Edward Lotterman

President Trump’s attention has passed on from seizing control of Venezuela to seizing control of Greenland and seizing control of Minnesota.

But he took on a big task when he said he was also “president of Venezuela” and saying that our nation was going to run it. The task will be far more complicated than he can imagine. So I suggest he start now.

The longer he delays, the harder gaining control will be. In the meantime, citizens can ponder just why our leader opened such a huge can of worms. Consider the following.

A sordid history

Trump’s decision to “run” another nation in the hemisphere has precedent in history. The U.S. military governed the Dominican Republic for eight years from 1916 into 1924 and again for 17 months in 1965-1966. We ruled adjoining Haiti longer, 15 years from 1919 into 1934. We governed Nicaragua for 21 years, 1912 through 1933. In all we installed dictators who were increasingly inept, corrupt and brutal over long terms and produced stagnant economies. Outside of our announced goals of keeping either the German or British navies from capturing the Panama Canal, we gained nothing. In all cases, we ended up asking, “How do we get the heck out of here?” That will happen again.

Less oil that people think

Venezuela claims some 300 billion barrels of oil reserves. If true, they own about a sixth of all the known reserves on the planet. But while there are generally used terms about “reserves,” there is no standard methodology for estimating them. British Petroleum makes annual tabulations for all countries based on available information. Many other nations issue their own. Accuracy varies with actual data from seismic surveys and test drilling. Most indexes include caveats such as “with current technology” and “at current prices.” Both of these change over time. Lower prices mean lower recoverable reserves.

However, the most important caveat about Venezuela’s 300 billion figure is that it was simply issued when Hugo Chávez still was president. That was an increase from 80 billion beforehand and was due to adding acidic tar-like deposits in the Orinoco Basin.

Venezuelan oil is not that valuable

Even with a still sizable 80 billion barrels, Venezuela’s oil is not as valuable as some think. The problem is that virtually all is graded “heavy” and “sour.” Heavy means it is very thick, some requiring heating to be pumpable. Sour means it contains sulfur compounds that make it acidic, sometimes to the point that all piping and refinery equipment has to be made of stainless steel. That means only a small number of refineries can process it without major upgrades in their facilities.

Yes, decades ago, U.S. refineries did handle larger quantities of Venezuelan crude, but many no longer have that capability. Chevron, the one U.S. company that past administrations allowed to continue operating there, could expand refining as it expands production. But overall, Venezuelan crude is not highly desirable and sells at lower prices than crudes that are “light” and “sweet,” often a fourth less than that from west Texas, North Dakota, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria.

U.S. gas prices will change little

Even though we import some 6 million barrels of crude and refined petroleum a day, and run 17 million barrels through our refineries, we are a net exporter of some 2 million barrels. In other words, we are not a closed market. Our prices vary with world prices. Industry sources say that if we import more from Venezuela we will simply cut imports of heavier grades we buy from Saudi Arabia. Just as federal farm subsidies to growers of internationally-traded corn and soybeans don’t cut the price of vegetable oils on U.S. store shelves, more Venezuelan crude will change little at gas pumps.

Money from Venezuelan oil already has many claimants

The president talks of what can be done with money from the sale of Venezuelan oil as if it is pot of money that can be grabbed without harm to others. He is already setting up accounts in an opaque Qatari bank to be controlled by him. This leads some to wonder if the whole operation is just to shift a flow of money from a small-time grifter to a much larger grifter.

Supposedly it is a way for money to be funneled back to the corrupt and inept still-Chávista government of Venezuela now headed by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez without being attached legally by creditors such as U.S-based Exxon-Mobil. That firm is due at least $1.6 billion for assets expropriated by Chávez in 2007. Laundering the money through Qatar is billed as a way for the money to benefit the Venezuelan people by keeping the government operating and supplying at least minimal health and educational and other services to them. Time will tell.

In any case, some 250,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil a day, about a third of current total output, belong to Chevron. The company and people connected to it have given large amounts to Trump’s campaign and inauguration funds. Chevron is the one company capable of increasing output with current assets, saying it could double its current 300,000 barrels a day. That would increase current total output by a third. But Chevron will not release increased revenues to anyone other than royalties to Venezuela that already apply.

