Following his shock army intervention in Venezuela, by which U.S. forces struck targets and captured President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. President Trump has repeatedly acknowledged america intends to push Chinese language pursuits out of Latin America.
This method has included a revival of Monroe Doctrine-style considering that underestimates each the size of China’s financial footprint within the area and the diploma to which that presence has grow to be embedded in native economies.
The size of China’s funding and the depth of its cooperation in Latin America go far past Trump’s creativeness. China’s function in Latin America is now not marginal or experimental. It’s constructed on commerce flows, long-term funding, monetary hyperlinks and large-scale infrastructure initiatives that assist China’s international provide chains and useful resource safety whereas additionally tying regional development to Chinese language demand.
2024 noticed China’s bilateral commerce with Latin America surpass $500 billion for the primary time, roughly 35 instances the extent in 2001. Commerce for 2025 anticipated to exceed that mark once more, highlighting the growing depth of China’s financial engagement within the area.
Whereas that determine stays properly under the roughly $1.2 trillion in U.S.-Latin America commerce, that comparability is considerably deceptive. About two-thirds of U.S.-Latin America commerce consists of commerce with Mexico alone. If we solely take into account South America, China’s significance already surpasses that of america.
In South America China has already overtaken america as the first financial associate in key nations together with Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. Brazil sends about 28 p.c of its exports to China, in contrast with roughly 13 p.c to america. By sourcing roughly 65 p.c of its soybeans from the area, China turned Trump’s agricultural leverage technique right into a public fiasco.
Funding patterns present an analogous shift. China’s amassed funding inventory in Latin America, estimated at about $650 billion, is closing the hole with the U.S. complete of roughly $1 trillion. Chinese language funding is concentrated in vitality, mining, infrastructure and renewable vitality, sectors that form long-term growth quite than short-term consumption. Chinese language corporations have signed greater than $300 billion in development contracts throughout the area, far exceeding U.S. ranges.
Efforts by Washington to dam Chinese language funding would face resistance not solely from Beijing but in addition from Latin American governments and communities that depend upon these initiatives for jobs, tax income and infrastructure upgrades.
The US has lengthy been accustomed to treating Latin America as its geopolitical yard, deploying random commerce guidelines to combine Mexico and Central America into its sphere of affect.
However in South America China’s financial presence now rivals or surpasses that of the U.S. in commodities, infrastructure finance, and industrial inputs.
Latin America performs a vital function in China’s useful resource provide. In 2024 the area accounted for about 65 p.c of China’s soybean imports, 40 p.c of copper imports, and 30 p.c of lithium imports.
On the identical time China exports equipment, autos, client home equipment and telecommunications gear to the area, reinforcing two-way dependence.
I’ve visited Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador a number of instances. In these visits I’ve seen firsthand how Chinese language funding is mostly welcomed and that entry to the Chinese language market is considered domestically as an vital financial alternative.
Maybe extra concrete examples illustrate how deeply this relationship runs: About 90 p.c of Chile’s cherry exports go to China. Peru’s Chinese language-financed Chancay port, accomplished in 2024, lowered delivery instances to Asia by about 12 days and generated greater than $200 million in extra tax income in its first yr, in accordance with Peruvian officers. Chinese language-built hydropower crops, hospitals, and colleges are working throughout a number of nations delivering tangible advantages to communities.
If entry to the Chinese language market have been abruptly restricted, the results could be vital for export-dependent sectors. These Chilean fruit farmers, for instance, may face chapter, whereas native economies would expertise sharp declines in overseas alternate earnings, with broader social and financial implications.
The U.S. market can not exchange China’s, and most Latin American nations will instinctively resist makes an attempt by Washington to regulate their financial selections.
It’s my private expertise that almost all Latin American nations are bored with U.S. hegemony and pursue a extra various diplomacy. After the discharge of China’s 2025 Coverage Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean, 12 nations expressed curiosity in deepening cooperation, reflecting a shared rejection of at the moment’s “Donroe Doctrine”-style insurance policies.
China’s method differs from historic fashions of extraction or coercion and stands in distinction to the strategic intentions of each the Nineteenth-century Monroe Doctrine and the Twenty first-century “Trump Corollary.” China’s affect in Latin America doesn’t depend on army bases or political strings however is basically market-driven, targeted on steady useful resource provide, funding returns, and dependable commerce routes.
The ingrained behavior of U.S. realpolitik considering merely fails to understand the forces behind the surge in China-Latin America cooperation over the previous 20 years. Via a mannequin of “win-win cooperation,” Beijing seeks to safe its pursuits and guarantee stability by dependable useful resource provide, assured funding returns, and unobstructed strategic channels. There’s no want for political strings or hegemonic coercion. The notion that bilateral commerce between two sovereign nations may very well be halted by a Trump tweet, administrative order, or declaration of a “Donroe Doctrine” is buffoonishly simplistic.
Trump can apply political strain, after all. He can assist pro-U.S. regimes in some Latin American nations, use rule-based mechanisms for financial coercion, unfold misinformation by narratives just like the debt entice fallacy, and restructure provide chains by nearshoring or tariffs.
But when the U.S. makes an attempt to marginalize Chinese language pursuits by a gradual, salami-slicing method, China is more likely to reply with a composite technique of defensive counterattack and strategic escalation. This consists of financial integration, monetary empowerment, rule restructuring, diplomatic coordination, and danger administration, designed each to guard present investments and broaden new areas of cooperation, solidifying the China-Latin America group of shared financial pursuits.
China’s toolbox consists of capabilities that Trump didn’t anticipate. Put merely, the U.S. didn’t win the primary commerce struggle towards China in 2018 and is even much less more likely to win the second now. The present tariff truce underscores the boundaries of American commerce leverage. In Latin America, makes an attempt to problem China’s affect are more likely to expose the hole between U.S. rhetoric and its precise capability.
A extra pragmatic method for Washington could be cooperation with China in Latin America ‒ joint funding and business engagement with regional nations ‒ quite than exclusion.
U.S. and Chinese language pursuits don’t have to be zero-sum in Latin America. Each events may thrive by engagement, not confrontation. However the Donroe Doctrine treats cooperation as a menace and nonetheless thinks a tweet can reshape commerce.
