Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reviews an honor guard as he is welcomed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Iran on January 10, 2015. (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

The U.S. seizure of Iranian gasoline on tankers en route to Venezuela has underscored the growing relationship between Iran's Hassan Rouhani and Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro. As "rich countries governed by thieves" that are hobbled by U.S. sanctions, the two regimes have found common cause over shared aims, ideology, and desperation.

Recently, Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook and Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams joined Hudson's Nadia Schadlow for a discussion on the growing Tehran-Caracas connection and why the free world should take note. See key takeaways from their discussion below.

Be sure to join us next week as we discuss global aid with U.K. Ambassador Karen Pierce, talk with journalist Michael Shellenberger about environmental policy's impact on the middle class, and host a panel of defense experts on U.S.-Japan efforts to deter missile threats from North Korea and China.

The Tehran-Caracas Connection

Key takeaways from Special Representatives Elliott Abrams and Brian Hook:

1. In the face of collapsed oil production, Venezuela and Iran have become increasingly desperate:

Abrams: Today [Venezuela's oil production] seems closer to be about 250,000 barrels a day, which is an incredible 95% reduction. Part of it is their own corruption and incompetence, part of it is of course our sanctions, which mean that people don't want to buy their oil and so they are not producing oil.

Russia and China are actually pulling back from Venezuela. So we see these two pariah states finding each other. Happily, this is [an area of] bipartisan policy. This is an area where Democrats and Republicans have found a very great deal of agreement.

Hook: We have collapsed Iran's oil sector, and that's the price that it pays for being the principle driver of terrorism, antisemitism, and instability in the Middle East. [Iran has gone from] 2.5 million to 70,000 barrels in about two years. So this is the price that the regime pays for behaving like an outlaw regime. What I find interesting about Iran and Venezuela is that these are not poor countries. These are rich countries that are governed by thieves.

2. The motivations driving the Iran-Venezuela relationship:

Abrams: Maduro has one thing to sell, which is oil, and he desperately needs gasoline. Nobody's buying the oil. He does have gold reserves, so he is able to say to the Iranians, "Well you want gold, I can give you gold." And the Iranians of course have an enormous amount of oil and gasoline that they're having a hard time getting rid of.

Hook: The IMF recently put out an assessment on the three worst performing economies in the world: Bolivia, Iran and Venezuela. You've got an illegitimate regime in Venezuela and in the case of Iran you have a regime that is facing a crisis of legitimacy and credibility with its own people… the fact that Iran and Venezuela, two of the worst-performing economies in the world, causes them perhaps to reach out and see if they can do something to help each other because they're both in dire situations.

3. The impact of interrupting Iran's oil shipments: 

Hook: There were nine tankers that were moving to Venezuela, we were able to disrupt four of those shipments. Five tankers that did make their way to Venezuela, all their captains were sanctioned and they're going to face a very tough future economically because they said yes to that offer to move fuel. We're going to continue to sanction any sanctionable activity.

We have really dried up the maritime community that's available to Iran to move this stuff. We de-flagged all of Iran's tankers. They have the goal obviously, of getting the fuel to Maduro and then getting paid for it, but that's an increasingly big challenge they face because of the work that Elliot and I have done.

4. A global alliance is working to restrict Maduro: 

Abrams: There's well over a billion dollars-worth of gold and Maduro tried to get at it and sued. The high court in London ruled about a week ago that Juan Guaidó is the legitimate interim president of Venezuela, Maduro is not a legitimate president, and therefore he has no right to direct what happens to that gold, so it sits safely in the Bank of England.

Schadlow: Another point with the gold is that it also shows that this is not just a U.S. position but it is an example of allies and partners working together for the same set of objectives.

Abrams: It's nearly 60 countries, it's really all the democracies. The EU, Western Europe, Canada, the US, Latin America, who view the Maduro regime as illegitimate and very much want to see Venezuela go back to democracy. For the neighbors it's worth noting, Columbia above all, but also Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil.

5. Venezuela and Iran both take the "mafia government" approach to the coronavirus pandemic:

Hook: There's something that's very uniform about mafia governments. Everything Elliot described on Venezuela applies equally to how the Iranian regime is handling COVID.  While [the Iranian regime was] telling the world that they were cutting back on flights they were in fact running at full speed. That caused an infestation from China to Iran of the virus. The regime did nothing to stop its spread. 

Any time you see a number on the statistics in Iran you should probably say it's anywhere between five and 10 times higher. Just like Elliot Abrams said about Venezuela. They're closed societies, they're not honest about it, and that lack of transparency has the consequence of infecting a lot more people, increasing the mortality rate and spreading it around the region.

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity

Go Deeper: Iran and Venezuela