Ramping up oil production take longer than some think

Most of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is worn out junk after decades of inept administration by Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. or PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, and by decades of sanctions. Existing wells themselves need to be “worked over” to restore output. New wells take time to be sited, drilled, developed and connected to gathering pipelines. Pipelines, storage and loading facilities need to be built along with equipment to process oil for shipping by removing water, sediment and other contaminants. Chevron’s facilities are the only exception. Such infrastructure is complex and cannot simply be purchased from some “oil equipment R Us,” shipped to Venezuela and hooked up like a new clothes washer.

The crucial question is whether new facilities will be operational before the end of Trump’s term in three years. The answer is not much of it. Companies know this.

Others in the hemisphere will suffer

While governments and people of many other nations in the region are glad to see the Chávista-Maduro regime gone, Trump’s aggressive move to assert U.S. hegemony in the hemisphere is not popular. This is realpolitik in action. We have directly intervened militarily, backed military coup d’etats or supported brutal dictators who favored U.S. fruit, oil, sugar and other interests, and politically repressed leftists who might have favored deeper relations with the USSR. I know, I was a pimple-faced clerk in the large U.S. military mission to Brazil 58 years ago. Then its military government was torturing political prisoners with the guidance of U.S. “public safety” advisers working for USAID. Brazil’s past president Dilma Rousseff was one of them, and the brother of current president Luis Ignacio da Silva suffered particularly horrific acts. Similar cases could be found in a dozen other nations.

But it is not just that. There is a 250-year history of Latin Americans asserting their equality as nations and the United States asserting that they are subordinates. No one likes being bullied even if the bully does not beat them up anymore. Other than for some right-wingers like Jair Bolsonaro’s followers in Brazil, Trump is highly unpopular in the region as are his policies.

China will be the net gainer

The upshot is that America First — whether home or abroad — boosts the standing of China, the obvious economic alternative to the USA, just as it undercuts our own. People and governments are wary of China, but it does not threaten them the way the current administration does, and it is far more willing to spend money on infrastructure projects and industrial investments. People and governments see China as a poor second best but resent being forced to kowtow to our president.

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The issue of exactly how Trump plans to “govern” Venezuela and how he expects that dominance to be extended after his term ends is yet another, even larger, can of worms.

St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

By Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez, Oona Zenda, KFF Health News

Just hours after Rhonda Swaney left a prenatal appointment for her first pregnancy, she felt severe pain in her stomach and started vomiting.

Then 25 years old and six months pregnant, she drove herself to the emergency room in Ronan, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, where an ambulance transferred her to a larger hospital 60 miles away in Missoula. Once she arrived, the staff couldn’t detect her baby’s heartbeat. Swaney began to bleed heavily. She delivered a stillborn baby and was hospitalized for several days. At one point, doctors told her to call her family. They didn’t expect her to survive.

“It certainly changed my life — the experience — but my life has not been a bad life,” she told KFF Health News.

Though her experiences were nearly 50 years ago, Swaney, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said Native Americans continue to receive inadequate maternal care. The data appears to support that belief.

(Oona Zenda/KFF Health News/TNS) (Oona Zenda/KFF Health News/TNS)

In 2024, the most recent year for which data for the population is available, Native American and Alaska Native people had the highest pregnancy-related mortality ratio among major demographic groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In response to this disparity, Native organizations, the CDC, and some states are working to boost tribal participation in state maternal mortality review committees to better track and address pregnancy-related deaths in their communities. Native organizations are also considering ways tribes could create their own committees.

State maternal mortality review committees investigate deaths that occur during pregnancy or within a year after pregnancy, analyze data, and issue policy recommendations to lower death rates.

According to 2021 CDC data, compiled from 46 maternal mortality review committees, 87% of maternal deaths in the U.S. were deemed preventable. Committees reported that most, if not all, deaths among Native American and Alaska Native people were considered preventable.

Our matriarchs, our moms, are what carries a nation forward.

State committees have received federal money through the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, which President Donald Trump signed in 2018.

But the money is scheduled to dry up on Jan. 31, when the short-term spending bill that ended the government shutdown expires.

Funding for the committees is included in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026. That bill must be approved by the House, Senate, and president to take effect.

Native American leaders said including members of their communities in maternal mortality review committee activities is an important step in addressing mortality disparities.

