First. The apparent contradiction is explained by the existence of two camps within the Trump administration. Grenell, once tipped to lead the US State Department, represents the “America First” faction, which is focused on reducing immigration at all costs and dealing with foreign governments on a strictly transactional basis, abandoning any liberal or neo-conservative interventionist agendas.

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