Unlock the publisher's digest free
Roula Khalaf, editor -in -chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
China has planted its red flag through Latin America this century, moving the United States as a main trading partner in South America and investing more than $ 130 billion in everything, from copper mines.
Now, the Trump administration is pursuing the first policies in America such as prices and undergoes the economic logic of locating factories in neighboring countries. Certainly, Beijing will clean what America considered its backyard?
Fake. Although China can quickly gain a boost to its business with Latin America, there are several reasons why the region is unlikely to get closer to Beijing in the longer term.
The first is the fear of reprisals. Trump has assaulted himself aggressively against what he considers malignant Chinese interests in the region. Panama has already felt the heat on Chinese port concessions at each end of the canal; Peru can then feel it on Chancay, its megaport built by Chinese.
“What Trump is looking for is an international order based on spheres of influence,” said David Lubin, a researcher at Chatham House in London. “Monroe doctrine has defined a sphere of influence for the United States 200 years ago (in Latin America) and the geography of the region has not changed much.”
Mexico, which depends on the American market for more than 80% of its exports, cannot risk responding Trump prices By stimulating trade with Beijing. Playing the card in China, explains Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador in Washington, “would be the death of Washington by seeing Mexico” as an interesting partner.
“The strategy at the moment of Mexico is:” At all costs, defend yourself, in the test of the balls, in teflon, the relationship with the United States, do not take Trump and do not guarantee that the USMCA (commercial pact) survives, “he added.
South American nations are worried that they already depend too much on China. The last thing they want is to further increase this dependence on an era of increasing superpower tension.
The data suggest that the rapid growth of Chinese trade and the investment in Latin America could be completed. Last year, Chinese imports in the region fell 0.1%, according to the Inter -American Development Bank, and the Chinese limited foreign investment dropped last year at the lowest level since 2012, according to a recent study. Pepe Zhang, an expert in China-Latin relations in America, believes that “the structural decline in Chinese economic engagement in the world will not change” due to economic weakness at home.
Brazil can increase food exports to China in the short term to fill the gap left by reducing American sales of soy, corn and meat. But “the Brazilian government has always been very prudent not to depend on a large trading partner,” said Feliciano de Sá Guimarães of the Brazil International Relations, Cebri.
Guimarães noted that the Brazilian congress had just given new powers to retaliate against unfair commercial practices – measures formulated as a tool to retaliate in Trump but which could also be used against China.
Cultural problems also matter. Most members of the Latin American elite have been educated in the United States or Europe and feel little affinity for Beijing.
Rather than picking sides, the Latin American nations would prefer to diversify trade. Chile is the most dependent on China among major regional economies; It is no coincidence that President Gabriel Boric recently traveled to India to open new export markets.
And Brazil continued trade with the Gulf nations anxious to secure food supplies, while Costa Rica is now looking for members of the CPTPP's commercial block dominated by Asia.
Finally, the Trump administration is likely to realize that it has little chance of slowing down the rise of China – or responding to the American demand for consumers – unless it has the help of Latin America to provide critical minerals and provide low -cost factories.
The head of the world macro-merchant of JPMorgan, Luis Oganes, adds: “When prices are starting to increase in the United States and they receive the message of companies in the United States that what you are asking for is impossible … There will be massive pressure to conclude an agreement with North America to regain a certain appreciation for the concept of friends of friendship and separation.
