WSJ What’s News - Why Latin America Wants Change in Venezuela

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

A.M. Edition for Jan. 6. Venezuela has a new interim president, but much of Nicolás Maduro’s old guard remains in power. We exclusively report that the CIA found the opposition too weak to lead the country. RUSI’s Carlos Solar explains why, despite protests, Latin American leaders want a regime change in Venezuela, and the critical role Secretary of State Marco Rubio could play in encouraging it. Plus, Nvidia pulls back the curtain on faster AI chips. And more than eight million U.S. workers get a pay bump, as states hike their minimum wage. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Venezuela's Delci Rodriguez takes the oath of office, will assess her chances of turning around the country and the depth of Trump's foreign policy commitment to the Americas. As long as Marco Rubio is running the show, I think there will be a lot of energy towards the Western Hemisphere. Plus, NVIDIA pulls back the curtain on faster AI chips and more than 8 million workers get a pay bump as states hike their minimum wage.

It's Tuesday, January 6th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Venezuela, where Nicholas Maduro's longtime vice president and top lieutenant Delci Rodriguez was formerly sworn in as acting president yesterday.

In a ceremony, Rodriguez pledged to protect Venezuela, Venezuela's sovereignty and independence, and she described Maduro's arrest as the kidnapping of a hero. But those defiant words come as she signaled her willingness to work with Washington and spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So how reliable a partner is Rodriguez for the U.S. For more, we're joined by Carlos Solar, Senior Research Fellow at Rusi, the Royal United Services Institute in London. Carlos, we exclusively report that in the run-up to Maduro's arrest, the CIA concluded that Rodriguez, as well as other members of Maduro's inner circle,

were the ones who were best placed to maintain order in Venezuela, while opposition figures would be in a position where they'd be struggling to gain legitimacy, facing resistance from security forces, drug trafficking networks. What do you make of that, especially in terms of what it's going to take to see this safe, proper, judicious transition in Venezuela that President Trump has promised? I think that's the safe bet. the U.S. has been collecting intelligence since Operation Southern Spears started five months ago, at least. So I think the security services have a good and clear idea of who's running the country,

where the combatants are, where organized crime bases are, and what role could, and organized by quite thinned out opposition led by Maria Corina Machado, who's currently out of the country together with Edmundo Gonzalez. So I think it is a smart idea to try to navigate this critical moment with the regime. That doesn't mean that the US should be lenient to the regime at all. I think pressure is needed, but I think a dialogue with Delci Rodriguez might move the needle in the direction that the rest of Latin America will want, which is re-democratization of Venezuela. We haven't talked much about immigration in the context of Venezuela the last few days.

So many people have fled Venezuela in recent years. That is going to be an angle to watch in the week. months, years to come. Do people start to return, especially if the governance situation there improves? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the calculations are eight million Venezuelans have gone out of the country, north, south, east, and west, neighboring countries and all the way north to the U.S. and Canada, all the way south to Chile and Argentina. So it's a big problem. Those lines of migration are usually controlled by transnational organized crime. everyone in Latin America has been heard by Trent de Arawa, okay?

So they are a very, very mean criminal organization who are taking spaces in Ecuador, in Peru, in Colombia, in Brazil, in Chile, in Central America. So all these countries, they might not side with the politics of Donald Trump. They might not side with the White House American foreign policy, but they do side with the fact that Venezuela is in a downward spiral and is escalating criminality across Latin America. Would you say those forces are stronger than some of the opposition to U.S. action we've seen in recent days?

For instance, Colombia's president saying he'd be ready to take up arms against the U.S. Cuba, which we should say lost 32 of its officers in the operation to capture Maduro, called American forces terrorists in imperial uniform. And we've seen protests in places like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. What should we make of that? This is a lot of heat of the moment. A lot of political opposition to whatever Donald Trump will do. If we rewind history and we go to 1989 when the U.S. did something similar to Noriega in Panama,

if you read history, opposition to the United States lasted for long. But then Panama turned into a flourishing country, which is now a hub for finance, for commerce, and for other services across Latin America. But the fact that Venezuela has been the hotspot of many biases towards the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The relationship with the U.S. is so important for Colombia. The security of Colombia is not at a good moment. Some parts of Colombia have been dominated again

through either guerrilla, paramilitaries, organized crime, all in a lot of connection to their border with Venezuela. So it's not about running Venezuela. I think it's about having enough political pressure in order to steer the regime in one direction, which is, believe me, what a lot of Latin American countries will want transition towards democracy in Venezuela. Carlos, the U.S. very much applying that political pressure, at least for now,

but how profound is this pivot to being the so-called enforcer of the Americas? Well, let me put it in real terms. As long as Marco Rubio is running the show, I think there will be a lot of energy towards the Western Hemisphere. So Marco Rubio holds two hats, national security advisor and secretary of state. he seems in a very good moment to be with Donald Trump. I think there is a strong connection between them. He's an expert in Latin America, his senatorial career, his politician as in Southern Florida.

He speaks in Spanish to foreign leaders in Latin America. So the connection between what the White House can do with the rest of Latin America and specifically in connection with Venezuela is quite strong at the moment. Dr. Carlos Salar is a senior research fellow. for Latin American security at Russey, the Royal United Services Institute. Carlos, thank you so much for being with us on What's News. Thank you, Luke. Coming up, lawmakers return to Washington with another funding deadline looming,

and Nvidia unveils a new AI chip for the omniverse. Those stories and more after the break. In Washington, the next deadline to reach a deal to fund the federal government is looming, though in the wake of a 43-day funding lapse last year, Democrats' appetite for another shutdown looks diminished. Centrists say that too much damage was inflicted on American households, with many in the parties saying they're uncomfortable triggering a shutdown at the end of January. Meanwhile, some Democrats remain frustrated with Republicans and see spending bills as an effective form of protest. Meanwhile, the Trump administration

is expanding its freeze on social services funding in four further states due to fraud concerns, according to senior officials. The government is pausing funds for child care and poor families in California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York. Last week, Minnesota's federal child care funds were cut off following allegations of fraud. There is no indication of fraud in the four other states. As many as 8.3 million workers in the U.S. are now receiving higher pay after 19 states boosted their minimum wage at the start of the year. That means that 30 states have now set a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. Washington has also become the first state to enact an hourly minimum above $17, the rate that

some Democrats have pushed to be adopted nationally. Economists continue to debate the effects of raising the minimum wage, with some arguing it hurts businesses' bottom line, leading to increased prices or lower employment, while others say it reduces poverty. And NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has unveiled new, faster AI chips that the company says will enable the training of models in simulated environments. The next phase of AI, it calls the Omniverse. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Huang said the intense demand for advanced processors to train and operate models has pushed the semi-competronic conductor industry to move faster.

Okay, Vera Rubin is designed to address this fundamental challenge that we have. The amount of computation necessary for AI is skyrocketing. Nvidia's newest AI servers, known as Vera Rubin, and named for the mid-century American astronomer, will go on sale in the second half of the year. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show.

Until then, thanks for listening.