China’s Patience Will Beat US Threats in Latin America
Donald Trump needs to shower some love on his neighbors if he wants to counter Xi Jinping’s regional charm offensive.
The White House may be counting on the emergence of more like-minded governments from presidential elections in Chile this year and Colombia and Brazil in 2026.
May 19, 2025 at 3:00 PM GMT+3
By Juan Pablo Spinetto
JP Spinetto is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin American business, economic affairs and politics. He was previously Bloomberg News’ managing editor for economics and government in the region.
If the US-China contest for influence over Latin America was a football match, China would be ahead of the US 2-1 at halftime.
While Donald Trump was busy making deals in the Middle East, his Chinese counterpart hosted Latin American leaders with investment and credit lines pledges, visa exemptions and proclamations of friendship and cooperation. Last week’s summit between China and the CELAC forum, which groups 33 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, saw the Asian giant in full charm mode, reassuring the region it’s business as usual even if the US is trying to curb Chinese influence in the Americas. The contrast with the Trump White House’s bellicosity toward the region — tariffs, deportations and sanctions included — couldn’t be sharper.
To be sure, these pompous meetings merit a healthy dose of skepticism: Their concrete benefits often fail to match the spin put on their announcements. Moreover, this summit’s Latin American headliners were limited to the leftist presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Chile, not exactly a full house in terms of regional attendance and ideological diversity.
Yet the huge symbolism of Xi Jinping devoting quality time to the region’s leaders when the trade war with the US is still close to boiling is undeniable. Even as Trump offers a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine, heavy on sticks and light on carrots, China is hewing to its long-term strategy of partnership and solidarity and playing big brother of the Global South. Xi also pledged China will increase “imports of quality products” from the region while encouraging its enterprises “to expand investment,” in what appears to be an attempt to respond to local criticism over perceived Chinese mercantilism. Washington should take notice: Threats alone will not gain the alignment and goodwill of its neighbors.
Take the case of Brazil: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came back from Beijing with more than 30 agreements for investment in mining, infrastructure and ports, orders for jets made by Embraer SA and an 157 billion-real (about $28 billion) currency swap deal between their central banks to provide mutual liquidity over a period of five years.
Lula’s trip wasn’t gaffe-free (witness his wife’s cringey complaints to the Chinese leader about the harmful effects of TikTok, as if Xi would care much about these things). And you wouldn’t be wrong to question how many of these deals will become reality. That said, Brazil is moving ahead with its integration into China’s value chain, already its largest trading partner and a source of strategic inputs from electric vehicles to renewable energy projects. Latin America’s largest economy senses an opportunity in this fragmented and tariffed economic world.
Latin America's China Trade Affair Grows
Source: World Integrated Trade Solution
“Money speaks more than protocol in this scenario of an every time more transactional geopolitics,” Bruna Santos, a Washington-based Brazilian analyst, told me. “Brazil is trying to navigate this US-China competition independently and maximizing its interests.”
True, Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio have scored some wins, most notably with their bold financial and political support for Argentina and its libertarian president Javier Milei. But even under Washington’s pressure, Milei was careful not to throw China under the bus, instead securing a much-needed currency swap renewal from Beijing to underpin Argentina’s international reserves.
The Trump administration’s bullying led to Panama’s decision not to renew its membership in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, set to expire next year, and the announced divestment of two port facilities on the canal by a Hong Kong-based company. That’s a goal for the US, albeit one that comes with the long-term consequences of stirring up Panamanian nationalism.
Washington is understandably treating its competition with China as paramount — but for most Latin American countries, that’s not their fight. To think that they can be bossed around to pick sides is naïve. Where the US sees a zero-sum game, the region perceives an opportunity to extract benefits from both powers. Trump’s abandonment of any US claims to the moral high ground only justifies that transactional approach: If the US is willing to send its own citizens to El Salvador’s prison camps without due process, how can you persuade Latin Americans that getting in bed with China truly threatens their democracies and security?
The White House may be counting on the emergence of more like-minded governments from presidential elections in Chile this year and Colombia and Brazil in 2026. Yet that tactic overlooks Latin America’s need to put its self-interest ahead of ideology in order to promote economic development. Notwithstanding their left-leaning rapport with China, for instance, Brazil and Mexico imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and other products to defend their domestic makers.
That’s why Washington should reconsider its mix of persuasion and pressure in the Western Hemisphere.
Threatening to block the financing of projects being built by Chinese state companies in Colombia, as the State Department did last week after President Gustavo Petro’s participation in the Beijing summit, is silly and counterproductive because it pushes the country to seek alternatives. If the US continues its high-handed tactics — such as the proposal to tax remittances with a 5% charge, hitting the Latin American families that receive about $160 billion in transfers every year — then the result will be less influence, not more.
Despite its lower investment and financing capacity, China has a massive advantage: Patience. Xi isn’t going anywhere and he can sustain a consistent approach for years to come. By contrast, the volatility of Trump’s policy-making and personnel choices is a US vulnerability. One recent example of this inconstancy: Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s hawkish envoy for Latin America, is ending his role at the White House after only five months for bureaucratic reasons.
Latin America’s football fans know that the team with the clearest game plan and most reliable squad is the one to bet on. Unless Team Trump develops both, the contest for influence on what the US has considered its backyard pitch is unlikely to end in its favor.
Juan Pablo Spinetto JP Spinetto is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin American business, economic affairs and politics. He was previously Bloomberg News’ managing editor for economics and government in the region. |
