Michal Meidan

Transport and that, you know, reduces its need for oil over the long term doesn't help the short term sanctions.

But all of these things are sort of surmountable from a logistical perspective and geopolitically and rhetorically, they're much more complicated and they set up for a much bigger sort of US-China tussle.

I think, right, 2026 has only just begun, but if there's anything that we've seen is that nothing is impossible right now or this year.

I think we have to be a bit careful.

We don't know what the U.S.

has grabbed just yet, right?

We don't know what it means that the U.S.

controls the oil.

We don't know who's going to market it, who's going to sell it, if they're selling it, at what price.

Critically for China and sort of for your question, we don't know what's happening with Chinese contracts in Venezuela.

Now, if they get cancelled,

and they get revoked, that's a pretty big deal.

And by extension, if those assets in the rest of Latin America would come under attack, that would be a huge problem.

And, you know, right, if we believe the US national security strategy, then yes, the US does want to reduce China's influence.

in the region.

That's a problem, I think, as much for China as it is for other Latin American countries.

So the Panama Canal is a question of operatorship.

If we think about Brazil, you know, China is the biggest trading partner for many countries, including Brazil, where it's not just a trading partner that buys oil, soybeans, iron ore, but it's also a massive investor in EVs and other industries.

It's sort of underpinning some of the energy and electricity infrastructure in these countries.

I think that becomes much more problematic, certainly for China, but also for a lot of Latin American countries and more broadly for China-US relations, right?