The United States is Losing Latin America to China
- Written by News Company
China has been recently seen strengthening ties, expanding trading regulation, and investing billions of yuan into the infrastructure of Latin America. Why you might ask?
China has sought after gaining influence in Latin America, at the expense of the United States, following the two countries trade war. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is still fighting a trade war with China. This trade war seems like a never-ending battle that neither side is going to win.
What does this mean for all countries involved? What does this mean for Latin America? What does this mean for the United States? And what does this mean for China?
What Does This Mean for all Countries Involved?
Since the trade war between China and the US, China has overtaken the US as Brazil’s biggest trading partner. With Brazilian soybeans, which are one of the country’s biggest exports, and other agricultural products replacing American imports.
Over a decade ago, Beijing stated outright in a policy paper that although China and Latin America were separated by the Pacific Ocean, they wanted both countries to “enjoy a time-honored friendship” and that the countries “are at a similar stage of development and face the common task of achieving development”.
Latin America took China’s warm messages of collaborative development with hope and acceptance, after all China had proved that over the past few decades it was able to get over 800 million people out of poverty and improve ordinary citizen’s standard of living.
“According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, China is Latin America’s second biggest trading partner with bilateral trade at 307.4 billion US dollars,” says Diego Pérez, spokesperson from monederosmart.com, “this has a significant impact on the trade war between the US and China, and also between Latin America and China.”
Latin American governments are well aware of the geopolitical disputes taking place between China and the US, but are keeping their heads down and focusing on improving their countries.
China’s policy papers from 2008 to 2016 show that their goal is to establish a comprehensive and cooperative partnership featuring equality, mutual benefit, and common development with Latin America and Caribbean countries.
The emphasis on development is a driving factor into Latin America’s interest in the partnership. This development shows that China wants to help Latin America with their region’s problems. For example, paving the region’s roads, treating sewage in the region, and connecting towns and cities to a reliable power grid.
These are all things the United States had previously addressed and understood needed attention in Latin America, however have not been able to provide infrastructure and development in the region.
Currently, the United States is trying to convince private companies to invest in Latin America. However, China is calling upon state-owned enterprises that can move and build faster. The current outlook is that China can commit to creating much needed trade, investment and infrastructure development into parts of Latin America much faster than the United States can.