In 2023, tribal leaders and federal officials met to discuss four models: a mortality review committee for each tribe, a committee for each of the 12 Indian Health Service administrative regions, a national committee to review all Native American maternal deaths, and the addition of Native American subcommittees to state committees.

Whatever the model, tribal sovereignty, experience, and traditional knowledge are important factors, said Kim Moore-Salas, a co-chair of the Arizona Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She’s also the chairperson of the panel’s American Indian/Alaska Native mortality review subcommittee and a member of the Navajo Nation.

“Our matriarchs, our moms, are what carries a nation forward,” she said.

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Mental health conditions and infection were the leading underlying causes of pregnancy-related death among Native American and Alaska Native women as of 2021, according to the CDC report analyzing data from 46 states.

The CDC found an estimated 68% of pregnancy-related deaths among Native American and Alaska Native people happened within a week of delivery to a year postpartum. The majority of those happened between 43 days and a year after birth.

The federal government has a responsibility under signed treaties to provide health care to the 575 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. through the Indian Health Service. Tribal members can receive limited services at no cost, but the agency is underfunded and understaffed.

A study published in 2024 that analyzed data from 2016 to 2020 found that approximately 75% of Native American and Alaska Native pregnant people didn’t have access to care through the Indian Health Service around the time of giving birth, meaning many likely sought care elsewhere. More than 90% of Native American and Alaska Native births occur outside of IHS facilities, according to the agency. For those who did deliver at IHS facilities, a 2020 report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General found that 56% of labor and delivery patients received care that did not follow national clinical guidelines.

The 2024 study’s authors also found that members of the population were less likely to have stable insurance coverage and more likely to have a lapse in coverage during the period close to birth than non-Hispanic white people.

Cindy Gamble, who is Tlingit and a tribal community health consultant for the American Indian Health Commission in Washington, has been a member of the state’s maternal mortality review panel for about eight years. In the time she’s been on the state panel, she said, its composition has broadened to include more people of color and community members.

The panel also began to include suicide, overdose, and homicide deaths in its data analysis and added racism and discrimination to the risk factors considered during its case review process.

Solutions need to be tailored to the tribe’s identity and needs, Gamble said.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Gamble said, “because of all the beliefs and different cultures and languages that different tribes have.”

Gamble’s tenure on the state committee is distinctive. Few states have tribal representation on maternal mortality review committees, according to the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit organization that advocates for tribal health.

The National Council of Urban Indian Health is also working to increase the participation of Urban Indian health organizations, which provide care for Native American people who live outside of reservations, in state maternal mortality review processes. As of 2025, the council had connected Urban Indian health organizations to state review committees in California, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Native leaders such as Moore-Salas find the current efforts encouraging.

“It shows that state and tribes can work together,” she said.

In March 2024, Moore-Salas became the first Native American co-chair of Arizona’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. In 2025 she and other Native American members of the committee developed guidelines for the American Indian/Alaska Native subcommittee and reviewed the group’s first cases.

The subcommittee is exploring ways to make the data collection and analysis process more culturally relevant to their population, Moore-Salas said.

But it takes time for policy changes to create widespread change in the health of a population, Gamble said. Despite efforts around the country, other factors may hinder the pace of progress. For example, maternity care deserts are growing nationally, caused by rapid hospital and labor and delivery unit closures. Health experts have raised concerns that upcoming cuts to Medicaid will hasten these closures.

Despite her experience and the ongoing crisis among Native American and Alaska Native people, Swaney hopes for change.

She had a second complicated pregnancy soon after her stillbirth. She went into labor about three months early, and the doctors said her son wouldn’t live to the next morning. But he did, and he was transferred about 525 miles away from Missoula to the nearest advanced neonatal unit, in Salt Lake City.

Her son, Kelly Camel, is now 48. He has severe cerebral palsy and profound deafness. He lives alone but has caregivers to help with cooking and other tasks, said Swaney, 73.

He “has a good sense of humor. He’s kind to other people. We couldn’t ask for a more complete child.”

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

One welcome effect of President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela that led to the capture of strongman Nicolás Maduro is the release of political detainees in the South American nation. It appears that another authoritarian regime, this one in Central America, has taken notice: Nicaragua.

This month, the Nicaraguan government announced the release of dozens of political prisoners after the U.S. ramped up pressure on President Daniel Ortega’s regime. Of course, anything coming from Nicaragua has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Ortega, 80, has been in power for almost two decades.

