After Venezuela Strikes, China Weighs Its Latin America Play (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The breaking news this morning, President Trump says the U.S. carried out large-scale strikes on Venezuela overnight.

[00:00:07] Speaker 2: The dictator and terrorist Maduro is finally gone in Venezuela.

[00:00:12] Speaker 3: All this happened just hours after a high-level delegation from Beijing visited Venezuela. For more than two decades, China's been expanding its presence across Latin America, investing billions of dollars constructing solar farms, subway lines, EV factories, and building projects that have drawn U.S. security concerns, like strategically-located ports tied to Chinese companies or a 16-story antenna in Patagonia, erected, China says, to support space research. As the U.S. continues to push forward with its aims in Venezuela after the military strike, the message from Washington is clear. It wants adversaries and rivals out of its backyard. But China is not backing down on its economic and political interests.

[00:01:01] Speaker 2: China's strengthened its ties with Venezuela for more than a decade now, also heightening its influence across Latin America by building megaprojects. But after the U.S. military action in Venezuela, where exactly does China go from here?

[00:01:16] Speaker 3: To understand how deep China's roots grow in Latin America, we'll start back in 2001. That's when Chinese leader Zhang Zemin made a landmark 12-day tour of Latin America, the same year China joined the World Trade Organization. As tariffs dropped for the new WTO member, it became much easier for China to trade with other countries.

[00:01:36] Speaker 4: There's a massive infrastructure deficit in Latin America. It's been enduring for decades upon decades, and China is looking to offload, for instance, its steel export capacity in steel, its capacity in construction development, which has been well-developed domestically in China over time.

[00:01:53] Speaker 3: It's Latin America's need for infrastructure and China's need for raw materials like oil, timber, and minerals that helped drive Chinese investment. To that end, just take a look at the investments from Chinese state-owned firms, development banks, and private companies around the world. This bar here is money that went to Latin America, the second biggest recipient just after China's backyard in Asia. And notably, China's investment there grew faster than its investment in any other region, increasing more than 400 percent from 2014 through 2024.

[00:02:26] Speaker 5: China's presence in Latin America is often described as some sort of grand scheme to take over the region. I quite disagree with that notion.

[00:02:37] Speaker 3: Jorge Jaime served as Chile's ambassador to China from 2014 to 2017, and he pushed for Latin America to become part of the Belt and Road Initiative. It's Chinese leader Xi Jinping's signature global infrastructure program that he started in 2013, where Beijing builds and finances ports, railways, power plants, part of an effort to expand China's footprint and influence around the world.

[00:03:01] Speaker 5: This is a partnership that has evolved over time. It has grown organically. There are minuses, I fully agree on that. But if we draw a balance, I would say the pluses outweigh the minuses.

[00:03:12] Speaker 3: After Xi launched a regular forum for Chinese, Latin American, and Caribbean leaders in 2015, Panama became the first Latin American nation to join Belt and Road in 2017. China's state bank lending to the region peaked at the start of the decade, and massive Chinese-funded projects took shape into the 2020s, among them the longest bridge in Panama and the Chiang Kai-Megaport in Peru. Over time, China's role in Latin America has grown far more sophisticated. Chinese companies are now buying and operating assets at the core of national economies, from power grids and telecom networks to mines producing lithium, copper, and other minerals needed for EVs, batteries, and renewable energy systems. Despite U.S. warnings, countries including Argentina and Brazil have partnered with Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE to build their digital networks, giving Chinese firms a foothold in the region's data and communications. Washington has argued since the Obama administration that these deals could create security risks. But in much of Latin America, that rings hollow.

[00:04:19] Speaker 5: The notion that you should be stuck in that infrastructure deficit and not do anything about it, because the United States doesn't like Chinese companies to help you remedy it, is something that, you know, doesn't go down well with Latin American governments. Particularly since the U.S. isn't saying, I will build the port, I will build the railway, I will build the bridge.

[00:04:41] Speaker 3: Here's where things get interesting with Venezuela. It's not even China's biggest trading partner in Latin America. It's these countries. Venezuela has ranked between 6th and 13th each year for the past decade. Despite that, Venezuela became a key political partner for Beijing in a region long dominated by the U.S. As Washington ramped up pressure and oil sanctions, China stuck by Nicolas Maduro diplomatically. And over the years before that, Beijing had already poured billions of dollars in loans into Venezuela. China invested in Venezuela's most valuable asset, oil fields. Venezuela's public lenders pumped roughly $106 billion into the country between 2000 and 2023, making it the fourth largest recipient of Chinese state financing worldwide during that period. While Chinese loans to Venezuela slowed significantly in recent years, their trade ties continued. So what we're driving through is another example of China expanding its footprint in Latin America. Back in October 2025, both China and Venezuela decided to open a new direct shipping route between here, the port of Tangier, and Venezuela's primary Caribbean seaports. And what that did is it helped to cut down shipping time and in some cases lower shipping prices as China ships its goods across the Pacific Ocean. After the U.S. captured Maduro, the White House turned its attention to oil. During conversations led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Trump administration told Venezuela's interim president, Delsi Rodriguez, Venezuela must cut ties with China, Iran, Russia, and Cuba, and agreed to partner exclusively with the U.S. on oil production.

[00:06:32] Speaker 6: What we're not going to allow is for the oil industry in Venezuela to be controlled by adversaries of the United States. You have to understand, why does China need their oil?

[00:06:41] Speaker 3: Beijing says its oil contracts are protected under international law, but China only buys 4% of its oil from Venezuela. And experts note China may have already reached its peak oil consumption, moving rapidly towards zero-emission energy sources and leading the world in EV adoption. So then, what's China's next move politically in Latin America?

[00:07:04] Speaker 4: There is no doubt, I think, in Beijing at this juncture, an effort to reassess, first of all, relations with Venezuela, how things have been carried out, but also to do so across the entirety of Latin America.

[00:07:16] Speaker 1: I think that we are watching very closely that we need to readjust our investment, maybe some countries are too anti-American, it's very dangerous for China, the risk will be very high.

[00:07:28] Speaker 3: Even before Maduro fell, China's influence in Latin America was already under pressure. In 2025, Panama walked away from the Belt and Road Initiative, saying the deal just wasn't worth it.

[00:07:40] Speaker 4: What I'm really wondering about at this juncture is how much these actions in Venezuela really change thinking on the part of Latin American governments as they pursue a range of different projects, and especially those types of projects that are likely to intersect with U.S. articulated security interests.

[00:07:58] Speaker 3: For now, it's unlikely that China will pull back from its extensive ties with Latin America because...

[00:08:05] Speaker 1: Well, China needs Latin America, Latin America needs China also.

[00:08:08] Speaker 4: It's an economic imperative. At this point, the region is fundamental for China as it looks to export massive excess capacity in a wide range of sectors that China has been promoting from a policy perspective now for a number of years.

[00:08:24] Speaker 5: The Chinese message has been that China is a partner that offers stability and predictability. In diplomacy, this is very important. You could say that the United States today is not exactly a prime example of stability.