China's Growing Influence in Latin America

A Chinese-backed port project in Peru, heralded as "the gateway from South America to Asia."

As China and the United States, the two prominent world powers, jostle over spheres of influence globally, one recent battleground to emerge is Latin America. While often thought of as America’s hemisphere—wars and regime changes throughout the 20th century display this—China has been making gains amid protectionist tariffs from the Trump administration. On May 13th, Beijing hosted presidents from Brazil, Colombia, and Chile and denounced American “bullying” in the region. They defended Panama over the controversy with the Panama Canal, and pledged to both import more goods and open $9.1 billion in credit for financing with Latin American countries. They also touted the expansion of their Belt and Road Initiative, a lending program dedicated to developing infrastructure in developing countries. This initiative has most recently manifested itself through the announcement of a sprawling $1.3 billion dollar port project in Chancay, Peru. Many American officials fear that China is leveraging economic aid in order to advance its geopolitical goals and bolster authoritarian regimes in the region, such as Cuba and Venezuela. They would be right. In just the last 20 years, exports from Latin America to China have increased from 2 billion to 176 billion dollars. This surge in economic influence from our strongest adversary cannot go unnoticed. With recent actions taken by the Trump administration, whether it be in regards to actions with illegal immigrants or protectionist tariffs, our relationships to the south are deteriorating. China’s influence could very well lead to the presence of even more strongmen in Latin America, and an economically absent America cannot do much to stop them. One of China’s current national security goals has already been successful in the region. China does not engage in diplomatic relations with countries that accept Taiwan’s sovereignty, so the number of nations in the Americas that recognize the territory has dwindled in recent years. On mainland Central and South America, only Belize, Paraguay, and Honduras still recognize Taiwan. Defense trade between the two regions has also seen a large increase. From 2009 to 2019, over 600 million dollars of Chinese military hardware was shipped to the region. Some in America have acknowledged this worrying trend. The former head of the U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller, argued in 2021 that “we are losing our positional advantage in this hemisphere and immediate action is needed to reverse this trend.” Little decisive action has been taken recently to curb what the admiral is talking about. During the Biden administration, officials, along with the G7, announced the creation of a new organization called the Build Back Better World that pledged to increase economic investment in the Western hemisphere. However, since its launch, the United States has only pledged 6 million dollars to the fund. That is pocket change compared to the money that China is throwing around. Now, during Trump’s second term, there is decisively little aid on behalf of the United States in Latin America. For example, in one of the first acts of his administration, the President froze $450 million in funding for the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. For decades, the United States has embraced expressing soft power, like broad trade and investment, in countries in our hemisphere. Stepping away from it now is not only damaging to our global and regional reputation, but to our national security as well.