Without a hint of irony, the government stated the official reason for the prisoner release was to commemorate Ortega’s 19 years of rule. There was no mention of who was released and under what conditions, but a day earlier, the U.S. Embassy lamented that “more than 60 people remain unjustly detained or disappeared, including pastors, religious workers, the sick, and the elderly.”

Nicaragua doesn’t have oil reserves like Venezuela or a strong lobby of exiles like Cuba, but it is as ruthless as the other two dictatorships in the region. Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who is now “co-president,” have managed so far to remain under the radar of the Trump administration, but there are signs this might be changing.

A recent post from the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs stated: “Nicaraguans voted for a president in 2006, not a lifetime of an illegitimate dynasty.” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a Trump ally, also said Nicaragua “will get fixed.”

The Ortega-Murillo regime is known for arbitrary detentions of political adversaries, religious leaders and journalists. The couple has stripped hundreds of Nicaraguans of their citizenship and possessions and more than 5,000 religious and civic organizations have been shuttered. Thousands have fled the country.

After Maduro’s fall, the Nicaraguan regime seems to be in survival mode, doing the bare minimum to avoid international scrutiny, but at the same time, repression is still business as usual. A human rights group reported that roughly 60 people were detained for expressing support for Maduro’s capture.

Ortega and Murillo are doubling down on their police state, increasing surveillance in neighborhoods and social media monitoring, El País reported. An analyst interviewed by the Spanish newspaper added that the Nicaraguan “power couple” is increasingly paranoid. This is a sign of weakness that the U.S. could exploit.

There are plenty of reasons why the Trump administration should increase pressure on Nicaragua through political and diplomatic channels. For one, the country has enhanced its ties with Russia and China while remaining defiant in its relationship with the U.S.

Nicaragua is also a transit point for drug cartels. Last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration was set to leave the country due to Nicaragua’s rampant corruption and lack of cooperation, but at least one White House official told Politico that the Central American nation has been changing its tune lately.

The Trump administration should not be fooled. The Ortega-Murillo regime is not interested in drug cooperation, but only in its own survival.

— The Dallas Morning News

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In the 140 yeas since the first St. Paul Winter Carnival, plenty has changed.

In 1886, there was no Vulcan Krewe in red running suits to battle the king then known as Borealis; there was no medallion hunt nor Klondike Kate. In 2026, several-hundred-member toboggan clubs no longer line up to race down purpose-built slides.

But one tradition has not changed: the blanket bounce.

In fact, the legacy now carried on by the St. Paul Bouncing Team represents one of the only annual activities that has existed continuously since the carnival’s first days.

The St. Paul Bouncing Team performs during the 2022 King Boreas Grande Day Parade, Presented by Hamernick’s, along West 7th Street in St. Paul on Saturday, January 29, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Today, the Bouncing Team consists of three ‘bouncing girls’ and an alternate, plus a roster of ‘pullers,’ 14 of whom are needed around the blanket for any given bounce. They count “One! Two! Up she goes!” and swiftly pull the blanket taut, launching the acrobat some 30 feet in the air.

The blanket bounce stems from an Alaskan Inupiat tradition called nalukataq, still part of community celebrations and sport competitions today. And in early Winter Carnival parades, bouncing “units” were as common for social organizations to have as drum and bugle corps and flag brigades and floats. During the 1887 parade, the Daily Pioneer Press noted that “there was not a bouncing blanket that was not in active operation.”

Eventually, in St. Paul, many bouncing units eventually either folded or consolidated under the St. Paul Athletic Club, which had introduced the modern aerialist “bouncing girl” format in the 1930s and was the only game in town by 1950. After the Athletic Club abruptly declared bankruptcy in late 1989, the blanket bunch bounced off on their own and formed the St. Paul Bouncing Team.

To celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Carnival — and with it, 140 years of bouncing at the Carnival —  the Bouncing Team is holding a public exhibition showcase by present and past bouncing girls from across the decades. The event runs open-house-style from 6 to 9 p.m. on Jan. 30 inside Landmark Center.

“Once anybody joins our team, they’re literally part of a family for life,” bouncing girl Lindsay Ferris Martin said. “And the crowd support is so, so energizing. One of my favorite things to do is watch the little kids standing with their parents, and all their jaws just drop. It brings so much joy.”

