Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US elections mean for Washington and the world
Two recent photographs tell the story of the battle for primacy between the United States and China in one of the world’s most resource-rich regions.
In both images, President Xi Jinping is front and center, flanked by his Latin American host. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, remains near the end of the back row in one image and is absent in the other.
Naturally, there are official explanations. In the first image from last week’s Apec summit in Peru, the leaders were in alphabetical order, favoring China over a rival superpower starting with the U. In the second, taken at this week’s G20 meeting In Rio de Janeiro, American diplomats said the group photo was taken early, before Biden arrived.
Yet photographs from the summit serve as metaphors for China’s eclipse of the United States in Latin America, a region Washington used to call its backyard.
Competition between superpowers is important because the resources at stake are enormous. Latin America has 57 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, 37 percent of the copper, almost a fifth of the oil and almost a third of the world’s fresh water and primary forests.
Well aware of the importance of the region, Xi added a state visit to his agenda in Peru last week, leading a delegation of several hundred Chinese businessmen and inaugurating the first phase of what will be a giant $3.5 billion port. destined to revolutionize maritime transport from Latin America. Pacific coast to China.
Biden, by contrast, announced nine Black Hawk helicopters for a $65 million anti-drug program and a donation of second-hand trains from California for the Lima subway system.
“It was such a striking contrast,” said Michael Shifter, an associate professor at Georgetown University. “There is this huge Chinese megaport project that evokes the history of Peru dating back to the Incas and seeking greatness. And then what Biden delivered were some more helicopters for the eradication of coca. “That seems completely obsolete and obsolete.”
In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, the story was similar. Xi was received with full honors in Brasilia for a state visit after the G20, while Biden flew home. The American leader visited the Amazon on his way to Rio and announced a $50 million donation to a conservation fund, while Xi was expected to focus on multibillion-dollar Chinese investments.
China’s trade with Latin America has skyrocketed over the past two decades, from $12 billion in 2000 to $450 billion in 2023. Beijing is now the largest trading partner for most nations in the region and has the fastest growing investment stock. (Mexico, with its special access to the US market through the USMCA, is an exception.)
Beijing has focused in recent years on investing in key South American sectors, such as critical mineral extraction, electricity generation and transmission, and transportation and digital infrastructure.
Margaret Myers, an expert on China-Latin America relations at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said 60 percent of China’s investment in Latin America focused on high-tech sectors that were a priority for both sides. “There has been a real interest in involving China, especially in these types of investments.”
Alex Contreras, who was Peru’s finance minister while the Chancay megaport was being built, told the Financial Times that “any investment is welcome in a region that has a huge investment deficit.” He added: “If you have to choose between no investment and Chinese investment, you will always prefer the investment.”
However, despite frequent expressions of concern from the United States over China’s advances in Latin America (General Laura Richardson, a former US commander covering the region, warned that it was “on the 20-yard line of our homeland”) ), Washington’s response has been disappointing.
The Americas Economic Prosperity Partnership, an initiative touted by Biden as a response to Beijing, was “very well dressed,” Shifter said. “But when it comes to committing real resources, there’s nothing there.”
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is likely to give China an even more dominant role in the region’s economic life.
Matias Spektor, of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, saw little prospect of Trump boosting American trade and investment in the region in his second term.
“Trump’s promises go in the opposite direction,” he said, arguing that tough rhetoric would increase pressure on Latin American countries to curb China’s presence, while Beijing would have an incentive to redouble its efforts, leaving the internal politics of the deeply divided region. Spektor added: “It’s the worst possible world.”