I'm John Datchel with my good colleagues, Ernesto Arousa, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Brazil, and Joseph Uemeyer, Executive Director of Secure Free Society, who's just back from the road and Ernesto's on the road.

But Ernesto, your thoughts about the Panama Canal, because a simple story is turning very complicated.

Does this impact the whole of the continent,

Central and South America as well, the fate of the Panama Canal? Oh, yes, John. I think it impacts

the whole world. I think it's the first movement where China has had to backtrack from her,

from its strategy of infiltrating the world through infrastructure,

so to gaining power, political power through investments and agreements on infrastructure.

So whatever the developments are, this will impact the whole world.

Will China just back down for a while and then come back?

Or does this mean really a change and means the United States really playing, well, playing this game, which only China was playing,

the game of shoring its support and alliances around the world through infrastructure as well.

So Chinese investment comes with political influence, comes with, well, influence for,

positive influence for organized crime.

Unfortunately, we know that around Latin America.

So if China starts at least to pause its advance and hopefully, I think, from our point

of view, to backtrack, this can mean a lot systemically for the whole Latin America and

the whole world in terms of organized crime, in terms of

political penetration of totalitarian actors together with corruption and corrupt practices.

So we have to follow this story. I think that's the big picture. It's the first time it's the,

you know, the moment where maybe it's a game

changer for the whole world. Joseph, you were also in Colombia. Petro's been troubled for months and

months and months about his approval rating. We're also concerned about the transnational

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