The blanket toss is among the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s oldest continuous traditions. Here, a team of “pullers” launches a “bouncing girl” high into the air amid a crowd of downtown spectators in January 1917. (Pioneer Press file photo)

‘It just looks like a ball of fun’

A good bounce starts with a good blanket.

In the early days of the blanket bounce and even into the post-Athletic Club era, teams used rectangular blankets, usually wool. Today, the Bouncing Team uses custom-designed round blankets, made of two layers of nylon canvas with a layer of criss-crossing straps sandwiched between them, Appleton said. The Bouncing Team owns two, and stores them with a level of security befitting the country’s nuclear codes.

“There aren’t any other ones in the world; these are the only two that exist,” longtime puller Mike Appleton said. “So a quirky thing we do is, for safety’s sake, we keep them in different places in case something happens.”

Then, each of the 14 pullers is matched up with another puller directly across the blanket who has a similar height and grip strength, so the bouncing girl is launched directly upward and not at an angle.

Finally, the bouncing girl tumbles onto the blanket and prepares for takeoff.

Lindsay Martin of Forrest Lake took to the air with the St. Paul Bouncing Team during the Vulcan Victory Torchlight Parade, part of the 2025 St. Paul Winter Carnival, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

Although many prospective bouncing girls have experience in gymnastics, cheerleading or aerial acrobatics, the powerful and sudden upward momentum on the blanket is a completely unique sensation, Ferris Martin said. It’s not uncommon for candidates to have to try out for the team multiple times before earning a spot. Ferris Martin herself auditioned for the first time in the mid-2010s and didn’t make the team till her third try, in 2024.

“You learn on the fly, pun intended,” Ferris Martin said, laughing. “There’s no other experience like it, so there’s really no place to practice beforehand. I know my first faces were probably just pure terror, but being able to lose that fear in your face for smiles really counts for a lot.”

There’s no specific rule that bouncing girls must be women, nor that they be a certain weight or height; they just have to be over 21 years old. However, the upward thrust force of the blanket launches smaller people higher, and those who typically get the most altitude — and therefore have the most time for flips and toe-touches and other crowd-pleasing maneuvers — tend to be younger and more petite women, organizers explained.

“We’ve had Jesse Ventura on the blanket. The pullers can handle it,” Appleton said. “But Jesse Ventura doesn’t go as high as Lindsay does.”

Even so, he said, everybody gets air: “I’ve been on the blanket, and it’s astonishing, feeling the amount of horsepower that’s underneath you.”

Although the Bouncing Team is most closely associated with the Winter Carnival, their busiest months are actually July and August, Casserly said. The team travels around the state on the summer parade circuit and makes appearances at special events including, in 2018, the Super Bowl.

And earning one of the regular spots on the blanket is competitive. Typically, the Bouncing Team holds tryouts once a year, during Winter Carnival, and only one new spot is made available.

This year, the team is not holding tryouts at all: Ahead of a busy 2025 summer schedule, early tryouts were held in May and the roster filled up, team president Joe Casserly said. He expects the regular January tryout schedule to resume next year.

The team is still actively looking for pullers this year, though. Prospective pullers can contact Casserly either online at stpaulbouncingteam.org/contact-us or via the team’s Facebook page and, if possible, should plan to attend the Jan. 30 exhibition, he said.

“I think it’s pretty much everybody’s goal on the team to make sure that we’re around 140 years from now,” Appleton said. “And what do we have to do now to make that happen? We need people to help us out with that and maintain the tradition.”

Although the bouncing girl flying up in the air is the most visible performer, the blanket bounce truly is a team sport, members said. And across 14 decades, Bouncing Team leaders say, every single person who has been bounced up has landed safely on the blanket.

“We are athletes, although you would never think about it that way because it just looks like a ball of fun,” Ferris Martin said. “And it really, really is. But beneath that, it’s the grit, it’s the family, it’s the brotherhood and sisterhood, and it is that continued Minnesota tradition.”

Bouncing Girl Sara LeBlanc holds 7 year-old Emme Arbuckle, from St. Paul, as she takes a turn on the blanket during the St. Paul Bouncing Team tryouts at the Landmark Center in St. Paul on Friday, February 5, 2016. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

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