Welcome back to the Inquisition. And today we have a very special guest joining me and Pete and Thomas.

Jose Nino is here. Jose, what's up, man? Been following your work very closely the last couple of months.

Thank you so much for having me on. I really look forward to the discussion. And also, I appreciate you following my work as well, Astro.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen you around a while, but it was really when you started talking about Venezuela that I not only like dug into your work, but I started following the links that you share in your articles.

And I've learned a lot and you'd had a great episode

with p uh myth of the 20th century you had a pretty strong week so you guys have covered a lot

so i want to just jump right into it because we've a lot to cover in a short amount of time

so you know taking all of our previous conversations in context here the first thing i want to

talk to you about,

and the reason I invited you on was to talk about China and Israel in Latin America.

Because if there's any angle for me to get behind what we're doing in Venezuela, it's because

of what China's doing there and the influence that China's having in our

hemisphere.

They're obviously, you know, I don't have to make the argument.

I've made it elsewhere that China is not our friend, at least in many major ways, fentanyl trade

embargoes, violating trade embargoes, et cetera.

But through your work, through following your links and reading much more about Latin America,

I see that China is all over Latin America and so is Israel.

So what's going on there?

I mean, how do you want to start talking about China and Israel?

And are they vying for control and influence over South America?

Well, start off, China is more economically involved in Latin America.

...